albatross666 January 25, 2008 Share January 25, 2008 Hi Yesterday I received a HUGE electricity bill that is almost $300 (more than double for a single month). Normally, my bill falls in $20-$150 range. Just recently, I set the "away" home temperature to 65 and the "occupied" home temperature to 75. So from 8am - 4pm, the heating is sustaining a 65 degree home temperature. Its normal to assume that the heaters are kicking in to compensate to heat loss to surroundings. Now, how to others manage this issue? Is is cheaper to let the home heating run or the aquarium heaters? I keep 210 gallons of water in aquariums total. Thanks for any ideas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhoch January 25, 2008 Share January 25, 2008 Are you sure it's all aquarium stuff that caused the increase and not overall rate increases? Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnguyen4007 January 25, 2008 Share January 25, 2008 Hi Yesterday I received a HUGE electricity bill that is almost $300 (more than double for a single month). Normally, my bill falls in $20-$150 range. Just recently, I set the "away" home temperature to 65 and the "occupied" home temperature to 75. So from 8am - 4pm, the heating is sustaining a 65 degree home temperature. Its normal to assume that the heaters are kicking in to compensate to heat loss to surroundings. Now, how to others manage this issue? Is is cheaper to let the home heating run or the aquarium heaters? I keep 210 gallons of water in aquariums total. Thanks for any ideas. I think I see the problem. Especially when it is so cold outside, it will take a lot more energy to boost up the heating in your home from 65 to 75 each day. Also, take a look at your air duct and see if they're clean or dirty. A dirty air duct can reduce the amount of air coming through and so your furnace has to work even harder to keep your house warm. If 75 is comfortable temp for your home, then you might want to reduce the thermostat to 70 and see if that helps lower your monthly bill. From my experience, my wife is home most of the day with our daughter. To keep the house warm, we set our thermostat at 70 or 71 during the day. Anymore than that, then it becomes uncomfortably hot for us. At night, we turn the thermostat down to 67 or 68 and have a portable heater on in our bedroom. We have 3 fish tanks, each with their own 200W heater. We also have two water reservoir tank, one has a 200W heater and the other has a 300W heater and we keep our temp between 78 to 81 amongst them. All in all, our utility runs just a bit more around this time of the month but not by much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albatross666 January 25, 2008 Author Share January 25, 2008 Are you sure it's all aquarium stuff that caused the increase and not overall rate increases? Dave Yep, normally we consume about 1000 KWH units, this time the bill says double that. Any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flowerseller January 25, 2008 Share January 25, 2008 I didn't realize electricity bills could be below $150.00 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albatross666 January 25, 2008 Author Share January 25, 2008 I think I see the problem. Especially when it is so cold outside, it will take a lot more energy to boost up the heating in your home from 65 to 75 each day. Also, take a look at your air duct and see if they're clean or dirty. A dirty air duct can reduce the amount of air coming through and so your furnace has to work even harder to keep your house warm. If 75 is comfortable temp for your home, then you might want to reduce the thermostat to 70 and see if that helps lower your monthly bill. From my experience, my wife is home most of the day with our daughter. To keep the house warm, we set our thermostat at 70 or 71 during the day. Anymore than that, then it becomes uncomfortably hot for us. At night, we turn the thermostat down to 67 or 68 and have a portable heater on in our bedroom. We have 3 fish tanks, each with their own 200W heater. We also have two water reservoir tank, one has a 200W heater and the other has a 300W heater and we keep our temp between 78 to 81 amongst them. All in all, our utility runs just a bit more around this time of the month but not by much. I see what direction you are heading, but I forgot to mention that the home heating is Natural Gas driven. So thats a different bill. So I wonder what is going wrong? If pumps or heaters start going bad, do they start consuming more power? I thought pumps etc were sealed so they had no moving parts etc. Also, I have timers, could they be causing power leaks of some sort? When my lights turn on, I can almost hear a "click". Its one of those coralife digital day and night controllers. Thanks I didn't realize electricity bills could be below $150.00 I didn't realize that they could be over $100 until 4-5 months ago when I jumped into saltwater tanks with a reef intention! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnetic1 January 25, 2008 Share January 25, 2008 Does your temperature even drop to 65 while youre away? When we set ours to 63 while away, the temp never gets that low. Do you have space heaters? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zotzer January 25, 2008 Share January 25, 2008 (edited) You may want to confirm the meter-reading schedule. Many times, they generate a bill without actually reading the meter (they figure it based on average usage over time). Then, a meter-reader comes and you get a whopper of a bill for the delta if they've been underestimating your usage. Meters in my area have been upgraded to automated ones, but if you still have the old-fashioned kind, this can happen. Tracy Edited January 25, 2008 by zotzer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason the filter freak January 25, 2008 Share January 25, 2008 how long do you run your lights a day what kind of lights do you have? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rsarvis January 25, 2008 Share January 25, 2008 Haven't you answered your own question? You used to use not so much electricity to warm your tank b/c your (gas-heated) ambient temperature was a lot warmer. Now, you use electricity to heat 210 gallons of water because you've cut back on the gas-heating of the ambient temperature. So the comparison of your total utility bills (gas + electric) answers which is more efficient/cheaper, no? Yesterday I received a HUGE electricity bill that is almost $300 (more than double for a single month). Normally, my bill falls in $20-$150 range. Now, how to others manage this issue? Is is cheaper to let the home heating run or the aquarium heaters? ... I see what direction you are heading, but I forgot to mention that the home heating is Natural Gas driven. So thats a different bill. So I wonder what is going wrong? