Incubators and my electricity bill!!

[Surehatch]

A good idea to save on electricity is to place the incubators in a room that is warm. Place them in a room where you would either way use heating...this will mean that your incubators don't need to work as hard as when they are somewhere cold...like in a barn.

In general incubators are very well insulated, so the electricity they use is marginal...

 

[Akane]

Were you running 250w lamps indoors while trying to run ac? That would be shooting yourself in the foot.

250w lamps are beyond unnecessary inside and if you want several batches of chicks I'd put them in a room that has no thermostat. I used a spare bedroom when I did that. It was 80F in the spare bedroom from all the heat even not using high wattage bulbs but the rest of the house was 68-70F and the ac hardly had to run any extra. I also only had to run 60w bulb over the youngest set and quickly switched them to 40w bulbs since the room itself was heated. The highest watt bulb I've used in the house is 100w and that's usually only needed for a couple days then I go down to 60w. Lately the furnace has been stupid so I've had to run a 100w bulb on week old chicks because occasionally it gets down to 55 in the house at night if the furnace dies while we are sleeping.

1 still air styrofoam incubator and 1 250w bulb running on the porch raised my electric bill about $20-$30 when I first got chickens and had nothing else that could be adding to it so multiply that times 5 (the bator hardly adds anything) and you've got $100. Add in ac running against it and you've easily gone up $200. As has already been proven if you run the math you can see it costs about that. Using the numbers mentioned (I'm not sure my rate here) I get $28 for a 250w bulb running 24/7 for the whole month. I'm not sure how some people are running multiple lights and not having their bill go up that amount.

 

[Mrs MIA]

I can't imagine using 250w heat bulbs in San Diego. I grew up there, so I'm familiar with the temps. I live in Alaska now, and only use 100w bulbs at the most (usually 60w) in my many plastic brooders that hold maybe 12 chicks. (Our bill in the summer when I'm incubating and brooding is about $250). I will use one 250w heat lamp in my biggest brooder only if I have over 50 chicks in there. Yes, the incubators and large heat lamps will cause a big change in the the electric bill, but I suspect the person who suggested that they were estimating your bill hit it on the head.
Last winter we tried to keep everyone warm when it was -25F for two weeks straight.. resulted in a $600 electric bill and a threat from hubby never to do it again.

 

[patandchickens]

Math does not lie. Calculate your electric costs as described in an earlier post -- your electric bill statement will have your cost per kWh -- and you will KNOW what it's costing you. (Although you can't calculate actual usage for things that a thermostat switches on and off, like an incubator -- you would have to buy one of those $25 gadgets that you plug the appliance into and it tells you the actual real kWh used as time goes by).

Those who think they're seeing no difference in their bills when running multiple heatlamps vs not... a) your meter may be malfunctioning [we ended up getting 2 winters' worth of 'free' electricity for the horses' heated tub, quite unwittingly, til the hydro company replaced the meter and it started actually registering the barn's power usage again...

], and b) when was the last time the power company READ your meter (many places they only read it a couple few times a year and use computer-generated estimates the rest of the time, which can lead to big delayed surprises if there is a jump in your usage)

Pat

 

[S&N Livestock]

I Live in National City and just had SDG&E try and REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEM me royally. They had been "estimating" my bill for the last 7 months because there were vine trendles hanging infront of the metor. All of a sudden I got a $700 bill because they said they were charging me too low. After pitching a fit....I found out it was all estimation, not actual reading of the metor. I told them to come out and read my bill....then we would talk about my paying the correct bill. They ended up owing me $254 because they overestimates my summertime usage. I had an incubator and heatlamps going the entire spring and summer.

Call them and ask if they did actual readings or if they were "estimating" your usage. If its estimating, have them come out and do a reading of the metor. By local law, they can't tell you no, so if they try....tell them DO IT NOW!!!

GRRRRRRR.....Good luck!!!!

I think our electric is only read every 3 months and when not read is estimated sometimes get a huge bill then sometimes a vary small bill.

but i did put a sportsman incubator in a new service and it went from a 12.00 per month to 50.00 with just the 1 incubator, ran 24/7

In the show barn for the calves lets not talk about pulling electric just that barn is 300.00 a month​

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
Those are some good points Pat.

