Jeff7
Lifer
- Jan 4, 2001
- 41,596
- 20
- 81
Yeah mine's usually low, sub-$50's, at least in the winter. Summer, with an AC and dehumidifier chugging away, it climbs closer to $100. On the plus side, my gas bills in the summer are about $10/month. (Gas here fuels the furnace, water heater, and range/oven.)
Winter though.....gas bills can peak out around $200. This structure was evidently built long before the concept of insulation ever entered the mind of the first caveman.
This apartment is somewhere around 644sq ft. Lighting is mostly CFL, with a few incandescent bulbs in places that are only on for a short duration, which would kill a fluorescent in a hurry.
Second. Yeah they're a bit pricey. Yeah the mA rating might not be as high as other cheap NiMHs on the market.
1) The NiMH ratings on some of the cheap batteries are inflated anyway, and seem to be achieved if you're only drawing enough power to light a gnat's reading material. I tested some Sanyo 1700mAh cells against Powerizer 2250mAh cells (AA's, all of them), at a current draw somewhere around 1A. They both showed a voltage drop pretty near the same place. The Sanyo's generally had a smoother voltage curve, stayed higher longer, and they also didn't die in droves in a few months. (Of a batch of about 20 Powerizers, 40%+ were completely useless after only a few months of light use. The Sanyo's in the testing were over a year old and doing just fine.)
2) They keep their charge very well. Note though, right out of the package, they will have some charge, but all NiMHs need to be cycled a few times to reach full capacity. So if they seem to crap out a bit sooner than expected, give them a few cycles.
3) Rechargeables pay for themselves fast, and it doesn't take them too much longer to pay for the charger too.
4) Just buy them, darn it.
Originally posted by: SparkyJJO
Heh, I'm pulling about 1300W from the wall right now with PCs at full load, and they run
That's about $45 a month here.
Yeah, it wouldn't be hard to be using quite a bit of electricity, especially if you run stuff like folding. If you had an original PS3 running it, and say a quad core with dual GPUs you'd be using probably 800W just there. Of course it wouldn't be a total waste, but it'd save you a bundle in electricity.
Oh, another power hog that should be turned off is audio equipment, at least if its not used for extended amounts, especially vintage and receivers. In that sense a good universal remote can work wonders, so you can flip off the surge protector for your HT stuff, and then when you get home flip it on and let your remote go and reconfigure everything.
Don't forget about investing in rechargeable batteries. Buy one of the Sanyo Eneloop packs when its on sale and you could pretty easily save a couple of hundred dollars in batteries a year (probably not so much anymore now that most devices have their own rechargeable battery). It'd definitely help with 360 and Wii controllers though.
I wish. I've got ~800 sqft 1 BR apartment. Have a ~15ft sloped vaulted ceiling in my living room/kitchen. I just think my AC is terribly inefficient and, well, I live in South Florida so it's almost always on.
Spike
Diamond Member
- Aug 27, 2001
- 6,770
- 1
- 81
My electricity bill stays around $45 a month no matter what... even when I try to leave my pc's off so go figure. My gas bill (water heater, radiant heating, cooking) is what varies a ton, from $35 in the summer to $90 in the winter.
I still want to get a killawat so I can watch my pc's just out of curiosity. Especially now that I'm running a 24" LCD, that has to hog a fair bit more juice than my old 20".
I still want to get a killawat so I can watch my pc's just out of curiosity. Especially now that I'm running a 24" LCD, that has to hog a fair bit more juice than my old 20".
Jeff7
Lifer
- Jan 4, 2001
- 41,596
- 20
- 81
Futurama, of course.
Profile says you're in Canada? You must have absolutely incredible insulation.
Back home at my parents' house (east side of Pennsylvania), before we got a wood pellet furnace, we used electric heat. I think our record was $500 for one month, but that was atypically high. I think the place is 1800sq feet, very roughly. The (finished) basement was probably the worst heatsink in the place. The walls were uninsulated, and the floor was cold all the time. Those walls have since been redone and given Styrofoam insulation. It's not terribly thick, but it's certainly better than nothing.
That, coupled with the wood pellet furnace means that the basement finally feels livable in the winter, and it also has lowered the heating bills dramatically.
I was going to make a thread just like this, but I forgot.
I kept my PC on 24/7, until I started paying for my own electricity.
I save about $30/month putting my PC to sleep now when not in use.
