Browse Forums General Discussion Re: Power Bills.... 2Jun 10, 2009 10:35 pm Building Thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=13002 Site start: 8th July 2009 Handover: 11/12/2009! 5 months total build time. 40 sqs of luxuary...Bliss! Re: Power Bills.... 3Jun 10, 2009 10:45 pm Ours is about that - for 2 of us. We don't have gas, so everything is on electricity. R/C split runs for a couple of hours each evening in the 3 winter months, and probably 4-6 hours for the hotter summer months. 2 fridges, a computer on 24/7, and only a handful of energy-sapping halogen downlights. Dryer probably does 3 loads a week, and we're usually pretty careful to only have a couple of lights on. Our friends in a neighbouring suburb, with 4 adults (in-laws too), 3 kids & a pool regularly exceed $1000/quarter. Re: Power Bills.... 5Jun 10, 2009 10:58 pm How many units is that? Where you are coming from is where you are going to... Re: Power Bills.... 6Jun 11, 2009 2:34 pm Yep, it's your TVs and computer that do it, plus the dryer. A decent computer can be 400W, so if you run that 24/7 that's 67.2 kWh (or units) per week, over three months it's almost $130, assuming 16c/kWh. LCD TVs can vary greatly in their use too, some are 100W, others 500 (a sticker on the back should tell you). Just think how high your bill would be if you didn't have so much on gas! Re: Power Bills.... 7Jun 11, 2009 2:50 pm Our rental over the summer months with almost 2 weeks of horrendous 40+ temperatures and the Air con on for a huge times and ours was $600, friends who have a large house pay about $1500 a quarter but they also leave lights on when they shouldn't and they have underfloor heating. Re: Power Bills.... 8Jun 11, 2009 3:02 pm Well it made my eyes pop! Our latest bill was $88 for two months, varies from $75 in summer up to $120/two months during the winter because of the electric water booster being used. That's with 2 adults, 2 kids, two computers run for 5-6 hours a day, 2 fridges, washing machine and general lights tv etc.and basic appliances left on standby like most people. but no air con, no dryer, no plasmas etc. I'm a bit of a light scrooge though, only have on what we're using, and use the power saving bulbs.. solar hot water, and gas stovetop, electric oven. I'm pretty happy with it! Oh and in units it's 8 units a day.. Re: Power Bills.... 10Jun 11, 2009 3:14 pm Dragonfly Wondering though, what does electricity cost over on the east coast? We pay 13.93 c per unit, where I am in WA I'm in WA too, and it made my eye's pop also !!!! my mum is in Victoria and her power bills are very expensive.. Ours is a little more than yours tho, about 170 summer for 2 months 250 winter for 2 months...Everything electric except for hot water. 2 fridges, I big LCD, 3 other tv's, dryer that's only used in winter. Electric oven/hotplates, 2 computers..and guitar amps that get used about 20 hours a week...I am vigilent with the power usage though...2 adults, 2 teens...Reverse cycle air con & ducted evap plus 2 little electric heaters - this house is freezing !! ( Hi to my friends on here, I'm back after my MIL passing away all your advice helped alot xx) Re: Power Bills.... 11Jun 11, 2009 3:33 pm Thanks for the replies, Ive decided I'm going to buy an energy meter to see which appliances are using the most. Our rate here in western Victoria is 18.43c KW/H which has already gone up twice this year. Definitely envy you W.A people. Its annoying because we have been freezing trying to cut power costs but yet we still get hit with a large bill. Re: Power Bills.... 12Jun 11, 2009 5:21 pm nomad Thanks for the replies, Ive decided I'm going to buy an energy meter to see which appliances are using the most. Our rate here in western Victoria is 18.43c KW/H which has already gone up twice this year. Definitely envy you W.A people. Its annoying because we have been freezing trying to cut power costs but yet we still get hit with a large bill. LCD tv's use a fair bit, I also saw a big jump when I left the computer on alot, I changed the setting and it now hibernates after 2 minutes, so if not being used just shuts down, this saved us about $30 per bill. TV's off, if not being watched is a big one, old appliances (fridges) are a killer on power, check seals/clean seals to make sure they are working properly. An energy meter sounds like a great idea. Re: Power Bills.... 13Jun 11, 2009 6:29 pm I live on my own in a little unit, gas cooking, heating and HWS, at nights when I'm home I have the tv on, lamp and a single light in the kitchen, no clothes dryer and I use a laptop and my bill I just got was $129.59. In winter with using the heater more (fan) it will go up to maybe $145 and with the aircon on in summer maybe to $160. I'm in Melb and it says I pay $0.1479 per kWh in peak and have a quarterly supply charge of $40.10 'A bottle of wine contains more philosophy than all the books in the world.' Louis Pasteur Vegie garden: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=27637&start=0 My Backyard Adventure Re: Power Bills.... 