High Ceilings = Higher Energy Bills?
xavieralumni
16 years ago
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reliabilityman
16 years agoRelated Discussions
Help! Very high electricity bill after solar panel installation
Comments (17)I was curious as to why you are referring to solar energy in gallons instead of kwh kilowatt hours? I have never heard of storing gallons of energy. Energy is stored in batteries that are not measured by gollons but instead are measured by cranking amps, and cold cranking amps. If you have energy storage containers they would be somewhat like large car batteries or more likely similar to forklift batteries . I have 17 4'x8' solar panels that supply power for my house and is supposed to put excess energy into the energy company grid and credit me for the energy that they receive . The actual process is that the electric company gets my excess energy and they give me a $2,200 dollar bill at the end of the year. I think I am being ripped off and have no proof or anyone to give the proof to. I am wishing I didn't spend $14,000 dollars for solar panels and still had $120 electric bill instead of $180 x 12 months all at once. But hopefully you at least didn't have to spend $14,000 to get a larger electric bill ad I did....See MoreYikes! very high electric bill for nu bryant system.
Comments (7)Heat pumps often are installed with auxiliary electric strips for providing emergency heat to cover unit failure and supplemental heat to cover cold weather below the design point of the system. Turning on the electric strips can be controlled by the thermostat, perhaps when the set point is raised more than, say, two degrees above current temperature. It might be set up to go to auxiliary when the heat pump by itself is taking too long to bring up the temperaure. It also can be triggered by an outside temperature sensor. It all depends on how the system has been set up. As others have pointed out, the electric bill may not be unreasonable for a winter month, but if it really is higher than it ought to be then it could be that those backup strips are coming on when they shouldn't be, in which case the thermostat setup ought to be reviewed. You can look up the details of your thermostat controls online and see for yourself how it might be set up. If your backup heat system is propane, then perhaps you should check to see if the electric strips, if present, are enabled or not. There would be a separate breaker in the panel for that, as the current draw would be quite high....See Morehigh electric bills due to hw heater
Comments (14)HW heat is not that expensive. There are little efficiency gains to a new electric hot water. An electric heating element is an electric heating element. The insulation might be a bit better but I'd expect a 10% or less improvement. The national average for electric HW is about $450 annually. So it is unlikely that your HW bill is really that high. Generally electricity is more expensive than oil for heating hot water but the amount of heat needed is not that high so the switchover doesn't help that much. There are no tax credits for oil because I think the point is to use less oil. There are tax credits for geothermal which would be an option for you but it would be a large capital outlay. Your oil bill is not that bad so you can't save that much. 85% is not bad and not worth replacing. Solar hot water with tax credits almost always pays for itself over a reasonable time period. I realize you don't want to outlay the cash but it isn't a bad idea. We paid about $6000 for a system - between state, federal, utility rebates/credits - the net was $2000. (it was a new house and so it saved about $800 for conventional so the net was really just $1200) You might need a larger system so it would be closer to $8000. And then being in NY, it might be more......See MoreNeed help tracking down high energy use
Comments (15)I was trying to gauge the cost(for natural gas) when my furnace has run(consumed gas) for an hour's time. I did it two ways. First I just took the BTU input rating of the furnace and did the calculations from there. Then someone pointed out that the BTU input rating may not be an actual value. So secondly I needed to determine the amount of gas my furnace is actually consuming per hour. Here are the particlars: 1. I have Goodman model GMPN100-4 furnace. (natural gas, single stage, pilotless and an input rating of 100,000 BTU per Hour) FIRST WAY USING BTU INPUT RATING: 1.One cubic foot of natural gas has about 1,030 BTU. 2.Divide the furnace input rating(in my case 100,000) by 1030 to get the number of cubic feet of gas the furnace will use in one hour. So 100,000(BTU) divided by 1030(BTU per Cubic Foot) is about 97 Cub Feet. 3.My supplier's bill is based on units of one hundred cubic feet(CCF) so I divide 97 cubic feet by 100 to determine how many CCF the furnace will burn per hour. This turns out to be 0.97 CCF 4.My supplier charges $.745 per CCF so it costs me 0.97 times $.745 = $.72 per hour for natural gas for my furnace to run. SECOND WAY BY DETERMINING ACTUAL GAS CONSUMPTION: As stated above someone pointed out that the BTU input rating may not be an actual value. So I wanted to determine how much gas the furnace was consuming per hour. My gas meter has a 2 cubic foot dial. I set a video cam in front of the gas meter in the morning knowing the furnace would be on for at least 20 minutes to bring the house up to temperature from the night's setback. The furnace did run for about 20 minutes but I stopped my readings at 10 minutes. Here are some findings: In 5 minutes the furnace consumed 7.6 cubic feet of gas. In 10 minutes the furnace consumed 15.2 cubic feet of gas. So 15.2 cubic feet of gas in 10 minutes extrapolated out to 60 minutes would be 91.2 cubic feet gas per hour or 0.912 CCF/hr. At $.745 per CCF the cost is about $.68 per hour. From the input rating data (100,000 BTU/hr) I calcualted .97 CCF/hr. So the actual gas consumption was a little bit less that the input rating. Now some Notes: 1. My gas bill is broken down to a charge for gas consumption, a customer service charge of like $21 a month and of course the tax on the consumption charge. So it's pretty straightforward how much the gas costs per hundred cubic feet. This month gas was $.745 per CCF. 2. No other gas consuming appliances(oven, stovetop or hot water heater) were firing at the time of testing. 3. I understand that outside temp, thermostat setting and how well my home is insulated are factors as to HOW OFTEN the furnace will run. That wasn't my concern. I only wanted to know how much gas was consumed when the furnace ran for an hour. How that hour was achieved was not important. It could of been 60 continuous minutes or six 10-minutes cycles. In my case I took a 10 minute run cycle and multiplied that amount of gas usage by 6. I have since I've hooked up the following 24V hour meter to the gas valve: http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/REDINGTON-Hour-Meter-2PPV9?Pid=search The meter progresses in tenths of an hour increments anytime the gas valve is open. I can tell how long the furnace runs each day, month or season. This helps with filter changes also. I've found that about every 125 hours the filter is dirty enough to be replaced. I appreciate the comments....See MoreDYH
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