WTK: High electric bill

[sharkman121]

go into ttec and inquire about a service they have , where their electricians would inspect your home and tell you wat burning the most electricity, its about $200.00...

hmm buh is how long i go hadda wait for that.

it takes bout 2days...
PM me in the morning i will link ah scene...
U in d East right.??

yea will do..

thanks to the other guys that sent PM's also... much appreciated.

[SmokeyGTi]

We have high rates as well and im renting, our bill is like 7-800 and we have next to nothing, not even a/c units....fridge, small 16" tv, one desktop and two fans and energy saving bulbs x 4......Everyone is saying our meter is the highest and something is on our meter that the other tenants dont have. Which im guessing is the water pump and the two night activated lights outside the doors which is useless....and when tenants are home using electricity alot, one of our breaker trips off if we put on the steamer to steam some clothes but when they not home, nothing happens.

dan, allyuh paying for everyone else current. shut off the damn breaker, when they ain't get no current yuh see how fast everything fix.

[kurpal_v2]

This thread blight, as I read this thread the only bulb I have in the apartment blow.


:/

[Dizzy28]

We have high rates as well and im renting, our bill is like 7-800 and we have next to nothing, not even a/c units....fridge, small 16" tv, one desktop and two fans and energy saving bulbs x 4......Everyone is saying our meter is the highest and something is on our meter that the other tenants dont have. Which im guessing is the water pump and the two night activated lights outside the doors which is useless....and when tenants are home using electricity alot, one of our breaker trips off if we put on the steamer to steam some clothes but when they not home, nothing happens.

A co worker of my wife said they had switch off their breaker to do some electrical work and about 2 of the neighbor's electricity went out. They living in one of those 6 Apartment complexes. Basically they were paying for the neighbours' current all that time.

WRT to my house we have 2 12,000 BTU A/C (average use), 1 fridge, 1 freezer and the usual small appliances (TV, microwave etc) and our bill comes up to 650 every cycle which I find kinna high. We have no water pump, no dryer and only a shower head water heater.

[PARTS2go]

I've seen some of these new meters not moving at all..people getting free electricity...some moving faster than others...but t&tec stands that there are no malfunctions.

[Xplode]

one 12,000 btu only used nights and Sunday evenings ,2 fridge ,3 ld tv's ,shower heater used alot ,ps3 ,360,2 other bedrooms have ceiling fans ,washing machine/dryer and a spot light that comes on 6 pm and off 6 am,my bill comes $550-$600 for the cycle

[Dave]

i use all energy saving bulbs and have a water heater timer which by itself dropped my bill per cycle by $50 odd dollars which paid for the timer 3 times so far

[MISHI]

^ energy saving bulbs are the way to go. If you keep your practice of just having lights on where you need and turing off those you don't in addition to energy saving bulbs you will find that it helps greatly. Also things like setting your PC monitor to sleep rather than go to screensaver, turning the temp up on the fridge so it will cycle less, using the washing machine timer at "light" setting, using your Airconditioner late in the evening and not all day and even byuing a water pump control which will also cycle the power less, will see you improving your bill.

Also what I tend to do is whenever my bill is at a reasonable level that I want to keep, I calculate my consumption based upon TTEC's calculator. Example, my last bill consumption was 873 Kwh: that netted me a bill of $300.27

All you need to do then is record the "present" reading, then also record the date of the Next scheculed read. From there monitor your Kwh from the meter and if say, in one week you record the kwh from TTEC present read to your weekly read and you find you've jumped 300 kwh in last week, then find a way to reduce your consumption, then the next week record that period and see if you improved.

That way you may manage your electricity a little better.

