Gas & Electric - how to reduce costs?

[Gardenarian]

Hi -
I keep reading about people who have utility bills of $30-40 per month. Mine are much higher ($75+) and I can't figure out why.
We have replaced all incandescent bulbs with CFLs, and keep the lights turned off as much as we can.
We have gas heat, but it is warm where we live so we don't use the heater much.
No air conditioning.
We have an older washer, and we do about 4 loads of wash per week. I hang laundry to dry and only use the dryer to fluff it up afterwards.
I have a fairly efficient refrigerator (about 4 years old.)
My husband does keep a couple of computers and a printer plugged in and turned on pretty much all the time.
We have a large water heater, and it's older - but we don't use lots of hot water.
I run the dishwasher about 4-5 times per week.

Any suggestions? Maybe it's just more expensive where we live?

[ApatheticNoMore]

My husband does keep a couple of computers and a printer plugged in and turned on pretty much all the time.

Why? I mean if he's working from home, I guess there's keeping it plugged when working obviously :). But does he really need the constant connectivity - even when you are sleeping - even when everyone is out of the house? Get power strips if for some reason you don't already have them and switch them off when not in use.

My bills do vary a lot, it's summer so they are farily low ($25 a month electric that's with green power which is increasing the cost about $5) - $16 gas and so on. But in winter they can get higher more like $50 electric a month and like $35 gas (I get cold easily). That's a 1 bedroom apartment, coin laundry in the building.

[SteveinMN]

We have an older washer, and we do about 4 loads of wash per week. I hang laundry to dry and only use the dryer to fluff it up afterwards.
I have a fairly efficient refrigerator (about 4 years old.)
My husband does keep a couple of computers and a printer plugged in and turned on pretty much all the time.
We have a large water heater, and it's older - but we don't use lots of hot water.
I run the dishwasher about 4-5 times per week.

The first thing I would do is look at a couple of monthly utility bills; maybe this month's and one from not the dead of winter. On those bills you will see a number of fixed charges and fees. Those fees don't change regardless of your use, so you may find gas and electric are just expensive where you live. On our utility's Web site, we can compare usage with other customers; that can be another indicator. And larger utilities often will help audit your energy usage on site and make recommendations as to what will give you the best bang for the buck. That can be free or relatively low-cost.

Top-load washers can use 40+ gallons of water per load. Modern front-loaders use about a third of that. Heating that water can burn a fair amount of energy. Wash full loads in cold water if you can. Note that some washers add a little hot water even to cold-water settings to help detergent work better. Try pure-cold washes if your washer has those settings.

The water heater heats whether you use the water or not. You don't say how old it is, but there are higher-efficiency water heaters out there. You could try putting an insulating blanket over the water heater; most hardware stores sell specific items for that. You also can insulate the hot-water lines leading from the heater, but I don't think most people will see a great return for that. You might want to look at replacing the water heater come the time, but buy a smaller more-efficient one that's still in keeping with the house (DW and I could get by with a 20-gallon model but that's not appropriate to a three-bedroom house).

The dishwasher, especially an older one, may be a bit of a hog. My dishwasher uses about 4.5 gallons per load, so I don't worry about using it. But I'd think more about it if it chewed up 9-12 gallons per load as many do.

The computer thing ... that's an ongoing discussion in the computer world. Switching off the computer seems to make sense, but the temperature changes as the circuitry switches on and heats up and is switched off and cools down can make the circuitry fail prematurely. Nothing "green" about that. Most recent equipment has an energy-saving or "sleep" mode that could be used. Our home network is up all the time, but the hard drives spin down after a certain period of non-use, the printer sleeps until a print job wakes it up, and the computers we use either sleep or shut themselves off after a half-hour or so of non-use. Yes, there's some thermal cycling there, but nowhere near as much as letting the device get to room temperature and then back up to operating temperature. That might be a reasonable compromise.

[Tussiemussies]

Also unplug all appliances when you are done with them as they call this vampire energy since the appliance still uses energy. We have a motion sensor light in the hallway so it is only on while you are there. Great for people with children...

