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I've whined about this before, in this forum, but I can't find the thread, so I'm starting a new one. I live in a 500-sq foot apartment, there are two of us, we have a dishwasher and electric heat, so I don't expect to get away without paying much in electricity. However, I just paid our bill for the period of November 8 - January 14, and it was $293.00.
That seems incredibly excessive! Plus apparently "New Rates" are in effect starting January 1.
What are your experiences with City Light?
phoo
onlineMember
Wow. I knew my power bill would be very high because I finally had to turn on the baseboard heat, however I managed to use the crockpot to heat the household until about the middle of December or maybe a bit later. I have a 1bdrm apt and my bill was just under $100. I keep it 60-67 in here, depending on time of day. I am not sure about $300, but if you had your heat on the whole time and higher, that would put it closer to the 200 or so range. Of course, I expect a higher bill next time because the heat will again be on for the whole billing period.
gracie
offlineMember
scarebaby - you might check into doing average payment plan. You pay the same amount each month - in my case it's $47.00 all year round. Come summer time my balance owing will go into a negative many times. City Light person recommended to go off Average Payment during summer & then start again Fall. The amount for each month you pay is figured by City Light & must be your usage. 684-3345 is their number.
heh heh I use my crockpot for soup!
We only heat one room - the living room. There are two bedrooms, and we NEVER turn the heat on in either of them. We do take hot showers, though.
Gracie - thanks for that idea! it's a very good one!
Scarebaby,
Yowzah! But if you think of it, that is not toooooo bad considering it is for 2 months, with electric heat in the winter.
Our house is running a bit over $50/mo. But our hot water and heat is gas, and over time I have converted most of our lighting to LED so there is little to kick it up. Summer time it was running about 1/2 that.
How about your Fridge? If it is old it could be costing you more than you think. Electric Drier perhaps? Another sucker of electrons, new or old.
Good luck!
D
gracie
offlineMember
I love it. No big surprises come winter with a huge bill.
jj
offlineMember
You mentioned you are in an apartment, do you share any appliances (heat, hot water) with another apartment? Do you keep your heat on throughout the day/night? Finally, have you lived there long enough to notice a pattern in your bill? For example, does the bill rise/fall with the seasons?
Apple
offlineMember
My parents live in a duplex. The meter was switched with the neighbors. Neighbor was elderly, kept her place toasty warm and was there all the time. My parents lived in their place part time and kept is sort of warm. Their bill went way down when they finally figured it out. Are you switched?
h2o_girl
offlineMember
Wow, that does seem excessive. I am not sure of the square footage of my apt - but it's two bedroom two bathroom and I also have a dishwasher and baseboard heat. My bills in the winter are around $50-60 a month. I don't have my own washer & dryer though - there is one in the building for our four-plex to use. I sometimes grumble about having to get quarters for it but now it seems like that is better than paying for the electricity.
Thanks peeps -- we don't have a washer or dryer in the apt. The fridge IS old and the stove is too. Dishwasher is new and supposedly "energy friendly". Sometimes I think we're paying the bill for the laundry room. I could call City Light and ask them to check that!
h2o_girl
offlineMember
You should! I can't see why your bill is 3x as much as mine. Do you work from home - are you there most of the day? I am gone from about 8am-6pm M-F, maybe that is the difference?
BuffaloHawk
offlineMember
WOW !!! That seems ridiculously high. Did you take up indoor gardening when "Initiative 502" passed? I live in a 2 story duplex and have special lights and heat rocks that I have to run 24/7 for my chameleon & leopard geckos. I also have electric baseboard heaters and a washer & dryer that I run a few times a week.I got my bill this week for the same time frame and it was 196.00.I would definitely call and question the charges.
