Just got the electric bill

The power Co. here is making a big push to clean/clear their ROW.
They have a couple trucks set up with a pole circular saw doing many miles of trimming.
+ crews out dropping several trees.
Sure helps reduce power outages
&
The firewood stacks

Wood heat & a gen set got us thru many outages in winter

 

Ours went down some this month too mainly because I closed the pool and put the a/c units away. Also I changed my two outside lights to LED a while back so that helped too. Going from 150 watts to less than 30 for the same amount of light works for me

 

Good sign that its likely. It was double for me but I believe it’s got a lot to do with staying at home and doing things that do involve electrical needs. Question though: if your freezers go out, how do you go about the food spoilage? The reason why I ask is that this is a couple of days, Ive not had one last for more than 24 hours yet. Mostly being residential they get the stations rebooted quickly around here but where you’re at, a powerline down on the main can make it awhile depending on where it went down.

 

Everyone in my house but me is a damm energy whore. Lights on everywhere all the damm time. $140 is about average with the ac and hot tub.

I'm slowly changing over to LED. Just switched my light posts that are on 12 hours a night. Hopefully they will help make a difference. Now I just need to work on the rest of the house. Need to change all the dimmer switches though.

 

Used to be that way here too but a ton of nagging brought them around to my way of thinking. Now that the son and daughter are out of the house it makes a big difference. My latest bill was $150 which is livable. All lights have been LED for a few years now, even the outside light over the garage which is on all night.
Too bad they didn't make an LED hot water heater or dryer

 

Our usage has gone down too since FIL passed.
Cut way down on the elec. dryer use. I put 5.5 watt LED bulbs in the kitchen fan/light where there used to be 3 40watt incandescents, so that one fixture went from 120 watts down to 16.5. Pretty much everything in the house is now LED. New kitchen stove seems to have made a big difference too, as it now takes about 12 minutes (I checked because I was astounded) to heat the oven to 400 degs, where the old one took about 20.
Still have one 16-17 cu ft upright freezer, but I turned off the old one in the shop.
This billing cycle should be less than 300 Kwh. Average around here is about 1000.
Wife has a tendency to turn the elec. dryer on for WAAAAY too long. Once the clothes are dry, they're dry. They won't get any dryer if you run it another 20 minutes. Honest, they won't.

 

Papadave, you need a newer dryer with a moisture setting. Once it hits a certain moisture content(dry), it shuts off. That's the only setting I use.

 

We just went out for a few hours. I was out of the house first, and purposefully shut off all but one light before walking out knowing that my wife probably wouldn't. She actually turned another light on before leaving! And it's a switch next to the door, so it's not something she did to see when gathering things to leave.

 

Mine has been up this year...thinknits due to the new machines in my shop

 

My last bill was $23.84. It's just me here.

 

That's a decent electric bill there Dennis. With the five of us in the house our bill has been averaging around $130. Ouch!

I'm going through those times every parent goes through when you walk around the house turning lights and appliances, and now electronic devices off that are not in use.

 

Squeaked just under $20 last month.
74kwh this month but we were gone for almost two weeks.

Still considering getting solar panels.

 

During the fall summer spring months we pay 13$ the amount they charge for being connected to the grid. February it might get up to 30$
The sun provides us with our energy! 32 panels on the garage roof.

 

Mine runs $55-$130
Last few months it has been in the low $60's house and shop combined .Have low wattage lights in kitchen and living room on a timer that come on at dark every night and stay on till dawn.
Wintertime when there are 2-3 block heaters plugged in it gets up in the $130 range . Have had a few over that over the years. They may have been months when the prior month was under estimated . A warehouse I have just over the line in PA sees minimal electric usage . Usually around $12 . Couple months ago they doubled the base rate and now it runs low $20's

 

I was really thinking if they were able to do something about it if they couldn’t get to you in time. Some kind of trailer generator where large blocks need power you see in the hard hit areas. Glad you have a backup plan. I live in too rural of an area so the problem could either exist for hours or days. Depends on how severe it is. I could change where I live and how that happens. Not yet though.

 

Just got the cable bill and it jumped up $15 per month. phone, tv, internet.

Tried getting a credit out of them for when the service was down this past weekend, no dice.
They're playing hardball......

 

If I were to use no electricity, my bill would still be around $36 per month. They charge around $1.20 per day to pay fixed costs like poles, transformers, line.