Post your enmax bill... My electricity bill is thorugh the roof!

[McMack]

Completely unrelated to the Al Gore thread...

Ever since moving into my house 3 years ago I have wondered if there is something abnormal about my EnMax bill... I think I spent around $250 last month. (Power water sewer) I have 3 computers running 24/7 so I'm never sure if my use is normal or not.

Anyway, just to benchmark, I was wondering if anyone was willing to post:

• How many KWH you used last month.
• Size and age of your house.
• Number of people in your house
• Anything else special, like having computers or servers running full time.

I'll post my own numbers when I get home as I don't have my bill handy.

[Caged Great]

Last month, we used 3436.39 KWH at my house. Our bill was just over 175.00.

We've actually been streamlining our energy usage, only using lights/tv/computers when needed instead of having them all running all the time.

still though 3436 kwh is rather high. I'm still hoping to reduce that rather large amount significantly.

[Ozy_Flame]

Live in a condo, my bill came to $58.....But then again I unplug everything and don't leave a single appliance on during the day except the fridge and my alarm clock.

[Lurch]

You have got to be kidding - those numbers seem stunningly high. I use 300 to 400 kWh monthly, and it used to be closer to 200 kWh but I got central air and a PVR recently which are pretty big users. My house is 3300 square ft including the developed basement, built in 2005. We use mostly CF bulbs, and a few things on timers, gas stove, etc but no huge investment in green devices.

Just for reference, average Calgary usage is around 700 kWh monthly.

[itcrossedtheline]

Close to 500kWh/month...average electric bill is $65 for 1800sq ft home, computer and pvr running non stop

But also on the $0.07/kWH 5 year fixed

even with my gas/water/sewer from enmax i am below $250/month

[calculoso]

My electricity goes from 600-1000 KWh during the year. That's with one computer running 24/7 and 3 kids that don't know how to turn off lights.

I think a lot of the variance comes from times when the furnace fan is running....

[troutman]

Stop growing WEED, people!

[fredr123]

Originally Posted by fotze

This is where I would love to buy some sort of meter that told me what things on in my house was consuming.

Kill a Watt

http://www.smarthome.com/_/ProductRe...ill%20a%20watt
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/7657/


Other alternatives: http://www.powermeterstore.com/

[Crazy Flamer]

It's true. Electricity prices are going up. Just a few short years ago we were paying about 5.5 cents/Kwh for power. The regulated rate is now 10 cents/Kwh and has been as high as 11.4 cents over the last few months.

Enmax offers a plan called EasyMax where you can fix your electricity rate at 8.0 cents/Kwh. I would definately look into it if you want to save yourself some money.

[BlackArcher101]

I have this power meter from canadiantire: Clicky

Works great, really useful in finding where your drains are.

[Shazam]

Electricity last month: $95.34 (not including GST).

840 kWh @ 7 cents/kWh (I signed up for Easymax).

Me, wife and 20 month old.

1450 s house.

I have a server on 24/7. Also, an A/C and a deep freezer (this thing didn't change my electricity bill at all, actually). Most lights are CFL.

[metal_geek]

920 KWh @ .07 + Fees = 102.14

I have a server running 24/7 a bunch of other network gear, and stuff...
Several computers running during the day...
Plasma tv, which judging by the heat comming from it uses alot of electricity...

Other then that.. pretty normal usage.
________
LovelyWendie

[dustygoon]

Originally Posted by fotze

This is where I would love to buy some sort of meter that told me what things on in my house was consuming.

It's on its way. Itron and other companies are building smart meters. Gov't in US and Canada are telling local utilities to do feasibility studies. Some utilities have already started rolling out Advanced Metering Infrastructure.

http://www.itron.com/pages/solutions...itr_016422.xml

No more guys coming to your house. You can monitor usage. Find strange drains on power. Enables utilities to properly monitor peak loads and price accordingly. The part that people won't like is that the technology allows the utility to reach into your home and turn down the usage if need be. Not sure if this means your alarm clock starts blinking or what.

