So my lady said the electricity bill this month increased from 100 to 180 dollars... I'm not so sure this is my fault because she does leave the lights on alot, and we have our header on 70 all the time and we have been going through a cold rainy period. I have 10 cfl's, water fountain pump, airpump, and a small table fan all running 24/0. Do you think what I have going would make it jump so much? I might be switching to 18/6 to save a little energy because cheaper a month but for longer is easy to do with my lady lol any ideas?
Add up your wattage, multiply it by what you pay for electricity and delivery per kilowatt hour... now you know exactly how much your setup costs to run per hour. I pay 10c per kwh, so if I had a system that drew 500 watts, .5kwh x 10c = 5c/hr to run.
Hey bro you know a dryer/heater/running water/computer is what really makes the elctricity higher. CFls are saving energry light bulbs as it is. I currently have 10 42 watt cfls and 1 100 watt cfl and my electric bill isnt to bad From my notice its only about 30 bucks different. But if you conserved your energry ELSE where in the house I dont see how your lights will be that big of a deal. I would do 18/6 also.. 24/0 isnt that much better anyways. But I would take faster hot showers. Run the dryer less. When you throw clothes in the dryer to dry chances are they are already dryd when the dryer is still running check your clothes in your dryer make sure they are still wet when the dryer is going. Its winter time so were all gonna use more heat. But just in my experience I dont think cfls will make that much of a different like I said The biggest electricty suckers are dryers heaters Tvs computers water heater washer and dryer. Wash those dishes by hand every day and watch a notice in your bill .... My electric bill is only 65 dollars a month. My gf washes the dishes by hand everyday and no i dont tell her to she was raised that way. And we take alot of showers together, and since my grow is in my closet the heat from all the cfls kind of warms the bedroom up so that heater is disabled. just conserve else where man.
Try turning your fridge and freezer down a notch... and if you have a desktop computer keep it off when not using it. If you havent already switchout your most used lights for cfls, to offset your grow lights. Just get soft white bulbs otherwise your gona go crazy feeling like you live in a hospital.
been lovin the input and ideas. I think I am going to try a few things like washin the dishes by hand good idea cause my job is cut back i can do that now. Also my girl called today she "did some research" and said if its cheaper to run it 24/0 for a shorter time than 18/6 longer time she'd rather do the 24/0 my lady is hella cool but still goin to concerve, and also add up my power usage thanks for the calculations
Your furnace is a wattage-hog, turn down the thermostat to 68 or even lower (I keep mine on 64 in winter). Use space heaters in the rooms you use the most and you won't even notice the difference. In the rest of the the house you might have to wear long sleeves or even a sweater, you'll get used to it.
BE careful with space heaters especially if your ceilings are taller. IMO avoid space heaters but the best piece of advice thus far is LEARNING to calculate your own mess. Snatch that bill from the ol' lady and figure out what your peak rate is and your non peak. Run your appliances and such on the non peak as often as possible. Like Toasty said 70 IS WAY to high even for a lizard like me. I am betting your op is less than $20.00 a month, the increase is elsewhere. One thing I didn't see mention was TURN down your water heater as well. TONS of good suggestions here.
Here's a power consumption calculator from Advanced Nutrients that can help you dial in your hard costs..........http://www.advancednutrients.com/conversion_tools/powercost_tool/powercost.html Just add the wattage for the fans and pumps and whatnot and write down in the lighting box.