I kept my PC on 24/7, until I started paying for my own electricity.
I save about $30/month putting my PC to sleep now when not in use.
Bignate603
Lifer
- Sep 5, 2000
- 13,897
- 1
- 0
Yes, and all that goes into heat. If you've been running your AC (I still am, I'm in Phoenix) you then have to use electricity to get rid of that heat.
shortylickens
No Lifer
- Jul 15, 2003
- 80,287
- 17,082
- 136
shortylickens
No Lifer
- Jul 15, 2003
- 80,287
- 17,082
- 136
If the glazier, the baker, and the cobbler are not able to make a profit when they are working, I fail to see how losing work is any better. They need to reevaluate their business model and make some sort of a profit no matter what they are doing. Otherwise they should all just quit and mooch off the tax dollars. Thats like the government paying people to NOT raise pigs or harvest corn.
It might seem to fix a few problems now, but in the end we cant all pay out money for folks to sit around doing nothing. Sooner or later, SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE, actually has to go to work and produce a product or service of value and then sell it for slightly more than it cost them to make. They need to create value, which is the real source of money. Thats business.
Though I'm sure many P&N folks would love to fight me on that.
FelixDeCat
Lifer
- Aug 4, 2000
- 31,062
- 2,696
- 126
People who leave their computer(s) running 24x7 should be punched in the face for several minutes.
DangerAardvark
Diamond Member
- Oct 22, 2004
- 7,559
- 0
- 0
Yuck, $24 per month if I had my PC on all day, but it's off at least 8 hrs a day, so -1/3 = $16 a month.
sandorski
No Lifer
- Oct 10, 1999
- 70,800
- 6,356
- 126
Originally posted by: Jeff7
Futurama, of course.
Profile says you're in Canada? You must have absolutely incredible insulation.
Back home at my parents' house (east side of Pennsylvania), before we got a wood pellet furnace, we used electric heat. I think our record was $500 for one month, but that was atypically high. I think the place is 1800sq feet, very roughly. The (finished) basement was probably the worst heatsink in the place. The walls were uninsulated, and the floor was cold all the time. Those walls have since been redone and given Styrofoam insulation. It's not terribly thick, but it's certainly better than nothing.
That, coupled with the wood pellet furnace means that the basement finally feels livable in the winter, and it also has lowered the heating bills dramatically.
smacks head Futurama, of course. Not quite that small...more like the Closet. :laugh:
Most of my Apt facing Outside is glass, practically all of it in fact, but it's not a very large area. Plus I live on the West Coast which usually doesn't get that cold, perhaps a total of a month or so below freezing(24 hour period). Good Insulation is quite popular and common up here though.
Red Squirrel
No Lifer
I keep mine on, produces a bit more heat, making it so I don't have to run the furnace as much, so I save on gas costs. Though I don't think the change is all that significant. I'd have to calculate the cost per BTU and pretty sure electric is more expensive.
I have a couple servers that run 24/7 too. The backup server is the only one that is off all the time and only turns on to run a job then turns off. One of these days I need to buy a killawatt or a TED (hooks to electrical panel and measures total consumption) and check how much money this costs me.
I'm only consuming like $30 of power total though, last I checked. I suppose that might go up now that it's winter. Running the furnace blower, heater under the garage, etc. That heater alone is a killer. 2800 watts. I had to install a double pole 30amp breaker just for that.
I have a couple servers that run 24/7 too. The backup server is the only one that is off all the time and only turns on to run a job then turns off. One of these days I need to buy a killawatt or a TED (hooks to electrical panel and measures total consumption) and check how much money this costs me.
I'm only consuming like $30 of power total though, last I checked. I suppose that might go up now that it's winter. Running the furnace blower, heater under the garage, etc. That heater alone is a killer. 2800 watts. I had to install a double pole 30amp breaker just for that.
FelixDeCat
Lifer
- Aug 4, 2000
- 31,062
- 2,696
- 126
SparkyJJO
Lifer
- May 16, 2002
- 13,357
- 7
- 81
Global warming is a scam (the past couple years here have been driving that home and we are set up for another harsh winter from the looks of things). Besides, I heat the room with the PCs, if the PCs weren't on I'd be using electric to run the heater anyway. And in the grand scheme of things, me running a few systems 24/7 isn't going to affect a darn thing.
Complain about global warming? Complain at the sun, it's the source of heat ya know.
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