[try2bfrugal]

We cut our energy bills way down mostly with inexpensive tips from the book The Home Energy Diet, going around with a Kill a Watt, LED bulbs, cooking with small appliances, drying racks, front loading washer, etc.

We track our daily kilowatt usage and have been examining each outlet, light bulb and electrical appliance to see how many kws each one uses. If you look at water use, cutting down on hot water use will also help the energy bill.

Some of the things we did were:

LED bulbs
Drying racks
Got rid of extra freezer, fridge
Front loading washer
Low flow shower heads
Kill A Watt reviews
Small appliances instead of built ins
Motion detector lights inside and out
Some dusk to dawn lights outside
Air dry dishes in dishwasher
Weather stripping
Rechargeable batteries with solar charger
Patio lights are all solar
Solar Christmas lights
Turning off lights
Making sure PCs and printers go into sleep mode when not in use
Power strips

[Gardenarian]

Thanks everyone! We seem to be doing everything on the lists (though we have not gone LED - waiting for the CFLs to die first.)

We did get a front loading washer and it broke down about a week after the warranty expired. We tried everything to repair it, but gave up in despair and got an old top loader from Craigslist. We only wash in cold, and our wash water goes out to the garden.

Our bills do go up a bit in the winter but not excessively. I think it's maybe just more pricey in San Francisco. Oh, well.

[ApatheticNoMore]

We cut our energy bills way down mostly with inexpensive tips from the book The Home Energy Diet, going around with a Kill a Watt, LED bulbs, cooking with small appliances, drying racks, front loading washer, etc.

what are the small appliances you cook with? I'd like to buy some (for various reasons), wondering what was worth buying.

(realistically it would take awhile - maybe the rest of my life - for the energy savings to be worth the purchase but ... I do wish I had more cooking appliances for various reasons - so I want to know what are good ones to consider)

Most of the other stuff doesn't really apply, maybe if they had an apartment energy diet. Seldom had a dishwasher, but what they use in energy I hear they make up for in water savings, so they aren't necessarily bad for the environment. I got my monthly gas bill, it was $17 something, $5 of that was base fee, I'd pay using no gas, the rest was taking long relaxing warm baths, well that and cooking probably.

[reader99]

The small appliances I use are a toaster oven instead of the big oven, crock pot and microwave. As far as I can find out microwaving costs a fraction of what it would be to cook or reheat on a stove top.

[Rosemary]

Our year-round usage of gas + electric adds up to about $1100. It's gone up in the 9 years we live here even though our energy usage has dropped by 20-30% due to the changes we've made (biggest impact: furnace, insulation, and window coverings) due to the increase in energy costs.

We turn everything off, and we have a relatively small house (1500 sq ft for 3). We have increased insulation, upgraded to more efficient furnace and a/c (the latter which we rarely use), and we keep the thermostat at a conservative setting. We also pay for wind-sourced energy for electrical, some of which cost if offset by also having a "saver switch" which allows the utility company to turn our a/c off and on during peak hours. We use sunlight to help heat in winter and we block the sun with insulated window coverings in summer. The trees that were planted years ago are finally adding shade in summer.

Gas and electric have widely varying costs at different locations in the country, so you can't always make comparisons based on cost. Using therms or kWhr is a better way to make direct comparisons. But since everyone here at SLN has a different house (often on the small side, but different nonetheless) and a different climate, it's probably more productive to talk to other energy-conscious people near where you live (this board is a great place to get ideas about how to reduce usage, just not the best place for comparing bills). Our utility company's website allows customers to access comparisons within their neighborhoods (without supplying info about which house has which usage data).

[try2bfrugal]

what are the small appliances you cook with? I'd like to buy some (for various reasons), wondering what was worth buying.

Our electric wall ovens and built in stove tops take up relatively huge amounts of energy. We can get charts from that show electrical usage hour by hour and they would just spike at meal times. Plus it is hot here a lot and the wall ovens really heat up the house, which can use more air conditioning.