14Jun 11, 2009 9:25 pm Hi guys, I'm new here and have recently been looking at power usage at home myself. We are in the early stages of getting our new house design right and trying to be energy efficient, so looking at what we are currently using seems logical I have just purchased a cheap power meter from Jaycar which, after getting a few others a work interested cost me $20. (I have no affiliation with the company just thought it might help others out) So far I have only had it plugged into my powerboard that runs the gear in the entertainment cabinet with 40" LCD TV, amp, PVR and subwoofer but was amazed to see all that was still drawing 20W with everything in standby :/ Will be interesting to see what the home server that is on 24/7 is drawing... Looks like a great community here with lots of great info, keep up the good work guys and gals Re: Power Bills.... 15Jun 12, 2009 2:16 pm Thanks for that MrFlibbles, I checked out 'Choice' online and they recommended to contact the company and their recommendations is good enough for me! Was interested to see what they thought of it. A few bad points, but at least it gives you an idea where the most usage is! I just bought one! Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck! - Dalai Lama Re: Power Bills.... 16Jun 12, 2009 3:35 pm 3 people: $600? There are five of us and our bills have always been in the $300-$400 range....usually less in summer. That's with cooktop, heating and hot water on gas, of course. Rates went up in January - if I'm reading the bill right (because apparently they try to make it as indecipherable as possible ), we're now charged $0.15589 per kWh. I'm waiting to see how bad our first winter bill is - it's due any day. Re: Power Bills.... 17Jun 12, 2009 3:54 pm Looking at my recent power bill I can't see a price per kWh average. There is a list of prices named Peak and Next??? The highest of these is $0.2189 per kWh, then comes progressively down to Off-Peak of $0.0799. I have no clue why there is a list of 9 different prices!! But 2 of those are service Charge and GST. I average 31.67 kWh per day!! YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!! I live in South Australia. I definately need that power meter Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck! - Dalai Lama Re: Power Bills.... 18Jun 12, 2009 3:58 pm kek 3 people: $600? Ditto! And here I was complaining about our sub $200 quarterly bill. That's for 2.5 people. [sneakersss] Re: Power Bills.... 19Jun 12, 2009 4:05 pm we have lived in our rental for 8 years.. yep 8 years.. .and suddenly we stopped getting power bills... nothing had changed - they just stopped! It took us about 8 months before we realised we hadn't got a bill and I kept meaning to call them but just forgot. 15 months since we'd had a bill I get a nasty letter from them (hadn't received a thing before that) saying if I didnt contact them and tell them who I was they were going to disconnect the electricity. So I ring them and tell them - hey I've been here for 8 years .. what's going on? and they send me 12 months worth of bills - $2200 So I arrange a fortnightly payment system to pay it off over 12 months and have my bank automatically debit this plus an extra $20 p/f so I can pay it off quicker and they send me an over due notice.. SO I call them and they say everythings fine it was just a mistake.. then I get another one and another . Finally i get a disconnection notice so I call them to see WTF they are doing and they explain about the "computer automation" but they had fixed it and it shouldn't happen again. a month later I get my new bill $640 for less than 3 months!!!!! but they had added the balance outstanding from the 12 month bill and told me is was due in 3 weeks. So I ring and they say "dont worry" just pay the new bill.. so I pay it and 3 days later they disconnect my electricity it wasn't until I threatened them with the ombudsman that they actually rectified the situation - I had to go a whole weekend w/o electricity! OMG - I wish we didnt have to have them!!! what a bunch of idiots.. but from what I hear the competitor isn't much better!!! Re: Power Bills.... 20Jun 14, 2009 4:19 am We are a family of 6. 300sqm house. Electric hot water, pool, reverse cycle aircon, LDC TV plus ordinary TV, steros, microwave rangehood plus sensor lights out front and all the other odds & ends that make up our bill $580 per quarter. Could be more in summer depending on how much we run the aircon. Its outrageous...we've even swapped all our globes for energy saving globes and barely noticed a difference. Would also like an opinion from anyone that has used xcem over hebel for floors. Thanks 1 14248 2 15472 Our relationship with the owner is good, but I'm not sure if I want to impose putting a pole on their property. Your conversation with your neighbour must have gone well… 4 9329 |