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I got my bill down to $105........

19 years ago

This is the first time since we lived here that my bill electric was down this low. $105. I couldn't believe it. The lowest my bill has been 14 months is $125 ish. I think that i might just have to pat myself on the back for this one.

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Comments (5)

socks
19 years ago
How did you do it? Just keeping lights off, etc?

I've tried hard the last month or so to do this, so I hope my next bill is lower.
pink_petunia_20862
19 years ago
My electric and heating bill are on one bill and I pay an average of $125 a month. We use a geothermol system to heat and cool the house. In the summer it's nearly free to cool the place and we also use it for the hot water heater which is also a near freebee of this system. I love it. I know most of our friends are paying hundreds more just to heat their homes and they can't believe our bills. This is an average 3200 sq ft home fully equiped with energy wasting teens. I love it warm in the winter and cool in the summer, so I'm certainly not sacrificing anything to get the lower bill.
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Thanks Vagas and Tclynx. I had the cocoons in a plastic bag w/o air or food. Just worm doo and cocoons which aren't that recognizable to me yet. I could not imagine leaving them in the plastic bag vagas, so I prepared a bed of peat moss/a couple cups of cornmeal/ and a couple cups of wellllll rotted bagged cow manure that has been laying out in the weather for about 3 years/and a few handfuls of small shredded paper to break up all that dirt looking stuff. Well Mixed and damp. I poured the plastic bag of worm cocoons out onto this mixture in the bin and covered it with a layer of dry shredded paper. I did put some drain holes in the bottom, and I did put another container w/o holes under that to capture any liquid excess or baby worms that might fall through and of course the brick to keep the upper plastic container from falling down below the air holes. And I did put a soaked piece of cardboard box down in my bin to cover the holes for the babies to lay on,first thing. I did that about 3 days ago with the cocoons and I don't see any babies yet, but since I am still afraid I will damage them if I put my hands down in the mixture to look, that doesn't mean they aren't there, I'm sure. In the meantime, I am down to opening and looking at the worms only about 3 times a day and that IS a struggle for me. I put the 3 containers together like Vaga said. The worms are awfully skinny and aren't moving too fast just yet. It has been only about a week and a half since I put them(1000) in there and NOW I can see that they are eating the bedding up and pretty quickly. So, Friday, I set the second prepared container that makes the tiered bin on top of that W/Oa brick (The worms around outside are all laying under heavy stuff so I figured the small weight of the container could be helpful) and I put about 1/2 lb or less of kitchen scraps and coffee grounds and of course shredded paper in it in case they wanted more to eat. They really are skinny. I have never seen such skinny little worms. I am sure they must grow (red wigglers)bigger. Anyway, Today when I looked at them, I DID find that they are migrating up into the food...or at least about 20 of them have so far. Out of fear that they would attempt to escape and inadvertantly commit suicide, I placed the whole 3 layer bin in a large black garbage bag leaving it open and loose in case they try to explore outside the box while I am gone. That way, I won't find them dried up on the floor or step on them. Once I saw that they weren't trying to get away, I took the bin out of the bag. Not one fatality due to escape...not one worm in the bag either. =o) So, I am learning not to sit and prowl through their bedding to see what they are doing.....all the time. Just nervous about them I guess. Trial and error is the way of life, I suppose. I will either get more worms, or they will not do well for me. Thanks so much for your input. It helps to know that you guys are out there willing to share the information with me. =o)
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We live in Texas also. The last house we had, we ran the temp at 81 constantly and the electric bill was still $300 one August. So, we paid $15k and replaced the entire A/C, conden.. ALL of it.. heater too. The only thing we kept was the ducting. We had all the ducts re-sealed, house pressure tested and sealed (even the electrical sockets were tested for leaks). We replaced the external doors with better ones, and we had the ENTIRE attic, including over the garage, sprayed with R49, more than required. We had radiant barrier sprayed into the entire attic as well. The loan cost us like $105 a month. The electric bill dropped to about $120 a month on the hottest days and that was with us running the temp at 74-76. In the winter, we had the electric bill below $60. Best money we ever spent. R
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wjswecampbell
Original Author
19 years ago
I just made sure to turn the lights, tv's and everything possible off. I also only wash laundry,use dishwasher at night. They say that is when it is the cheapest. I also didn't have to run the ac or heater much.
sharon_sd
19 years ago
wjswecampbell: unless you have a minute-by-minute monitoring meter, which is almost unheard of in our area, it won't save you directly to run things at night. Your electric utility won't know when YOU used the power, just how much you use each month. I wish we could do this. Our neighbour has designed a system which monitors electricity prices and turns on things like his water heater when prices are lower and warns him when the price spikes so that he doesn't run optional things like a load of laundry. He can't get the local power company to bill him by time of use, so he is not really saving himself much by doing it.

It does keep costs down for the system, so it benefits everybody.
joyfulguy
19 years ago
Some time ago our (city-managed) utility installed extra insulating blanket and a timer that turned on the water heater at 2:00 a.m., giving us a discount on the rental fee as consideration. In my case, it was the full rental fee rebated.

Later a branch of the provincial utility took over that aspect of the system.

My water heater had stopped working, so I told them to come and test it, to certify that it was not working, as I had no intention of paying rental on a non-functioning water heater.

They told me that I could have it replaced, or have them come to remove it ($20.00 fee, if I rcall corrctly), but that those were my only options.

As I lived in a rental townhouse, I thought that having the water heater disappear would not do good things regarding my relations with my landlord.

Also, our resident property manager said that when they came for a service call, they'd remove that timer that turned on the heater at 2:00 a.m.

They did that, and were going to remove the insulating blanket, but I said that they could leave it right there - which they did.

I asked their headquarters why they were removing the timers, to be told that they weren't offering that service.

When I asked why not - no answer.

So it seems to me that they are very unconcerned with spreading the load over the 24 hour period, to reduce the need to fire up generating stations when peak load comes.

Stupid.

Have yourselves a great pre-Christmas week. My best wishes for the season to everyone.

ole joyful

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