I am trying to transition to only using small appliances and I check those with a Kill A Watt meter. Like Reader99 said, microwave cooking is probably the cheapest, though I am not sure it is the healthiest way to cook.

Instead I try to use a steamer / rice cooker and crock pots more than the stove or oven. When it is really hot we put them outside on the patio table so they don't heat up the house. I also have an electric wok and Nesco roaster. The kids use a toaster oven for all their snacks.

Stir frying uses less energy because the food is cut up so small it cooks rather quickly. I bought a mandolin to slice foods thin to cook quick.

In the future I want to get a larger toaster / convection oven - one that is big enough to hold a pizza.

We got rid of the extra freezer because we realized we were using a lot of energy to freeze and then cook frozen foods. I might breakdown and buy a very small, extra chest freezer, so I can stock up on some specials. I also got rid of the electric dehydrator because of the energy cost.

This weekend I made rice, steamed chicken and steamed mushrooms in the rice cooker / steamer and a vegetarian eggplant casserole in the crock pot. We then simmered the steamed chicken in marsala sauce.

One pot meals also can be more energy efficient because you can cook everything together in one pot at one time instead of heating up 2 - 4 burners or appliances

This web site has a chart on kwh used to cook the same meal using different appliances -
http://www.bchydro.com/powersmart/residential/guides_tips/green-your-home/appliances_guide/cooking.html

[ApatheticNoMore]

Thanks for that info, I dont' actually have any heating appliances other than the stove now, I'm thinking toaster oven first (possibly crockpot someday, maybe solar oven but that's probably not the most practical). It's just hard to figure out what will really take the place of an oven and stovetop.

I realized some gas is probably used because the oven is permanent pilot or whatever (it's always burning some gas because the flame is always burning). Oh well, pretty much ALL apartments I have ever been in have been this way (I imagine some of the brand new apartments have newer stoves that aren't permanently on - stainless steel even :) - but then we're probably talking 2k rent for brand new apartments with much newer appliances, so .... yea). Otherwise apts just have whatever is old and cheap and still works and it sucks but so it is, either that or buy my own full oven and transport it in and transport the old stove out to go I don't know where, and transport the new stove whenever I move etc.. I already bought a refrigerator for this apartment - it's getting crazy :)).

[jp1]

Goodness. Your stove must be ancient. They've been making pilotless stoves now for at least 30 years. (I remember mom buying hers when I was in high school.) The last stove I had with a pilot was in 1990. Even the cheapy apartment stove that was in the apartment I moved to in 1992 was pilotless.

[Tiam]

The first thing I would do is look at a couple of monthly utility bills; maybe this month's and one from not the dead of winter. On those bills you will see a number of fixed charges and fees. Those fees don't change regardless of your use, so you may find gas and electric are just expensive where you live. On our utility's Web site, we can compare usage with other customers; that can be another indicator. And larger utilities often will help audit your energy usage on site and make recommendations as to what will give you the best bang for the buck. That can be free or relatively low-cost.

Top-load washers can use 40+ gallons of water per load. Modern front-loaders use about a third of that. Heating that water can burn a fair amount of energy. Wash full loads in cold water if you can. Note that some washers add a little hot water even to cold-water settings to help detergent work better. Try pure-cold washes if your washer has those settings.

The water heater heats whether you use the water or not. You don't say how old it is, but there are higher-efficiency water heaters out there. You could try putting an insulating blanket over the water heater; most hardware stores sell specific items for that. You also can insulate the hot-water lines leading from the heater, but I don't think most people will see a great return for that. You might want to look at replacing the water heater come the time, but buy a smaller more-efficient one that's still in keeping with the house (DW and I could get by with a 20-gallon model but that's not appropriate to a three-bedroom house).

The dishwasher, especially an older one, may be a bit of a hog. My dishwasher uses about 4.5 gallons per load, so I don't worry about using it. But I'd think more about it if it chewed up 9-12 gallons per load as many do.

