Electrical costs - Are you doing anything different?

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orchidsnfish

Just wondering if I'm the only person that is getting eaten alive by electric bills during the summer months. I just got one for $477.XX which was enough to prompt some changes in my lighting schedule. I would guess at least $200.00 of that bill is aquarium related.

With 900W of MH and 320W of T5 on the 265, a 250W HQI on the clam tank, a 4 X 54W T5 in the bedroom...my AC is working overtime to keep up.

I have changed all my timers where they are off during the hottest parts of the day. Right now the 265 has the MH's running from 7 am to 1 pm only and then just the t5's the rest of the night. The clam tank has manual timers and I have it set to come on at 8 am until 12 pm then off until 9 pm then on from 9 pm to midnight. The t5's in the bedroom are on a similar schedule.

So anyone else running your tank on a strange schedule?

Angela
 
We got ours yesterday and it was $636.00! WOW I liked have fail in the floor. I told Ricky he needed to cut something back. But he keeps our house at 72 degrees year round because he has RSD and the heat is really bad on him.

So the temp want be changing and he runs his lights from 12 - 12 daily.

I have tried to talk him into not so long and he said he want to view his tanks all day.

We also run water on top of our house to help cool it down.
 
WOW! $636.00! I would pass out! I hate not being able to view the tanks all day also, but at least the t5's will be on in the 265 during the hours I would want to look at it. We keep our house at 72 also for the most part. I hate being hot and if it gets to 73 I can tell. 12-12 is a long time! That wouldn't go over 'round here...even if I do pay the electric bill!
 
I planned for it when I installed my lights and pumps.

halides - 6 hrs 12a-6p
t5's - 8 hrs 8a-12p 4p-8p
pc's -6 hrs 8a-12p 4p-8p ( until I get all my t5's installed )

I'm hardcore on the electric bill 79 deg. at my house. If your hot go take a shower water bill is nothing compared to the electric bill. ( I've turned into my mom that was her favorite line. ) :lol:
 
I've been working on lowering my bill any way I can over the past year. Using VorTech pumps on the tanks is a big help. And I run my MH lights less long now because of the new reflectors.

I just replaced the central A/C system on my home, and it is supposed to save 35% on the electric bill (8 amps instead of 18 amps). We are going to put more insulation in the attic.

Cheap single pane windows are being replaced with insulated double-pane windows. Other than that, I don't have many other options.
 
'm hardcore on the electric bill 79 deg. at my house. If your hot go take a shower water bill is nothing compared to the electric bill. ( I've turned into my mom that was her favorite line. ) said:
:shock: That's hardcore! My mom used to tell me to go take a cold shower when I complained about the hot house.

Whew! You must have a nice wife! I'd be like "So your going to run how many thousand watts??? And I have to take a cold shower???" LOL

I'm definitely not nice though. :lol:
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we just moved into our new house and i was pleased with the bill last month - $190 ... i run the halide for about 9 hours and 2 t5s for 10 hours ... we keep the house around 76 to 77 .. but, when we built the house we did a couple of extra features ...

> bigger compressor on the ac to be more energy efficient
> radiant barrier on the roof decking
> radiant barrier house wrap
> made sure they caulked and filled in gaps well
> upgraded the insulation

in addition, the 190 includes the power to run our water well - so, we had no water bill and we use a tankless propane water heater ...

i can't complain too much, but, i will likely add more insulation in another year after it has settled some.
 
We have some double pane windows that have lost their seal and we need more insulation also. Need some big trees around the house, but by the time they got big enough to do anything we would have moved probably.
 
i wish we had more trees around our house - that is the one thing that really would make a difference as we get blasted with the sun ... we planted some larger trees (60 gallon containers) that are about 10' tall, but, it will take some time for them to get big enough to block the sun
 
@abbynormal wrote:
I was thinking of sucking the heat from my lights and exhausting it into the attic. Anyone done this before? said:
Unless you are going to exhaust it all the way outside, you won't see enough difference to justify the cost to do it. The added humidity to the attic, which is already humid, won't help either.

The big thing I see in everyones bills that are super high is the ambient temp of the house. I keep mine at 79 when we are not there and 77 when we are. Run ceiling fans for circulation and I will still get chilly sitting on the couch. If there is a medical reason to keep the house at 72 then so be it. If it's not medical related, you just want it at 72, then you are going to have to learn to live with the bill. 72 degrees when the outside temps are upper 90's to 100 and your AC is running non-stop almost.

I'd be interested in knowing what SEER rating everyones units are as well as house size, number of stories, size of unit, age of house, etc....
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We have set our house to 78 degrees and changed all the flood lights in the kitchen to PC's. With the chiller the 200 gal tank stays at 80 degrees average. This tank has 4 Tunze’s and several pumps in the sump all generating heat. The 75 gal is also around 80 without a chiller but it does not have a canopy, MH's, or pumps in the tank except for one MJ 1200.

