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[willieG]

anyone payinig 8.2 cents a kilowatt hour and spending less than 100 dollars a month is a hermit that live in the dark!

average clothes dryer and washing machine 7  average computer 4 average dish washer 3
average freezer 5  average furnace blower 6 average lighting 11 average cook stove 7 average fridge 6 average TV 3 average deep well pump 5 average hot water heater (family of 4) 70 total of 127 not counting the little things like moms hair dryer,curling iron or dads electric shaver ,all those electric tools in "the man cave"or the microwave..or stereo..or vacume cleaner or humidifier or kids lap tops or yard light if you have one..ect.

it does appear by the numbers you quote that you in fact are paying (last month) 23 % less than your brother in law. (could your brother in law be on "average billing"?

he only used (according to your mumbers) 415 KW more than you..that  would (in heating) equate to about 16 btu per square foot and that is a little low ( i think more like it should be at least 20)

then again, perhaps you are just an electricity hog? you leave lights on...yougot some stuff the brother in law dont?

is your brothe in laws heat pump...geothermal?

low bills can be had, my eldest son has some under 100. he (occasionally) works 12 hour shifts 7 days a week and lives alone. eveything is electric but his heat. his lights are rarley on when he works these shifts. hot water for one is about 40 a month

[creeker]

Are you not heating your water with the stove?

Yep, sure am.

[creeker]

anyone payinig 8.2 cents a kilowatt hour and spending less than 100 dollars a month is a hermit that live in the dark!

average clothes dryer and washing machine 7  average computer 4 average dish washer 3
average freezer 5  average furnace blower 6 average lighting 11 average cook stove 7 average fridge 6 average TV 3 average deep well pump 5 average hot water heater (family of 4) 70 total of 127 not counting the little things like moms hair dryer,curling iron or dads electric shaver ,all those electric tools in "the man cave"or the microwave..or stereo..or vacume cleaner or humidifier or kids lap tops or yard light if you have one..ect.

it does appear by the numbers you quote that you in fact are paying (last month) 23 % less than your brother in law. (could your brother in law be on "average billing"?

he only used (according to your mumbers) 415 KW more than you..that  would (in heating) equate to about 16 btu per square foot and that is a little low ( i think more like it should be at least 20)

then again, perhaps you are just an electricity hog? you leave lights on...yougot some stuff the brother in law dont?

is your brothe in laws heat pump...geothermal?

low bills can be had, my eldest son has some under 100. he (occasionally) works 12 hour shifts 7 days a week and lives alone. eveything is electric but his heat. his lights are rarley on when he works these shifts. hot water for one is about 40 a month

Well, I wouldn't say we are energy hogs, as it is just the wife and one child.  We never leave the lights on and all that we rarely have more than one television on at a time, wash/dry clothes no more than one day a week, etc...etc... etc...   

What I don't understand is that when I initially got this owb the talk of sub-one hundred dollar electric bills seemed to be the norm and now suddenly it seems to be quite the opposite... almost as if that is unrealistic. 

As for my brother, he is not on the "average billing" or anything like that, this was his actual usage.  Also, it's not like he is the only example I could offer... I have people all around me with electric bills that are $20-50 more than mine and I am the one out in the cold loading a stove while they stay warm inside the house.   

[willieG]

then i agree that for what little the difference is you should sell your stove but i wouldn't hurry till i checkedit out more carefully

[kybaseball]

I wouldn't give up. You have something going on. It's there to be saved i have the proof.

[RSI]

If I were you, I would get one of these and figure out where the power is going.
http://www.theenergydetective.com/
You could take it to your brother's house and put it on the wires to his heat pump and see exactly what he is paying for heat too.

[kc]

Seeing this thread still going I have an update after the first full electric bill using my OWB.   When this thread started over a month ago I had just fired up my OWB and my December electric bill was $210.   My January electric bill was my first fully on the OWB and was $132.   Not bad but my biggest saving is burning nearly zero propane.   We did have one warmer weekend where we opted to let the fire go out and clean up the stove so I used a few gallons of gas then.   We have a hot tub and at some point I will hook it up to the OWB and I would expect my electric to get below that magic $100/mo during winter at that time.   But I am also saving I believe $300 - $400/mo during the heating season on not buying gas.   There is more effort in keeping the fire going and collecting wood but the savings are there.   Now if we could just figure out how to use the OWB to offset the AC electric in summer!

kc

[Scott7m]

I am 100% all electric...   Family of four, clothes washed daily, dish washer, you name it. 

