Why is my electric bill soooo high?

[Farmer Kitty]

Quote:

2-5 hp motors in silos, vacuum pump running twice a day, compressor for cooling milk running at least twice a day, the 2 heaters to keep the milk house and utility rooms from freezing up, and the heat lamps for water faucet and chickens, 3 water tub heaters, fans in the barn for air circulation, then if something breaks down there's the shop stuff, and normal household stuff.

Those motors take a lot of juice to get started too!

I don't think so much is "dead short" as things being used!

 

[nailjack]

ours was 160 but we are totally electric, no gas or nothing. Glad christmas is over and the lights are down should be less next mth.

 

[jvls1942]

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yeah, try that with 3 or four kids in the house..(especially daughters)..

I really enjoyed going to my kids' homes after they got their own places and watching them turn off lights when they left the room..
NOW who's paying the bill??

 

[RockyToggRanch]

Quote:
I just bought another heat lamp today for mu d'uccle roo who's ginormous comb is looking a bit black on the tips.
We're just going into the cold part of the winter.

We went and looked at out door wood boilers today. If we get one we can heat the barn.

 

[AK_Button_Mama]

You might want to check into this... starting January 1st all of our electric depts in alaska have raised thier rates 22% that is ASTRONOMICAL...... so our bills will be significantly higher this month too!!! its NOT just the amount of electricity you used last month that could be making your bill that much higher!!!! check into it! I bet you that has something to do with ALL of your electric bills!!!

 

[beak]

Our electricity is 11 cents per kiilowatt hour. A kilowatt is 1000 watts. So a 250 watt heat lamp is 11 cents every 4 hrs or 66 cents a day if no thermostat is used. That's 19.80 per 30 day month. If you have a 1500 watt water tank heater or two it gts pretty costly. Fortunately they are supposed to be thermostatically controlled. Look at your bill and see what the kilowatt hour chg is and figure out where the money is going.Then you can figure out if it is really important enough to use. I have those cfl bulbs in all the lights that the kids leave on. Especially in the basement. They work real crummy in cold places though.

Remember the chickens have down jackets on. So do horses. Before we came along they all lived without heaters.

 

[debilorrah]

Our bill goes down in the winter because summers here are so brutal...

 

[Farmer Kitty]

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I have had no trouble with them. I even have them in the back heifer barn. When it's really cold they come on about half for a few seconds and then they come on full. I've had them out there in -15+ degree weather and that barn is not fully closed up, so not much of the heat from the heifers stays in to heat it.

I use the daylight ones where I'm doing my craft stuff and love them!

 

[Rosalind]

Change lightbulbs to LED bulbs or at the very least compact fluorescents. Use daylight as much as possible, and make sure people (especially husbands) turn things off when they leave a room. Turn off computers when not in use (yes, I know, it's hard), they use lots of power. Dry laundry on a rack indoors or on a clothesline if weather permits, dryers take a lot of electricity. Put a sweater on. For things that people often don't remember to turn on and off, put them on timers so they'll turn off automatically. Fridges and freezers take a lot of power, so if you can relocate them to somewhere that is normally cold (root cellar, garage) and use chest freezers instead of the front-opening kind, that helps a lot--they don't have to work as hard to stay cold. Insulate the water heater so it doesn't work as hard to keep water hot.

Ours was bad for December because of all the visitors and being home all the time. Normally the house is powered down during the day and there's only two people taking quick 15 minute showers, so the power bill is somewhat more manageable.

 

[AHappychick]

my electric bill was so high I started to look for alternatives. I ended up going on a time of usage plan with my local company. They installed a new meter and I pay more for gas and electric at peak times and less on the "off peak" times. Basically I pay less for using gas and electric from 10pm-10am and on weekends and holidays, I pay more from 10am -10pm on week days. It can be a pain in the butt since I only do my laundry late a night and on weekends, or early in the morning. I use as little as possible during the "peak" hours. It changed my bill by almost half! I don't know if that is a feasible option but it works for me.