[dustygoon]

Wow. California has expensive rates compared to Alberta.

My bill was $114 for 730 kWh.....16c per kWh. Geez.

[tvp2003]

nm

[McMack]

OK, so my electric charge last month was 1327 KWh. That's for a 2200 s newer home. We have 2 full time computers and mostly CF bulbs. However, we have 2 small children and make heavy use of the dishwasher, washer, and dryer. By my calculation, the dryer must be eating up at least 100 KWh by itself. Also, our hot water heater and furnace are power vented.

On the plus side, I think our worst natural gas bill this winter was just over $100.

[Shazam]

Your dishwasher and washer don't use too much energy.

Your fridge could be a problem. It is by far the most electricity sucking appliance, with the dryer a close second.

We do about six - ten loads a week, and we don't even come close to your electricity usage. 1300 kWh is, like, double of what I use some month!

[Bob]

A typical Dell PC consumes between 50-100 watts when idle (not sleeping), so 3 24/7 PCs (avg 75 watts each) will run you about 162 kWh or about $11.34 per month@ 7c / kWh. Of course, you also have to account for all the extra "fees" by applying the Enmax "Screw you customer!" multiplier of 1.8 (that's what I remember calculating a few months ago, but it's probably different from person to person) to get to a more reasonable estimate: ~$20 per month. If your PCs are truely idle then you can implement S3 standby with your computers and cut power consumption to next to nothing. My PC uses ~5-8 watts while in S3, and resumes in about 2 seconds (using Vista-64).

Laptops will of course use much less, and gaming PCs and servers can be dramatically higher. Plasma TVs power usage varies with scene brightness, but some of the more recent models use in excess of 600 watts at full brightness.

I'm extremely frugal with my electricity consumption: in May my natural gas bill alone was 3x the cost of my electricity--all that rain made me want to run the fireplace often. Virtually all the lights in my house are CFL (13 watts from Costco for $1.25 each), I unplug my TV and all it's accessories (Xbox, reciever, etc) when not in use by using a simple power bar (I don't watch much TV these days, so it helps), and virtually everything else is unplugged or off when I'm not using it. My laptop is asleep for most of the day, and doesn't use much power when it's on. The only constant power draw I have is my network gear (digital phone, cable modem, wireless router, and switch) sitting in the basement, which amounts to ~25 watts most of the time.

Based on some calculations I did when I moved into my house, I estimated that a Watt-year (1 W of power usage for an entire year) from Enmax @ 7c / kWh (including all BS fees) cost me ~$1.65, so everything I do with regards to power consumption gets compared against this value. That value seems a little high now, so maybe I should recalculate or I'm not remembering correctly. My typical power bill is, IIRC, ~$30-40 / month, and that's in a 1400 sq. ft. home. If it watch a lot of TV (say, during the playoffs), it'll go up a bit more because I have a plasma TV which sucks a fair bit of power.

[Bob]

Originally Posted by McMack

On the plus side, I think our worst natural gas bill this winter was just over $100.

That seems very good for a home of that size, you must have good insulation or keep the heat down or something.

For me, I keep my house at 18 degrees all the time, so I could probably benefit getting a programmable thermostat, but any colder in the morning and it becomes difficult to get out of bed in the winter.

In December, Enmax / ATCO mis-read my gas meter, resulting in an incredibly low bill of $33 for that month. The next month (which was really cold, IIRC), they got the correct value and since the meter is cumulative I got hit with a $200+ gas bill the following month that essentially accounted for my gas usage in both December and January. I nearly had a stroke.

I never crunched the numbers, but I suspect that I paid more then I needed to because of the higher gas prices in January.

[Bertuzzied]

Signing up for easymax at 7cents/kWh was one of the best things ever!

My electricity bill was $47.32 for the last month, $78.55 after delivery charges on 676kWh.

I have 4 computers running 24/7 along with 2 fishtanks and 2 pvrs. Oh and a wii.

How much are people paying per kWh without easymax now?