My electric rate is 13.4 cents per kwh

Here is a look at a recent bill...   716 kwh used for $96.23.     Last winter same bill we used 789. Last year this particular billing cycle was 5.1 degrees colder.

So as you can see my electric rate is wayyyy higher than 8 and were hovering around $100/mo and often dipping into the 80's

What could be the difference?  Lights are left on way more than I'd like by the kids, but there all entirely cfl lights through the home.  TV hardly ever shuts off but it's an LED tv.  We have a deep freeze but it's not huge and is pretty full usually, it's probably 5' long.  My garage is tied into this service and the only electric we use out there is basically the garage door openers.  Kids have a tv in there play room playing every waking hour, but once again it's an led tv.

For anyone to have a $170 bills and using a stove sounds high, especially if there electric rate is reasonable.  As I've stated, home is 2200 square feet, 4 occupants, were all electric except water me heat and were around $100/mo.   

Before I started using the wood stove my bills were $550 n the winter!  I was using around 4000kwh/mo in the winter and now around 700kwh.  That's why I have no trouble telling folks or showing them my bills where I cut mine by 70-80%

[creeker]

This was taken from my electric companies website and we have a 400 Watt yard light that accounts for $14.27 of the bill each month.


My Electric Rate

Schedule A-1

Farm and Home

Energy Charge                                       .09083

Off Peak Energy Charge                          .05441

So, as you can see the rates aren't terribly high either. 

 

[Scott7m]

This was taken from my electric companies website and we have a 400 Watt yard light that accounts for $14.27 of the bill each month.


My Electric Rate

Schedule A-1

Farm and Home

Energy Charge                                       .09083

Off Peak Energy Charge                          .05441

So, as you can see the rates aren't terribly high either.

Well something is obviously messed up if your a 3 person family is using 175 bucks a month and you have electric rates that cheap when you have no heating charge and no water heating charge.... 

Look at my example, we have no off peak rates, its just High!!   If I lived in your area my electric hill would be around $52 bucks using an average of your 2 rates and diving by my last bill of 716kwh

[creeker]

Apparently... just not sure what it could be at this point.  Like I said, the breakers to the heat pump are all even off and have been for the last couple of months now.  At this point, I am at a loss. 

[RSI]

That is why you should get one of those energy monitors.
It might even turn out to be something like a defective power meter.

[willieG]

your brother inlaw from what i can tell has a super insulated house. lets look at your numbers. you say his bill was 224 and you think without heat it would be about 100 so his heat bill is 124  dollars. for his 124 dollars at 7 cents a kw hr that would be about 1771 KWH  according o the net 1 KWH is 3412 btu so 1771 KWH is 6,042,652 btu for the 28 day month..divide by 28=215,809 btu for a day..divide by 24 is 8,992 per hour divided by the 3000 square feet is an average of 2.9 btu per square foot to heat his home? my math is wrong?? i dont think this is even possable?
i would guess in a very well insulated house you would average at least 5 to 10 btu persquare foot with an averge winter temp of 35 or 40 degrees?

perhaps the real pros can double check my numbers??

[RSI]

your brother inlaw from what i can tell has a super insulated house. lets look at your numbers. you say his bill was 224 and you think without heat it would be about 100 so his heat bill is 124  dollars. for his 124 dollars at 7 cents a kw hr that would be about 1771 KWH  according o the net 1 KWH is 3412 btu so 1771 KWH is 6,042,652 btu for the 28 day month..divide by 28=215,809 btu for a day..divide by 24 is 8,992 per hour divided by the 3000 square feet is an average of 2.9 btu per square foot to heat his home? my math is wrong?? i dont think this is even possable?
i would guess in a very well insulated house you would average at least 5 to 10 btu persquare foot with an averge winter temp of 35 or 40 degrees?

perhaps the real pros can double check my numbers??

3412 btu per kw is for resistive heaters. A heatpump runs well over 100% efficiency when calculating power usage. I don't know off hand how much but geothermal would be the highest.

[willieG]

WOW i jsut found another site that say ouside heat pumps can make four times the energy as a resitive heater....SELL THE STOVE...i give up