A question about the cost of Power bills

[mish&al]

Hi all,

I have a question my hubby wants me to ask about the cost of power bills, I hope it itsn't too much trouble.

He wants to know what the average cost would be a year for electricity, or per month on average summer and winter.

I know it's difficult to estimate, as everyone has different heating in their homes, but here we have a ducted reverse air conditioning system which we hardly use in winter, and a gas heater in the loungeroom, but our heating needs would be very different in Sydney as opposed to Christchurch.

Thanks ahead, very much appreciated..

Mish

P.s. I feel sick and am getting very nervous, and it's not till december 2009...

[James 1077]

Can't give you a summer reading but we've just had this month's bill through and it has doubled from the $250 last month to nearly $500!

mother coming over from a middle-eastern summer so keeping her electric blanket on all night and the heater going full blast all the time.

[Milliemoo]

And just to give the other end of the spectrum..... ours averages about $80/$85 year round. Last year it averaged $75/$80.

Of course it's impossible to estimate what your bills will be until you know:
* where you'll be living
* positioning of home
* style of home
* date of home
* how well (if at all) insulated it is
* type of windows
* type of heating (if any)
* whether you're a tight wad (like my OH) who never has the heating on

Milliemoo

[nippa&pippa]

Our is varied between $120 to $150 per month, last month was $130, did go up to $180 when MIL stayed over summer for 6 months, ouch!
We have used log burner as main form of heating and 2 oil-fin heater in children's room all night from 7-8pm till 7am.
Some of electricty is used for pump water up from bore well as well as getting rid of water as we are in rural areas. I am SAHM with two kids at home and another just started school, so we used electricity during day but rarely watch TV although.
Washing machine about 2-3 loads per day (I used cloth nappies for my baby, so wash them every 3 days)
HTH

[Familyofmonkeys]

Our combined electric/gas bill is around $250 per month during winter....that is with 2 halogen heaters on all night for kids, dishwasher, heavily used tumbledryer, washing machine...about 1-2 loads per day, lots of baking, computer, and dehumidifier on almost 24/7, and TV on several hours per day in winter. Summer our bills were more like $130 per month....that includes using treadmill several days per week.

I think our bills are actually pretty low, but we don't have a lot of electric gadgets, only heat the room we are using, the hot water only heats to ~50 degrees and our kids are small so they are far too your to have discovered playstations etc yet

[ourquest]

We are also waiting in anticipation of our first bill. With piped gas and a mysterious method for calculating the effective KWh gas usage we won't really know about the gas portion until we get a bill. As far as electricity usage, it's easy to know how much the bill will be as you can keep tabs on the actual Kwh used.

It's all about how much each appliance uses. Electric blankets aren't going to make a big difference (I think they run at about 50 watts) but it is the space heating and water heating which makes the big impact at 1000-2000 watts per unit. Electric towel rails are about 20w only, dryers are big users at about 1500w. I find it a great challenge to try and cut down usage as much as possible (obvious stuff like not leaving lights on etc) and it's clearly going to be something we do more and more into the future with looming energy crises.

One consumer site (I think its www.consumer.org.nz) has an interesting actual hourly running cost of typical appliances (If you know the wattage and the Kwh price you can also work this out yourself).

[Moorf]

Our leccy bills range from $90-$130 (depending if spa on) in the summer, and $200 - $400 in the winter (June/July usually worst months). We don't have a heat pump or central heating. We have a coal stove and open wood fire. We use approx 3 tons of coal in the stove during the five months of May - end September - costs $140/ton delivered. That also heats our water and often the kettle. We get through about 9m3 of wood in the open fire a year - all depends on what the weather is doing. We run leccy blankets when it's really cold and we have an oil heater on in the bedroom pretty much all the time (on thermostat). Towel rail also on all the time. Bathroom heater (fan) used only when showering/bathing.

As the others said - it all depends on so many variables, including if there is anyone home during the day (I am and I use PC and TV / stereo all day), the daylight your house gets to warm house, size of windows, height of ceilings, yada, yada, yada...

HTH
Moorf

[Moorf]

I find it a great challenge to try and cut down usage as much as possible (obvious stuff like not leaving lights on etc) and it's clearly going to be something we do more and more into the future with looming energy crises.

So true. We've been making a bit of a game of it as in the past we've been really lax about our energy use. In fact, it's scary how much we have been wasting looking back. We've changed all the lights we can in the house to the energy saving ones, and several of the outdoor lights (thanks to leccy lee's great advice!) and everything we can do using our coal and wood sources we do.

Compared to last year's bills we have definitely been making savings. It's great to see!


Out of interest, Mish, what are you paying over there in Sydney for electric bills?

[Familyofmonkeys]

Our combined electric/gas bill is around $250 per month during winter....that is with 2 halogen heaters on all night for kids, dishwasher, heavily used tumbledryer, washing machine...about 1-2 loads per day, lots of baking, computer, and dehumidifier on almost 24/7, and TV on several hours per day in winter. Summer our bills were more like $130 per month....that includes using treadmill several days per week.

I think our bills are actually pretty low, but we don't have a lot of electric gadgets, only heat the room we are using, the hot water only heats to ~50 degrees and our kids are small so they are far too your to have discovered playstations etc yet

Can eat my own words....just checked our last power bill and it was over $300....probably because we have had heater on during day...been at home more due to wet weather

[benandclare]

$150 for last month.

This is up on our normal one due to MIL being here for 5 weeks and also Sam now here, so computer and play station on all day and 2 extra leccy blankets at night.
However our main heating is gas apart from 2 bathroom heaters and 2 5 fin Oil filled leccy ones. We're in 4 bedroom house with gas cooking .