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albatross666 January 25, 2008 Author Share January 25, 2008 how long do you run your lights a day what kind of lights do you have? Standard Coralife 260 Watts CF that run from 2-10pm, and the rest of the its i think 36 watts on the refuge. I also checked the bill and they specify that its an actual reading and not an estimate. When I bought the lights, the bulbs were 3 months old and I have had them for 3 months now, so the bulbs are 6 months old. Should they last a year? We also do not have space heaters. So do you heat the room the tank is in using a space heater? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albatross666 January 25, 2008 Author Share January 25, 2008 Haven't you answered your own question? You used to use not so much electricity to warm your tank b/c your (gas-heated) ambient temperature was a lot warmer. Now, you use electricity to heat 210 gallons of water because you've cut back on the gas-heating of the ambient temperature. So the comparison of your total utility bills (gas + electric) answers which is more efficient/cheaper, no? I thought of that as a possible solution, but why was my bill not equally high last month as this month? Just because it was colder last bill-cycle? If so, then keeping the home temperature higher is probably cheaper. I did a programming of the thermosat easily three bills ago, so that should have brought up the older bills too. Anyone else run into this situation and are keeping higher home temperatures? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rsarvis January 25, 2008 Share January 25, 2008 I'll bet someone who knows the appropriate physics numbers could do some rough math estimates on how much energy it takes to heat 210g of water a certain number of degrees above ambient temp and keep it there for a month. Seems to me though that if your house has good insulation, it's conceivable that it's not as hard to keep the temperature at a certain level above the outside temperature as it is to keep 210g of uninsulated water a full 15 deg higher than the ambient temperature. You're in essence trying to heat your house via radiated heat from your tank. Anyway, my (albeit limited) experience with having to heat a full house (well, townhouse, but still much larger than the studio apartment I lived in previously!) suggests to me that Dec-Jan being a whole lot colder than Nov-Dec might well help cause such a large jump. I actually keep my thermostat during winter at 74 (I agree that seems high, but maybe the thermostat is off by a couple degrees; anything less and I feel cold; and my gf stays home a couple days a week, so we just keep it the same all day). Heating bills do get significantly higher in the cold-weather months (I think we also don't have good seals around the house's windows/doors). I don't know much about electricity and heaters, but I was a little concerned with putting the thermostat any lower than 70 when I went on vacation, because I didn't know if my two heaters (and I added a third smaller one I had on hand just in case) would be able to keep a 180g tank at 79 deg when the ambient temp was so cold. Just seemed like it'd be hard work for the heaters; even if they could do it, it seemed they'd be on 24-7. I thought of that as a possible solution, but why was my bill not equally high last month as this month? Just because it was colder last bill-cycle? If so, then keeping the home temperature higher is probably cheaper. I did a programming of the thermosat easily three bills ago, so that should have brought up the older bills too. Anyone else run into this situation and are keeping higher home temperatures? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zotzer January 25, 2008 Share January 25, 2008 I also checked the bill and they specify that its an actual reading and not an estimate. That's what I mean......see if the bills *before* this one specify the same thing. They can do estimates for some amount of time, and then sock you with the "actual". Just a thought.... Tracy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flowerseller January 25, 2008 Share January 25, 2008 The electric bill is what it is, you either pay it or don't get it anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Ward January 28, 2008 Share January 28, 2008 agree with zotzer. need to look at the last few bills to see if they were actual or estimated readings. if estimated, this could be a catch-up bill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
txaggies07 January 28, 2008 Share January 28, 2008 My roomie keeps a space heater on 24/7. Those things use 1500W...far more than my fish tanks. I blame him for my crazy electric bills as of late. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rioreef January 28, 2008 Share January 28, 2008 I see what direction you are heading, but I forgot to mention that the home heating is Natural Gas driven. So thats a different bill. The gas is only for the flame (heat). The blower runs on electricity. Also, if you heat your hot water tank with electricity and you are dropping the house temperature that much, your hot water tank will be running much more. That heating element draws much more than your fish tank heater too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lanman January 29, 2008 Share January 29, 2008 You may want to confirm the meter-reading schedule. Many times, they generate a bill without actually reading the meter (they figure it based on average usage over time). Then, a meter-reader comes and you get a whopper of a bill for the delta if they've been underestimating your usage. Meters in my area have been upgraded to automated ones, but if you still have the old-fashioned kind, this can happen. Tracy Exactly!! I'm guessing what happened here is that they gave him the 'expected' rate for several months after he installed the fish tanks - and then finally went out and read the meter. I spent $2500 (no - I won't tell you how I got it so cheap) for a new heat pump - indoor and outdoor units - with 4-5 times the efficiency rating of my previous heat pump. I would estimate than in a year - I have saved over $2000 off my electric bill. It is actually lower now than it was before I got into this hobby. I got the new heat pump and my first fish tank about the same time. bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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