Calculating utility costs?
 

Next week, I'm moving into an apartment which includes hot water. All I have to pay for is electricity and gas. Is there any way to calculate how much I should expect to pay each month? I'll most likely cook everyday and use my computer everyday. Once it starts getting really cold I'll probably be using gas more. I'll be the only one living there.

Can't say for sure what your costs are. A lot depends on how energy conscious you are, how well the house is insulated etc.

But what I can give is some energy saving tips. ( ohhh.. the irony. Mr. Leave-The-Lights-On giving energy tips.... )

1. Don't leave the computer on all day. My college household did an experiment one month. Instead of having our computers on 24-7, we only turned them on when we were at home. Power bill went down dramatically.

2. TURN THE LIGHTS OFF WHEN YOU ARE NOT IN THE ROOM!!!!

3. Get curtains. Even the cheap light curtains over the windows will reduce the heating costs.

4. Heat the bedrooms. wear more clothes in the living room... lol... close the bedroom doors while you're at it.

5. hmmmm... haven't tried it, but how about changing all the incandescent lightbulbs to flourescent lightbulbs. 100W to 20W?? something like that...

Thanks for the tips! I can't stand flourescent lightbulbs. They're not good for my eyes. I wonder if I should leave my router on all day or not.

yeah, have a mix of those. I like the warm light that normal lightbulbs give. There are some flourescent ones that try to give a 'warmer' light..heh.. but...

well, I think the router is fine. The computer uses up to 300W of power, and generates almost enough heat to heat my room in winter.. lol..... throw in my old CRT monitor, and its hell of a lot of power....

you say you pay for gas, but is it just for cooking, or all of it?

(because i've lived in apts where _heating_ gas was paid, but not cooking...)

if you do pay for heat, depending on where you live (cold windy winters?) and if you have drafty windows - put plastic window insulator stuff on them.

electricity cost i'm guesstimating 25-50$/mo., but i think you should call the electric co and ask them ;)

Interesting. I recall reading somewhere that the power it takes to power up a computer every time you turn it on is very close to the amount of energy it takes to leave it on all day. Not sure where I read that. I used to turn my computer off when I wasn't home, but now I leave it on 24/7. Maybe I'll try turning it off.

try googling. Turning on your computers DOES NOT consume a lot of power. Even if it consumed 20 times as much power as usual during startup, and startup takes 1 minute, you will save energy by turning it off for 20 minutes. But of course, it doesn't. So turn it off, or put it in sleep. The old CRTs are probably the biggest users, so if i usually turn my monitor off if i'm leaving for a while.

http://www.tdc.ca/savingelectricity.htm
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/questions.html

I think my lowest electric bill EVER was $90. During the summer it's about $150.

I'm not a freak about turning out all the lights the second I leave the room and stuff like that, but I don't go out of my way to waste energy, either. I hear all about people with $25-50 electric bills and that seems totally alien to me.

Oh, the computer is definitely in sleep mode all day. It's still on, though. I have a Mac (no bashing, thanks) and found out that the Mac performs clean-up tasks in the middle of the night, so that's mainly why I leave it on. They do make programs that will do these tasks so you don't leave it on, but again, the computer tends to take a lot of time to start up, so I usually leave it on. Thanks for the links though, even if you had to be a bit snarky about it for some reason. I'm definitely going to experiment and see if the bill goes down.

not sure what snarky was....
was just trying to say that google is great.... lol... it gives you everything.!!!!

you know you can use google as a calculator? or if you type in "radius of earth" pr "pi" it'll give you the constant? hheh....ok... i'm easily amused..... end of thread jack..

Electricity costs will vary quite a bit. Here it's 7.6c/kWh. I have seen power bills as low as 4c/kWh and as high as 15 or 20.

One thing to note... your computers may have power supplies rated for 300W, but they will rarely use that much. In fact, the max wattage pretty much is only ever reached at startup time. I know my gateway/router machine is quite low power (I will have to get a proper wattage meter but I believe it's about 30W or so). It uses a VIA C3 CPU. That along with my fileserver, workstation, & monitor form the majority of my electricity usage (which is about 650Wh average). I have other computers but I turn them off if I don't use them for more than 24 hours. They don't really use much.

In August/September, I had the AC on a lot. My average was 1.25kWh. Pulling it out and just coping with the heat cut the bill by half. Just that one thing!

Anyway, my September energy bill was $61. I expect October to be more like $30 or $40. So SiN's numbers are reasonable for a small apartment like mine. You can expect to see even smaller bills if you're particularly stingy about your power usage.

Fortunately, with this core set of computers, my apartment remains quite warm. According to the thermometer, it varies a bit between 75 and 85 F... that's with no heater running. :)

edit: I forgot I wanted to mention that I use low-power light bulbs. They are efficient versions of incandescent bulbs and I can't tell the difference between them and the normal ones. I replaced 100W bulbs with efficient 25W bulbs, and 40-75W bulbs with efficient 18W bulbs. I'm sure that contributes quite a bit to the power savings. In addition, they last much longer than normal bulbs. I have a friend who uses similar bulbs and he says he's still using the same ones after 7 years!

Snarky kinda means obnoxious...I apologize, I read your message as like a "maybe you should try googling to find the answer, assclown" and I guess that's not what you meant. My bad. :)

My friendly local power giant has a thing on their website where you can type in info about your apartment (what kind of oven, air conditioning, heat, how many rooms, etc) and tells you how much electricity you should expect to use. Maybe that would be something you would want to try out.

Linkage por favor?

Sometimes utility companies will do a budget system for you where you pay the same amount every month. You should make some calls about that...

I have found no real difference in leaving my system on or off.
The key is to turn the monitor off. (that's what uses the most energy)

The gas/electricity thing balances out in dealing with the outside.
Electricity goes up in the summer, Gas goes up in the winter.
Use the fall or spring rates as a baseline during moderate weather.

Turn off lights unless you're using them. (but keeping one 60 watt bulb isn't going to hurt)
You'll find that you'll cook more in the winter, so it depends on if you have a gas or electric stove.

I'd say remember these utilities (baseline for one person in a small 2 br apt., not adjusted for season)
Electricity - 30
Gas - 30
Phone - 50
Water - 5
Cable - 30
Trash - 5

Of course, these all vary according to usage, and what you have, plans, etc.
But remember this - NOTHING is for free.

Use the power saving options with windows.. ..make sure that you have an energy star compliet monitor. (One that turns off after a set number of minutes. The monitor is the biggest hog out there, especially when it goes 17+ and up. 21"'s are a BIG HOG. ...put that system to sleep when you're not around.

There are new alternatives to incandescents. They have flouro's that screw into your regular sockets. I've saved $$ installing them, and you can't tell the difference. (Well the room isn't as hot, and you don't get that nasty YELLOW glow from your lamps)

Fact: A incandescent lightbulb gives off 5 times as much heat energy as it does light. Why they're still used is beyond me.

I went all flouro!

-SF