[TeamH2O]

We have high rates as well and im renting, our bill is like 7-800 and we have next to nothing, not even a/c units....fridge, small 16" tv, one desktop and two fans and energy saving bulbs x 4......Everyone is saying our meter is the highest and something is on our meter that the other tenants dont have. Which im guessing is the water pump and the two night activated lights outside the doors which is useless....and when tenants are home using electricity alot, one of our breaker trips off if we put on the steamer to steam some clothes but when they not home, nothing happens.

dan, allyuh paying for everyone else current. shut off the damn breaker, when they ain't get no current yuh see how fast everything fix.

excellent idea

Will connect my modem and router to a backup and use my laptop for net and shut off those breakers as they reach home and see if tv's are on loud and all lights are on etc

[SmokeyGTi]

^^doo eet...lets see what happens man

[TeamH2O]

bringing back this old thead but i did that and everyone else still had current.

so i have no clue what the hell going on. only thing electrician said is that the grounding to the building is rusting and breaking, if not broken in half already causing a higher bill for everyone.

[hustla_ambition101]

sharky, what came out of this

[djaggs]

I have this same problem. Nobody home in my house whole day and my bill is 1000.00

Re wire the whole house, dumped old appliances, no electric stove and bill still high. Anybody know of an independent way to check your usage i.e. independent of T&TEC's meter ??

[redmanjp]

bringing back this old thead but i did that and everyone else still had current.

so i have no clue what the hell going on. only thing electrician said is that the grounding to the building is rusting and breaking, if not broken in half already causing a higher bill for everyone.

so everyone have a high bill now? but that still means a live have to be touching something

[EFFECTIC DESIGNS]

Sharkman the culprit is the 2 AC unit.

I have just 1 Split Unit 12000 BTU and that alone burns like $300 by itself.

Did you know simple things like your Blink Internet Modem burns like $50 a cycle.

You talking like 1400 watts per AC and yours might be bigger than mines. Though sometimes a bigger unit will burn less current since it can cool a room quicker.

Ultimately its the AC.

I doubt T&TEC does rob anyone. But you never know eh.

[sharkman121]

sharky, what came out of this

not one arse...

[TeamH2O]

Can flow cable boxes burn an extra 50-100$ if left on 24/7? I usually leave it on, but shut off tv.

[Ted_v2]

^ should.

[Zeriam]

i had a similar problem, turns out the water heater was the problem, changed it and bill went down drastically

[djaggs]

I throw out my water heater and bought a tankless one, supposed to be 20% more efficient.

[redmanjp]

Can flow cable boxes burn an extra 50-100$ if left on 24/7? I usually leave it on, but shut off tv.

i read somewhere that some cable boxes even though its 'off' if it hot it still burning electricity as if it on

what is the wattage of the box?

check this out

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26cable.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

There are 160 million so-called set-top boxes in the United States, one for every two people, and that number is rising. Many homes now have one or more basic cable boxes as well as add-on DVRs, or digital video recorders, which use 40 percent more power than the set-top box.

One high-definition DVR and one high-definition cable box use an average of 446 kilowatt hours a year, about 10 percent more than a 21-cubic-foot energy-efficient refrigerator, a recent study found.

These set-top boxes are energy hogs mostly because their drives, tuners and other components are generally running full tilt, or nearly so, 24 hours a day, even when not in active use. The recent study, by the Natural Resources Defense Council, concluded that the boxes consumed $3 billion in electricity per year in the United States — and that 66 percent of that power is wasted when no one is watching and shows are not being recorded. That is more power than the state of Maryland uses over 12 months.

“People in the energy efficiency community worry a lot about these boxes, since they will make it more difficult to lower home energy use,” said John Wilson, a former member of the California Energy Commission who is now with the San Francisco-based Energy Foundation. “Companies say it can’t be done or it’s too expensive. But in my experience, neither one is true. It can be done, and it often doesn’t cost much, if anything.”

The perpetually “powered on” state is largely a function of design and programming choices made by electronics companies and cable and Internet providers, which are related to the way cable networks function in the United States. Fixes exist, but they are not currently being mandated or deployed in the United States, critics say.

Similar devices in some European countries, for example, can automatically go into standby mode when not in use, cutting power drawn by half. They can also go into an optional “deep sleep,” which can reduce energy consumption by about 95 percent compared with when the machine is active.

One British company, Pace, sells such boxes to American providers, who do not take advantage of the reduced energy options because of worries that the lowest energy states could disrupt service. Cable companies say customers will not tolerate the time it takes to reboot the system once the system has been shut down or put to sleep.

