Your electric bill

Right now we hang clothes in the basement. I can't wait until I can get the laundry line outside. Line dried bed linen is yummy!

We also don't have a dishwasher. We do have a toaster oven and use it instead of turning on the oven for small meals. A plug in kettle is also way more efficient than one on the electric stove.

Right now Doug is working on a steam shower..mmmmm!... nice, but they really suck the electricity!

Sue

Our last hydro bill was just under $200. We have no electric heat. Just wood. We do have three 1500 watt tank de-icers for various animals. The usual suspects, washer, dryer, dishwasher, pumphouse.
Don't use a hairdryer, so that could be the culprit.

*EDIT - and yes that's for 2 months.

My outrageous bills does not include heat. We have oil heating which i fill the tank once a year for around $800 plus we burn a lot of wood.

I had a look at my bill.
We do not heat with electricity, we do not have a dish washer.

We are paying .1455/kwh !!!!!

Just got the newest bill in the mail last night. $230.65
1324 kW.h @ 6.67 cents.
1197 kW.h @ 9.62 cents. 1197 over the threshold.

1324 kW.h cost is 88.31.
1197 kW.h cost is 115.15.

130 LESS kW.h costs almost $30 more.

Still low compared to everyone else it seems.

What I wonder, is who gets to decide what the threshold should be? Should older homes have any exemptions due to poor insulating/heating issues? And as Uno so aptly mentioned, what about livestock? What if you have 7 kids living at home?

Are there similar "encouraging", AKA, penalizing programs in other provinces?

From the BC Hydro webpage;

Under the Residential Conservation Rate, customers pay 6.67 cents per kWh for the first 1,350 kWh they use over an average two-month billing period. Above that amount, customers pay 9.62 cents per kWh for the balance of the electricity used during the billing period. This rate structure is designed to encourage conservation and is referred to as a "stepped rate". The first portion is called Step 1 and the amount above that is called Step 2.

(Residential Conservation Rate = Share the Wallet Program)

I personally, would like to save some hydro, and take a battery operated cattle prod to the decision makers. There's some encouragement.

We were shocked at our last bill......almost $800 for two months and we'd been heating solely with wood from our wood stove.

We have that kind of info kept monthly since 2008 on spreadsheets for comparative purposes, the accountant likes it also, saves them time.

Electricity costs $3.05 to $5.18 per kWh depending on amount used. Like in BC the base (Step 1) rate is lowest then as more is used they make us pay more. Our annual average is $166 per month for power.
Total utilities (power, gas and water) averages just under $500/month for 6 of us, when it was just 2 we kept it under $350/month.

We find the spreadsheets with accompanying charts useful to see anomalies as well as seasonal variations. As in why did power go so high in Jan 2010? The extra vehicle was plugged in more than necessary, solution a timer and educate the driver, it does not need to be plugged in all the time.

I can't believe what I'm hearing here ? I have never heard of such HUGE hydro bill's in my life ! If it cost's that much to run your households then they must be castles ? I have just under 2500 sq ft that we heat , run , and if I even had one bill that went over the amounts that some are discribing , well they could lay me down deep !Are these older homes that have no insulation ? Something is very wrong when you have to pay that much for running a household .We are primarily hydro , heating is a wood boiler that uses a small 1/8 hp pump to push the water to the house ( radiant heat floors ) and the upper floor has some fan forced heaters ( Electric ) .Three of us in the house , son sometimes has two baths a day , otherwise there are three runs of showers a day , washer ,dryer , fridges ,freezers,lights , etc , etc etc .Heat bulbs running 24/7 in the two coops and my bill is a bit over two hundred a month .I find that this is still a bit high , but hearing what I have been hearing here I think I'm in good shape after all .

Prairie Dog, I agree with you! Some of these bills would cause The Big One, for sure! I am making Hubby read this and giving him 'the look' that says next time he reads the Hydro bill to me, it will be an ugly day!

If a province depends on fossil fuel to generate electricity (Alberta) it will be higer. BC has hydro (big rivers running through little tight spots) and in theory it's supposed to be cheaper. Although rumour has it we're in for a hike.

Another issue, as Hillbilly pointed out, our homes are not created equal. Nor are our ideas of comfortable. Our neighbours pay very low bills and heat with electricity, but they both look like htey are bundled for exploration in the far north. They will drive to Tim Horton's everyday for their coffee and doughnut, but heaven forbid we should spend that much a day to heat our home! (sometimes I think our priorities are completely messed up).

We heat just over 3000 sq feet, 1500 up, 1500 down. Our basement concrete floor and walls act as a heat sink to some degree. Upstairs we have wood walls and wood ceiling throughout. This also acts as a small heat massk. Upstairs we have a cookstove (not making heat) but it sits on an 8x8 exposed aggragate slab with an 8x8 brick wall behind it. All these act as small heat sinks to hopefully offset the skylights which let out HUGE amounts of heat, and the large windows, which are essentailly holes in your wall. If you have a house that is all window, skylights and drywall...good luck heating that! Drywall has a low heat sink capacity, never mind what your r-value is. I think we build our houses WRONG for this country! I am feeling better about our electric bill all the time!