We have a digital meter that transmits the usage to the utility. My bill runs $170 for just me in my 900 square foot house (my half a townhouse Duplex) plus my barn.

 

[Whispering Winds]

Quote:
I just watched the Today show yesterday morning, and the girl that does a lot of the finance suggestions, I think her first name is Jean, had this little device that I want badly. You attach it (I think its like a magnetic) to your meter on the outside of your home, of course. Then, you have this little thing that has a electronic screen on it that calculates how much ele. you are using per hour. She took it to her house, and actually went through her home. It showed she was using $1.30 an hour. W/D use the most, an ele. dryer uses $3.05 per hour for usage, washer are next, microwaves are high too, but TV's are like 0.6 cents an hour. Not bad. So, she went throughout the house and unplugged every single thing they didn't use during the day, and just THAT alone cut her usuage down to .32. I thought that was amazing. So, my point here is, didn't mean to ramble, is: if you shut off everything you don't need or use during the day, you might be able to bring your bill down that way, and sort of "make up" for being an obsessive, but GOOD

incubator. . .the device she used was Black and Decker, so I bet you could find them at Home Depot or Lowe's for not very much. The biggest tip I heard the other day about this was, have your stuff on strip bars, then at night or during the day, you can just go and flip everything off and then turn it back on as needed. That is my goal. I want one of those measuring calculator things and strip bars for Christmas. And, some good chocolate would be nice too.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
I just watched the Today show yesterday morning, and the girl that does a lot of the finance suggestions, I think her first name is Jean, had this little device that I want badly. You attach it (I think its like a magnetic) to your meter on the outside of your home, of course. Then, you have this little thing that has a electronic screen on it that calculates how much ele. you are using per hour. She took it to her house, and actually went through her home. It showed she was using $1.30 an hour. W/D use the most, an ele. dryer uses $3.05 per hour for usage, washer are next, microwaves are high too, but TV's are like 0.6 cents an hour. Not bad. So, she went throughout the house and unplugged every single thing they didn't use during the day, and just THAT alone cut her usuage down to .32. I thought that was amazing. So, my point here is, didn't mean to ramble, is: if you shut off everything you don't need or use during the day, you might be able to bring your bill down that way, and sort of "make up" for being an obsessive, but GOOD

incubator. . .the device she used was Black and Decker, so I bet you could find them at Home Depot or Lowe's for not very much. The biggest tip I heard the other day about this was, have your stuff on strip bars, then at night or during the day, you can just go and flip everything off and then turn it back on as needed. That is my goal. I want one of those measuring calculator things and strip bars for Christmas. And, some good chocolate would be nice too.

Were those numbers the ones she said? If so they are very wrong.

An electric dryer for example is 5000 watts or 5kw. In CT I pay $.20 per kw so a dryer is $1 and hour to run.

A 32 inch TV uses around 200 watts which works out to be 4 cents per hour.




http://www.bdwebstore.com/Black-Decker-Power-Monitor/M/B001ELJKLE.htm Found it.
The trouble with this device is it relies on the accuracy of the meter.

This one is independent of the meter: http://www.powermonitorplus.com/?gclid=CLzYppOXlp4CFcx25QodNG2_ow

 

[Laurelm]

Quote:
I'll try a lower watt bulb but a red one if I find it, and no the AC did not run in that room. I am a fiarly smart woman and didn't want to counter act the affect of my heat lamps. I have rasied several (understatment) batches of chicks with the 250's and they do great. I just raise the bulb as they get older and when they're old enough to go outside. providing it's warm enough they olny get the heat at night until I think they are old enough to go without.

 

[silkiechicken]

If you increase insulation on incubators or lower lights so you don't need to run 250W all day, you can cut the electricity used. A dimmer switch also does wonders.

When I run my incubator, I put a sleeping bag over the top, and when I run brooders outside in a 2x4 hutch, I use a 100W light 12 inches from the floor, on a dimmer switch, for up to 25 chicks per lamp. They did just fine even when it snowed when they were two weeks old!