Enmax fixed vs. floating rates...

[photon]

I may need to increase my parents' rent

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

We used nearly the same at 15.76GJ. Must be noted we have a gas stove and gas oven. Gas after all other fees on floating was $175.

13.7GJ for $154, but I still have the awesome low transaction fee of 0.47 cents. Not giving that up! Also have a gas stove/oven/BBQ/heated garage, but only 2 of us.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

Bill I got yesterday to get 6.1GJ of NG...cost was $12.18.

Total bill was over $102. I notice my delivery fees, municipal franchise fee, and gas admin fees are all up around 10% from last year.

They are up about 10% from last year. See https://gas.atco.com/content/dam/web...th-low-use.pdf

[Sylvanfan]

My house is 2380 Sq foot two story with an inlaw suite housing my mom adding another 1000. I do have a gas BBQ that I used a lot last month. But over the past 3 years tracking I've been between 74 to 82 GJ used per year. On track to be in that range this year. You guys all walk around naked all the time?

[Fuzz]

Old house needs windows, attic and basement insulation, but also some extenuating circumstances around health needs and home all the time.


Also naked most days.

[PepsiFree]

I hate looking at my energy bill.

Seeing that fees and tax and whatever else make up 80% of my bill just seems moronic. It feels like what you’re paying for the gas/electric itself barely matters.

[photon]

Syl that's impressive. Our main and upper floor furnaces aren't high efficiency ones, I wonder if that's the biggest cost. House is 20 years old so the windows shouldn't be THAT bad.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I hate looking at my energy bill.

Seeing that fees and tax and whatever else make up 80% of my bill just seems moronic. It feels like what you’re paying for the gas/electric itself barely matters.

It does, but then it also makes sense. The gas itself is priced at market. Getting it to your home and managing that is the rest of it, and those are fixed costs.


I guess you could argue for a system where those fixed costs are rolled in, and you couldn't see your usage cost, such that dropping your usage 25% only drops your bill 4% but you don't have visibility to that, and you get upset because the math makes no sense. Which is what we used to have, before people complained about that. So now we have this. Should we go back? I'm interested in hearing people complain differently, so I'm for it.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

It does, but then it also makes sense. The gas itself is priced at market. Getting it to your home and managing that is the rest of it, and those are fixed costs.


I guess you could argue for a system where those fixed costs are rolled in, and you couldn't see your usage cost, such that dropping your usage 25% only drops your bill 4% but you don't have visibility to that, and you get upset because the math makes no sense. Which is what we used to have, before people complained about that. So now we have this. Should we go back? I'm interested in hearing people complain differently, so I'm for it.

Good points. Would it cause the utility companies a lot of trouble to switch? If so, I think we should. Because I hate them. If not, I’m fine leaving things the way they are as long as I can continue to complain about it.

Just feels like it costs an awful lot of effort to make the power go to my house when I’m pretty sure they just use the same wires and pipes every time.

Can AI do this somehow? I want someone to lose their job.

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by photon

Syl that's impressive. Our main and upper floor furnaces aren't high efficiency ones, I wonder if that's the biggest cost. House is 20 years old so the windows shouldn't be THAT bad.

This one is 6 years old and had a HE Furnance installed, but just the one furnace for the whole house. The area wherever built claimed to all be ultra high efficiency houses. So my heating has been good. But damn do I use electricity

At 20 years old....it's a time frame where a lot of stuff was not well manufactured as they were trying to be more efficient. But made it so poorly that they don't last anywhere near what warranty would suggest. I'm always wary of houses built during Construction booms because builders will let anyone not currently incarcerated do pretty much anything.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

It does, but then it also makes sense. The gas itself is priced at market. Getting it to your home and managing that is the rest of it, and those are fixed costs.


I guess you could argue for a system where those fixed costs are rolled in, and you couldn't see your usage cost, such that dropping your usage 25% only drops your bill 4% but you don't have visibility to that, and you get upset because the math makes no sense. Which is what we used to have, before people complained about that. So now we have this. Should we go back? I'm interested in hearing people complain differently, so I'm for it.

