I think an inflatable snowman drove my electric bill up $30!!!

[fhsucade07]

Seriously. Just after Christmas, I thought I'd run the thing 24 hours a day since all of my other lights were down (second year in my own home) so I took it off of the timer (which had it running for 4 hours a night) and I think it drove my power bill up by $30. Anybody else have any of these and what has your experience been with an increase in electricity costs?

Cade

 

[BengalsFan24]

i dont think it caused it to go up by $30. in another post you say you have just moved into this house. couple of things here-

my wife and i ran one of these for about 12 hours / day on timer and it did cause our bill to go up about $15 for the month.

if you were taking your cloths to the laundry mat just remember on your washer that you dont have to wash with hot water. the wife and i were washing with hot water three times a week in our house and since the load was pretyt large it was causing our dryer to be slow as hell. id recomend washing every other day with cold water and the loads should be slower and the drying quicker. that will also help.

thats the two biggest things i can think of. our bill was $100 month when we first moved into our house and its only 900 sq. feet so its way high for a house our size. after just changing both of htose it came down to about $70 which is still more than id like to pay and i think i could cut it somewhat but the wife wants one light running all night long (bathroom) and sometimes we even fall asleep and the tv is on all night long. but a tv and a bathroom light wont do near the damage as one of those snowmen (it has a motor running all the time to keep it inflated) and the hot water washes and long drying. you ran that thing 24 hours straight?!?!?! ouch!

 

[fhsucade07]

Thanks for the response. It ran 24 hours a day from about the 28th of December until this past Saturday. The bill was from the 28th of December through the 31st of January.

Thanks for the other pointers, as well. I checked my washer and had been using hot water for all my washes. I'm also using a "medium" water load but am only washing twice a week. If I move it up to every other day (and change to cold water), I guess I could move the load size to small?

This is my third full month in this house. This is the second house I have owned and the bill in the first was NEVER over $70 / month (but I never decorated for Christmas). My house is approximately 1160 square feet with a two car garage and, for the first two months, the bill was right at $70 / month and now, suddenly, it has hopped to $101. I can't think of anything I have did different other than run that inflatable all day everyday (I'm really into winter so I thought it was a nice addition)...

Cade

 

[Bob Haller]

all homes in same area? winter kills heat and electric bills, besides being sucky..........

more water heating costs as incoming water is colder in winter, furnace runs more, to provide heat, that uses electric too. indoors more in winter, so more overall energy use.

you comment into winter makes me suspect you moved from a warmer climate.

congrats i guess someone should..............

otherwise warm areas would be overflowing with people.

but winter is costly as your finding out

 

[Bogy]

So many variables. You say this is the third month you have been in the house. I take it you aren't on an even monthly payment plan. Are you sure the meter was read each month so that the amount you payed was for the actual amount of electricity you used? I've been in places where they only read the meter every other month, and estimated the other months from previous years for that month. You may be using more electricity than the previous owner. As a minister living in a parsonage I have a whole congregation (and more specifically a council) who looks over my family's utility bills. For 25 years (with just a 2 year break where we owned our own home), I have had to deal with questions and criticisms of how much electricity etc. we use. I have 2 guys in particular right now who can't understand why our electric bill is so high (I'd love to have a $70 or even a $100 bill. The parsonage is just under a hundred years old, with 2 stories + a walk out basement and a walk up (uninsulated) attic, at least 2000 sq. ft, just on the 2 main floors. Most of the windows are the originals, and the storms are probably 25 years old. When we had some 30 to 40 mile an hour winds recently we realized by the drapes moving that the top of the door from the outside into our kitchen is warped, and we could just as well have a window cracked a couple of inches. With outside temps below 0 when the rest of the house is above 70 we cannot get the kitchen above 65. Right now we are back to being a family of 5. The guys who are the biggest complainers are both older guys with just 2 people in houses half the size of the one we are living in. One of them just replaced every window in his house. But they just can't understand why we use more electricity than they do.

 

[bhelms]

Bogy, and others - Check with your utility company(ies) if you haven't already. In our area the power company will assist customers to do their own conservation audits. (IIRC they will even come on site in some cases to help.) I imagine the gas company would do the same. (Check first with whichever your primary fuel provider is for HVAC.) The result is a cost/benefit analysis to determine the payback on certain improvements. A house being 100 years old with some of the features Bogy describes tells me that there is a lot of "low hanging fruit" to pursue! Perhaps In Bogy's case the church elders - those who hold the purse strings - will be willing to review and acknowledge the results and stop blaming you for the excessive consumption. Perhaps, given the excessive outlay for energy, they'd even be willing to spend some money proactively to offset future bills, as recommended in the survey. And in some areas the energy companies themselves have some funding to assist for those who demonstrate the need and deserve it the most.

Just something you might not have considered before.

 

[Bogy]

I have several influential members who want to see all new windows in the parsonage. I'm hoping we can get this started this summer. The door problem I described will be a topic at our council meeting next week. Depending on what has to be done I am sure that will be taken care of as quickly as possible. Which may be a while if it requires removing/replacing the door. This is not the weather you want to do that in.

 

[bhelms]

I hear you! I recently replaced my front door with one purchased on 12-31-07 to get in on the end of the tax credit for energy efficient upgrades. The old one was 30+ years old and leaked like the proverbial sieve as the seals were all shot. I got really lucky in early Jan. as the temps. shot up to 60 deg. for one day. I saw that as a God send just for me and took that day off just to swap-out the door. Glad I did as it has been colder than a "sonny beech" ever since and those drafts are now completely gone! Good luck with your projects. I assume in your case there are plenty of parishioners to help and keep the cost down...

 

[Van]

Ours went up $40 with running a prelit tree and a spiral fake tree outside, we have twist bulbs all over the house and keep most things off when not in use. We're on a budget plan and I found out when I went to make a payment and asked about coming off the payment plan and was shocked to learn we would still have a $190 bill left to pay.