Prairie Dog, I agree with you! Some of these bills would cause The Big One, for sure! I am making Hubby read this and giving him 'the look' that says next time he reads the Hydro bill to me, it will be an ugly day!

If a province depends on fossil fuel to generate electricity (Alberta) it will be higer. BC has hydro (big rivers running through little tight spots) and in theory it's supposed to be cheaper. Although rumour has it we're in for a hike.

Another issue, as Hillbilly pointed out, our homes are not created equal. Nor are our ideas of comfortable. Our neighbours pay very low bills and heat with electricity, but they both look like htey are bundled for exploration in the far north. They will drive to Tim Horton's everyday for their coffee and doughnut, but heaven forbid we should spend that much a day to heat our home! (sometimes I think our priorities are completely messed up).

We heat just over 3000 sq feet, 1500 up, 1500 down. Our basement concrete floor and walls act as a heat sink to some degree. Upstairs we have wood walls and wood ceiling throughout. This also acts as a small heat massk. Upstairs we have a cookstove (not making heat) but it sits on an 8x8 exposed aggragate slab with an 8x8 brick wall behind it. All these act as small heat sinks to hopefully offset the skylights which let out HUGE amounts of heat, and the large windows, which are essentailly holes in your wall. If you have a house that is all window, skylights and drywall...good luck heating that! Drywall has a low heat sink capacity, never mind what your r-value is. I think we build our houses WRONG for this country! I am feeling better about our electric bill all the time!

uno wrote:Prairie Dog, I agree with you! Some of these bills would cause The Big One, for sure! I am making Hubby read this and giving him 'the look' that says next time he reads the Hydro bill to me, it will be an ugly day!

If a province depends on fossil fuel to generate electricity (Alberta) it will be higer. BC has hydro (big rivers running through little tight spots) and in theory it's supposed to be cheaper. Although rumour has it we're in for a hike.

Another issue, as Hillbilly pointed out, our homes are not created equal. Nor are our ideas of comfortable. Our neighbours pay very low bills and heat with electricity, but they both look like htey are bundled for exploration in the far north. They will drive to Tim Horton's everyday for their coffee and doughnut, but heaven forbid we should spend that much a day to heat our home! (sometimes I think our priorities are completely messed up).

We heat just over 3000 sq feet, 1500 up, 1500 down. Our basement concrete floor and walls act as a heat sink to some degree. Upstairs we have wood walls and wood ceiling throughout. This also acts as a small heat massk. Upstairs we have a cookstove (not making heat) but it sits on an 8x8 exposed aggragate slab with an 8x8 brick wall behind it. All these act as small heat sinks to hopefully offset the skylights which let out HUGE amounts of heat, and the large windows, which are essentailly holes in your wall. If you have a house that is all window, skylights and drywall...good luck heating that! Drywall has a low heat sink capacity, never mind what your r-value is. I think we build our houses WRONG for this country! I am feeling better about our electric bill all the time!

..............Totally agree there ! We have what you would call a R2000 home , 2/6 construction .I don't agree with the comment about the windows though .If they are situated correctly they will absorb a lot of sunlight heat into the home , if in the wrong location ?? yes they will cause heat loss.The next house I build will be 2/12 plates with 2/4's staggered so that there is no pass through from the outside .I have met on person who built this way and his bill's stayed the same basically year round ....air conditioner in the summer , furnace in the winter .Fresh air intakes are what a lot of homes are missing ,You can't build a home air tight and expect to gain out of it , you need a air exchange to keep it all in balance .So far I am sold on our radiant heat (floor ) and although I have gone through two boilers , i have them made up to my spec's and the next one will be different then this one , hopefully even more effeciant then this one .I think some people need to look outside of the box and see what's all out there . there is no need to have payments that high !

We live in a barn. An old barn made from whatever was laying around. It's cute, and very homey. You wouldn't know its a barn from the inside. Wood floors, beautiful yellow cedar logs run across the ceiling. This is the middle floor. The main floor of the house so to speak. The upstairs (the old loft) was converted to living quarters, and is wide open and carpeted.
The siding is board and batten siding, with little insulation. The windows, well, call them what you will, other than cute, and barnlike, are multiple glass, single pane ventilations of air conditioning. Stand in front of them, and your hair blows as the cold air comes whistling in. They hold NO heat and in the winter, we cover them with plastic from the inside. Each floor is roughly 1000 sq ft. We have a tiny woodstove on the main floor, which heats this place up toasty warm.

IF we had electric, or any other source of heat, we would be screwed, and we would be BC Hydro's silent partners. This hydro system is not designed fairly at all. We have no other source of heat. Not even an option, but why would we want it? Sure we go through about 13 cord of wood in the winter, which is all cut, split, and stacked by hand, but what the hell, it keeps me out of trouble!

Passive solar heating can make your windows work for you. Other than that, they are heat suckers.

Yes, placement of glass is important. BUt glass itself is a heat liability in a house.

When I hear 'passive solar heating' I think of laying on a beach in Mexico. I want that kind of passive heat about now!

20 years in the window industry !,built them ,tested them , research and development .........what do you want to try to sell me ?? old windows loose heat yes , new ones ? hardly !

Never realized how lucky we are,we have electric water heater,2 deep freezes,normal house usage,floating water heater,our bill is averaged over the year ,we pay $110/month