I think the biggest argument for rolling the fixed costs into the price of gas is that it would incentive people to reduce consumption. Right now it basically doesn't matter.

I do think rolling it in has the potential to increase the fixed charges over time though, because if they're less visible there will probably be less push back from the regulator to keep them reasonable. And 10% increase yearly are really significant once they start compounding.

[timun]

I live in a 65-year-old, 1000 sq ft bungalow with finished basement, with furnace and water heater being my only gas-fired appliances. I've consumed:

2021 - 99.10 GJ
2022 - 83.85 GJ
2023 - 80.24 GJ
2024 YTD - 43.92 GJ

January through April's consumption have represented this much of my annual totals:

2021 - 58.18 GJ / 58.7%
2022 - 53.61 GJ / 63.9%
2023 - 54.01 GJ / 67.3%
2024 - 43.92 GJ / TBD%

(typically my summer bills are for less than a gigajoule for water heating)

So... so far it's been noticeably less consumption, and extrapolating from previous years' patterns I'm on track to consume ~65 GJ over the course of the year, representing an almost 20% reduction compared to last year.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

This one is 6 years old and had a HE Furnance installed, but just the one furnace for the whole house. The area wherever built claimed to all be ultra high efficiency houses. So my heating has been good. But damn do I use electricity

At 20 years old....it's a time frame where a lot of stuff was not well manufactured as they were trying to be more efficient. But made it so poorly that they don't last anywhere near what warranty would suggest. I'm always wary of houses built during Construction booms because builders will let anyone not currently incarcerated do pretty much anything.

Do you have an electric hot water tank/system? That would lower gas and increase electricity both significantly.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Good points. Would it cause the utility companies a lot of trouble to switch? If so, I think we should. Because I hate them. If not, I’m fine leaving things the way they are as long as I can continue to complain about it.

Just feels like it costs an awful lot of effort to make the power go to my house when I’m pretty sure they just use the same wires and pipes every time.

Can AI do this somehow? I want someone to lose their job.

The cool part is now they do it both ways. If you want the detail, it's all there. If you just want one number, it's found under "total:". Neat, right?

Unfortunately this kind eliminates the ability to complain about either output choice.

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Do you have an electric hot water tank/system? That would lower gas and increase electricity both significantly.

No just a higher efficiency gas one. Did consider a Hot water on demand unit, but this builder wanted too much for the system where I thought I'd get the payback before moving type of thing

[Zary's-Mustache]

Why do they make us gamble and pick fixed or floating.

Why not just have the same rate for everyone. Maybe I'm missing something.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Zary's-Mustache

Why do they make us gamble and pick fixed or floating.

It's really not much of a gamble, since you can change from one to the other once a month.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

My house is 2380 Sq foot two story with an inlaw suite housing my mom adding another 1000. I do have a gas BBQ that I used a lot last month. But over the past 3 years tracking I've been between 74 to 82 GJ used per year. On track to be in that range this year. You guys all walk around naked all the time?

Drops to less than 1GJ in the summer so I'd say we're on par. I do walk around naked most of the time because I know PepsiFree is peeping.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by timun

I live in a 65-year-old, 1000 sq ft bungalow with finished basement, with furnace and water heater being my only gas-fired appliances. I've consumed:

2021 - 99.10 GJ
2022 - 83.85 GJ
2023 - 80.24 GJ
2024 YTD - 43.92 GJ

January through April's consumption have represented this much of my annual totals:

2021 - 58.18 GJ / 58.7%
2022 - 53.61 GJ / 63.9%
2023 - 54.01 GJ / 67.3%
2024 - 43.92 GJ / TBD%

(typically my summer bills are for less than a gigajoule for water heating)

So... so far it's been noticeably less consumption, and extrapolating from previous years' patterns I'm on track to consume ~65 GJ over the course of the year, representing an almost 20% reduction compared to last year.

Is your reduced energy consumption correlated with your recent increase in hot air?

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Drops to less than 1GJ in the summer so I'd say we're on par. I do walk around naked most of the time because I know PepsiFree is peeping.

Probably let's you keep the AC off in the summer.