Other things that we might consider is adding more insulation and shades on the windows.

The real problem is the price of gas.
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here i thought my 363 bill i just got was bad, i keep the house at 74 now and i guess i am not out of control afterall...
 
The cost of the tanks on my place is not a significant portion... I've got 750W of MH over the display, 2 6x39 T-5 fixtures, a chiller, pumps, vortecs etc... I estimate its about $70 per month total.

When we had the tour over here we discussed this as my house is always very comfortable at 74. The cost of electricity is going up but not my usage, its actually gone down the last two years. I did the following...

Solar screens on the front of the house (afternoon/evening sunshine), added a double layer of insulation in the attic. I had to replace my AC a couple years back and that helped considerably with a high efficiency unit. The amount of kilowatts went down by 45% with all that in place, but the cost went up the same amount so my bills have been steady.

If you want to significantly reduce the costs, getting rid of a tank won't do it. It will certainly reduce the amount somewhat, but for serious reduction, you need to look at the house itself. Windows, insulation, radiant barriers, AC units etc will have MUCH more impact that removing a tank. Even changing out your water heater will help.

When talking about a $500 bill, dropping $25 is a reduction, but not significant.... changes to the house will take $100-200 off, that is significant, but also comes at a cost.

Unfortunately we are engaged in an expensive hobby, not just the livestock, equipment etc...
 
Someone may know this for sure but I think sometimes the electric company only reads your meter every other month and averages your usage for the month they don't read. This may be a reason you may see a big spike if they assume too low for the previous month.
 
I left Reliant and went with Dynowatt. You can choose your energy company at power to choose dot org. It was 9 cents per kw and I was very happy. Two summer ago when we got a record high temp, my bill was only 380 the most. Last month, I got a bill for 150 which was very normal. This month, I got a bill of 500 dollars. I called Dynowatt and they said they just passed on the inflation to customers and blamed on ONCOR the meter reader company for possible submitting wrong number. I called ONCOR and they came out and said , yep. The number was correct. I looked at the bill again and realize Dynowatt increased the price per kilo wat from 12 cents to 24 cents without letting me as the customer know. If dispute the bill and send my letter to PUC center in Austin. Nothing is change in normal use of electricity. I ran my light from 5 pm to 11 pm because that is when I am home. Look at your bill again and see if your plan is variable? If it is, lock it in FIX rate. I did at 13 cents and hope won't get a heart attack trigger suprise like last month.
 
Dynowatt did the same thing to me and they gave me the same story. price for me jumped to 21¢/kwh. I switched to direct energy.
 
I'm with Reliant and my bill is lower this year than last. Not sure why, I think it's hotter this year.

Some things to consider.

I have 1x250W Metal Halide on my 55 DAS with Actinics and moonlights, all on timers that run from 7am - 7:30pm. My two nanos have the typical power compacts in them. Nothing has changed with my bills at all running these.

I have a huge oak tree in the front (South Side) that shade most of my house and it considerably keeps my costs down. (Highest bill I've ever had in any month was like $195) My house is 1600 sq.ft. I have one not two central AC units to cool 2 floors and the seer rating is only legal because it's grandfathered.

I keep my house at 70 degrees, yes you read that correctly.

Shading the house with trees strategically is the most significant cost reduction you can make in my opinion.

I'm looking to go completely solar in 1-2 years using the new thin layer solar panels made by Nanosolar. My plan is to use enough of them to handle 1.75 times my high end average consumption, storing to batteries the excess. At that point, I'll be completely off the energy grid and almost totally green.

Another thing I plan to do is go LED not compact flourescent on all interior lighting. It's a bit pricey to do but the bulbs last 11 years on average and run at 1/20th the KW of incandescent.

Solar screens can greatly reduce costs as well.

It's time to put the same enthusiasm into your living green as you have keeping captive bred corals. Then you'll reduce reliance on outside influences and keep on trucking.
 
hmm, can you share some more information on the solar panels - i wanted to go with those on our new house, but, i read with the weather we get there, they are not viable options. do you have a website with more informatioN? Thanks.
 
I'm in an apartment - all electricity here...

1. move to lower level (steal temp insulation from neighbors)
2. turn off AC during the day
3. only run AC and tank MH bulbs at night after 5 or 6pm (so the AC doesn't have to fight summer heat and MH bulbs)

my next step in 2+ yrs is buy a big 1 story house that's shaded by trees and upgrade insulation/windows everywhere. I might buy one of those ground cooling units, install solar panels etc.
 
^^ ha, Dynowatt was mentioned!

in a 1 bedroom apartment last winter, i was gone 2 weeks in December (turned off heater) and got a $330 electric bill!

I'm now with Gexa energy - and like getting frequent flyer miles.
 
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