“The issue of having more efficient equipment is of interest to us,” said Justin Venech, a spokesman for Time Warner Cable. But, he added, “when we purchase the equipment, functionality and cost are the primary considerations.”

But energy efficiency experts say that technical fixes could eliminate or minimize the waiting time and inconvenience, some at little expense. Low-energy European systems reboot from deep sleep in one to two minutes.

Alan Meier, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said of the industry in the United States, “I don’t want to use the word ‘lazy,’ but they have had different priorities, and saving energy is not one of them.”

The Environmental Protection Agency has established Energy Star standards for set-top boxes and has plans to tighten them significantly by 2013, said Ann Bailey, director of Energy Star product labeling, in an e-mail. The voluntary seal indicates products that use energy efficiently. But today, there are many boxes on the list of products that meet the Energy Star standard that do not offer an automatic standby or sleep mode.

“If you hit the on/off button it only dims the clock, it doesn’t significantly reduce power use,” said Noah Horowitz, senior scientist at the natural resources council.

Energy efficiency is a function of hardware, software, the cable network and how a customer uses the service, said Robert Turner, an engineer at Pace, which makes set-top boxes that can operate using less power while not in active use.

Sometimes energy efficiency can be vastly improved by remotely adjusting software over a cable, Mr. Turner said. In this way, Pace reduced the energy consumption of some of its older boxes by half.

Cable boxes are not designed to be turned completely off, and even when in deep sleep mode, it takes time to reconnect and “talk” with their cable or satellite network, though that time is highly variable depending on the technology.

Mr. Wilson said he routinely unplugged his set-top boxes at night and waited only 45 seconds for television in the morning. But Dr. Meier said that when he tried to power down his home system at night, it took “hours” to reboot because the provider “downloaded the programming guide in a very inefficient way.”

Cable providers and box manufacturers like Cisco Systems, Samsung and Motorola currently do not feel consumer pressure to improve box efficiency. Customers are generally unaware of the problem — they do not know to blame the unobtrusive little device for the rise in their electricity bills, and do not choose their boxes anyway.

Those devices may cause an increase of as little as a few dollars a month or well over $10 for a home with many devices. In Europe, electricity rates are often double those in the United States, providing greater financial motivation to conserve.

Cisco Systems, one of the largest makers of set-top boxes, said in an e-mail that they would offer some new models this year that would cut consumption by 25 percent “through reduced power used in ‘on’ and standby states.” There will be no deep sleep or fully “off” setting.

But Cisco said that taking advantage of the potential energy savings for a box would also depend on “how it is operated by the service provider.” Cable and satellite providers will have to decide whether the boxes can automatically go to standby, for example, and whether customers will be able to adjust their own settings. Currently, providers often do system maintenance and download information at night over the cable, so an ever-at-the ready cable box is more convenient for them.

Cable companies can become Energy Star “partners” if they agree to install or upgrade boxes so that 25 percent to 50 percent of the homes they serve have “energy star qualified” equipment. The E.P.A. merely encourages providers to use units that can automatically power down at least partly when not in use.

But as of Sept. 1, typical electricity consumption of Energy Star qualified products would drop to 97 kilowatt hours a year from an average of 138; and then by the middle of 2013, they must drop again to 29 kilowatt hours a year. Companies have fought the placement of the “Energy Star” seal on products and the new ambitious requirements, which may still be modified before enacted.

Mr. Wilson recalled that when he was on the California Energy Commission, he asked box makers why the hard drives were on all the time, using so much power. The answer: “Nobody asked us to use less.”

The biggest challenge in reducing energy use is maintaining the rapid response time now expected of home entertainment systems, Mr. Turner said. “People are used to the idea that computers take some time to boot up,” he said, “but they expect the TV to turn on instantly.”

[redmanjp]

I throw out my water heater and bought a tankless one, supposed to be 20% more efficient.

well the tankless doh have to keep water hot 24/7- it just heats as u use it

but if u have a tank heater simply lowering the temp and adjusting the cold & hot pipes could save electricity- in fact most of the time u dont need hot water but warm water