The computer thing ... that's an ongoing discussion in the computer world. Switching off the computer seems to make sense, but the temperature changes as the circuitry switches on and heats up and is switched off and cools down can make the circuitry fail prematurely. Nothing "green" about that. Most recent equipment has an energy-saving or "sleep" mode that could be used. Our home network is up all the time, but the hard drives spin down after a certain period of non-use, the printer sleeps until a print job wakes it up, and the computers we use either sleep or shut themselves off after a half-hour or so of non-use. Yes, there's some thermal cycling there, but nowhere near as much as letting the device get to room temperature and then back up to operating temperature. That might be a reasonable compromise.

I've been told it is BAD BAD to turn computers on and off on a regular basis. And since I'm not in charge of the computers, I don't. We have two running all the time though, they do "sleep."

[Gardenarian]

Well I just read an article that said the average gas & electric bill for San Francisco, despite the mild climate, is $143.00 per month - so I feel we're really doing pretty well.

Preparing for retiring is a wonderful exercise in nitpicking at your spending.

[ToomuchStuff]

Goodness. Your stove must be ancient. They've been making pilotless stoves now for at least 30 years. (I remember mom buying hers when I was in high school.) The last stove I had with a pilot was in 1990. Even the cheapy apartment stove that was in the apartment I moved to in 1992 was pilotless.

On this note, does your gas stove plug in? Furnaces that use that tech, use electricity to power the ignitor. Changes the cost of power from gas (keep the thermocouple hot) to an electric vampire (although shouldn't run until the capacitor is drained). However Thermocouples still work when the power doesn't (still have heat, just no furnace fan).
Years ago, we had an ice storm that knocked out power in my area, for two weeks. Those old gravity and forced air furnaces, kept the houses warm at least.

[SteveinMN]

On this note, does your gas stove plug in? Furnaces that use that tech, use electricity to power the ignitor.
A plugged-in gas stove also would use electrical power to run the clock/timer, indicator lights, and so on. But it will be 120V, not the 220-240V that electric stoves run on.

[ToomuchStuff]

A plugged-in gas stove also would use electrical power to run the clock/timer, indicator lights, and so on. But it will be 120V, not the 220-240V that electric stoves run on.


Exactly, no power, no gas.

[Rogar]

Well I just read an article that said the average gas & electric bill for San Francisco, despite the mild climate, is $143.00 per month - so I feel we're really doing pretty well.

Preparing for retiring is a wonderful exercise in nitpicking at your spending.

That's funny. One of my early retirement projects was to buy a kill-a-watt and go through the house to figure where all my electricity was going. It was fun. Phantom loads from computers in sleep mode or televisions and entertainment systems that were turned off really did not amount to much, but I put some of them on power strips and toggle them off when I'm out of the room. I understand that the larger and older flat screen TV's are energy suckers. My TV has a smaller screen and energy star rated. Refrigerators are always to be questioned. Mine is about 8 years old and was a major user.

I think anything with a heating coil will pull a lot of current. Things like hair dryers and toasters may not get used enough to matter. I hang my laundry outside to dry weather permitting instead of using the dryer. And sometimes catch the dishwasher early in the drying cycle and just open the door and let them air dry.

I also had public service do an energy audit of my home. After using the kill-a-watt meter, it wasn't much help with electric, but gave me a few projects to reduce my heating and cooling costs.

If you get into it, it makes better sense to compare KWHs rather than cost. As part of my audit, the utility company was able to offer real comparisons of both electric and gas use for similar sized homes in my area. They might have that sort of information available in your area. I seem to consistently use about 350-400 kwh/month both winter and summer for a 1350 sq ft home. (I supposed home size matters more for gas use or if you have central air).

[jp1]

Well I just read an article that said the average gas & electric bill for San Francisco, despite the mild climate, is $143.00 per month -

Wow! We must be doing fantastic then. We live in SF and our bill is about $55/month all year. And I thought that was too high considering that we never use heat or a/c.

Considering how many small apartments there are in this city I'm really surprised that it's that high, unless that average also includes the suburbs, since many of themare warm enough to require (well, not require, but create a desire for) a/c at least part of the time.