gracie
offlineMember
scarebaby - that is a good suggestion about having it checked. They will come out & read the meter again. I forgot all about that. I challenged a bill (before I went average payment plan) that was really high & I was gone most of the month from my house. I noticed an "est" or such code and it seems the meter reader estimated how much my reading was. Also happened with water bill & it was winter time. I called & said on notes there couldn't read meter. Before I had called I checked the meter reading & there was snow on top of the cover & some debris on meter itself. All he had to do was brush it off. They did send a person out & it was readjusted. So yeah good idea from Buffalo and others. Good call!
phoo
onlineMember
BTW, do you use your oven much? It's a big electricity sucker. BTW, I heat only the living room and kitchen (because it's tough to partition off the kitchen). If you use the oven much, you can get a convection toaster oven that can handle all small jobs and is very cost effective.
Ernie
onlineMember
I would definitely look into whether the laundry, or some other common space is going on your bill. That happened to a friend of mine once in one of those old houses split up into apts.
At least you don't have to shell out $900 for a tank of heating oil......
$900 for a tank of heating oil....I don't even know how people afford that. It's all we can do to scrape together the $300 for the electric bill. I'm going to call City Light on Monday and ask them to come out and see if everything is "kosher".
Our water heater doesn't have one of those blankets around it -- do those help? Will they bring one?
shelley
offlineMember
Heating oil isn't a monthly bill scarebaby. We had oil heat until 2004 and we would get one fill up per year. It was usually about half a tank. So it was a big hit that month, but zero expense all the other months. It was easy to know exactly how much it cost to heat the house for a year.
My electric bill was $106 for almost the same period. I live alone. Gas furnace, water heater. Electric dryer, stove. The PSE gas bills were $174 combined for those two months. The house is 1400 sq ft, built in 1916, 2 stories, basement, dual pane windows, attic insulated, blown in insulation in external walls. The combined gas and electric for me is almost the same as the all electric for you for 2 months, yet I have 2.5 times the floor area. Definitely seems like something could be wrong.
scare baby: here is the thread you mentioned in your first post:
http://www.myballard.com/forum/topic.php?id=13401
domie
offlineMember
Hi scarebaby. We rent a two bedroom apartment with about 900 square feet. We use our oven often, aren't very good about turning off lights sometimes, have our TV on a lot (we also use it as a monitor for our computer), and keep the temperature pretty comfortable as we are paranoid about developing a mildew problem. We just got our City Light bill yesterday, and it was less than half of yours.
If your fridge, or even your TV, are older that could make a huge difference. My sister is a rents in LA and was recently able to replace an older fridge with a newer, more energy efficient model for free thanks to a grant from the city, and she noticed a significant drop in her electric bill right away. You might see if there is a comparable program for renters here in Seattle.
On a similar note, our management company recently did an energy audit with people from Seattle City Light for each unit in our building to assess where we might be able to save some energy and offered us free CFLs for every light or lamp in our apartment. You might be able to get them to come out and do something similar for your apartment and ask them about the laundry room then. If not, you could always turn off and unplug everything you possibly can in your apartment and take a look at your meter to see what your (almost) baseline consumption is. Then, without turning anything in your apartment on, do a load of laundry and see if that speeds up your meter.
h2o_girl
offlineMember
Scarebaby, I just got my mid-November to mid-January bill, and it was $96.00. So I would definitely check into yours.
phoo
onlineMember
Here's a thought, perhaps an alternate heat source? My brother measured the electricity it took to heat the house with baseboard heating, then what it took to use his oven to heat the house and the oven was cheaper. I am NOT advising you use your oven to heat the house. It is still expensive and not good for the oven. However, you can buy many kinds of standalone heaters and that may help reduce your costs.
And of course, it's always possible that you are paying for electricity outside of your unit.
plasticbags
offlineMember
Maybe they could save money by not mailing me the energy efficiency letter of shame each month. Efficient Neighbors x kw, Average Neighbors x kw, YOU= the energy of a small country. Maybe they could save money and harass me electronically?
iPlod
onlineMember
Hmmmph. I thought this post was going to be about a robot duck.
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