Ska's 28 Macro Algae Display

[skabooya]

Sorry I havent been on in a while. I ended up spending my money on bookshelves for my office $1000+ which i really needed. My knees and bum were getting sore from doing paper work on the floor and digging through piles of books and papers stacked up on average 3ft high on the floor.
Anyway I managed to save up enough money to buy some equiptment YAY! and then BOOM the electric bill comes. Did you know that there is a new residential conservation rate? It just started up Oct 1 of this year. Well you can imagine my ****yness when our electric bill went up an extra $100 because of this.
This is an incentive for people to conserve energy and to do this they are going to charge extra for power. So instead of power costing $0.06550 it is now going to cost in total $0.18 on average BUT it will depend. I quote "If you use less than 2260 kWh on a bi-monthly basis you will pay less than under the previous flat rate structure" it goes on to say "The new rate structure provides a price incentive to encourage conservation"
It says on the hydro website if you use more than 1350kWh you will pay 7.21cents/kwh until April 1 2009 at which time this price will go up to 8.21/kwh cents. But if you use less than 1350kWh then you only pay 5.95/kwh cents until April 1, 2009 when the price goes up to 6.35 cents per kwh and this is on top of the rate we are paying now which is a little over 6 cents.
BUT get this there are 2 steps to this Step one charges 0.5980/kwh and step 2 charges 0.07210/kwh so really you are getting charged 3 times. WHY? i have no idea and when i called they couldnt explain it to me either and only told me to wait until they read the meter again in november and re-bill me. I was like WTF?
So in total i am paying 18cents per kWh.
This means the tank I want to set up will now cost PER MONTH:

Heater = 100watts 24/7
Hydor K1 = 3.5watts 24/7
Hydor k2= 4.5watts 24/7
Skimmer = 10watts 24/7
Lights = ~160watts 8hrs

watts/1000 (conversion to kW) then
kW x hours x kWh cost (18 cents in my case) x 31 (days of the month)
Then you get your answer

For me its $127.38/month AND this does not include normal upkeep costs, salt, water, food, etc. This is just for electric.
Before this my 28gal would have cost me about $50/month. I feel sorry for those that have 100+ gal systems WOW!

So now what do i do. Do i still do salt water or do i switch to something else that is cheaper. *sigh* our economy sucks.

[X-Treme]

Originally Posted by skabooya

So in total i am paying 18cents per kWh.
This means the tank I want to set up will now cost PER MONTH:

Heater = 100watts 24/7
Hydor K1 = 3.5watts 24/7
Hydor k2= 4.5watts 24/7
Skimmer = 10watts 24/7
Lights = ~160watts 8hrs

watts/1000 (conversion to kW) then
kW x hours x kWh cost (18 cents in my case) x 31 (days of the month)
Then you get your answer

For me its $127.38/month AND this does not include normal upkeep costs, salt, water, food, etc. This is just for electric.
Before this my 28gal would have cost me about $50/month. I feel sorry for those that have 100+ gal systems WOW!

So now what do i do. Do i still do salt water or do i switch to something else that is cheaper. *sigh* our economy sucks.

Why on EARTH would your heater be running 24/7????

[marie]

Originally Posted by skabooya

... Did you know that there is a new residential conservation rate? It just started up Oct 1 of this year. Well you can imagine my ****yness when our electric bill went up an extra $100 because of this.
This is an incentive for people to conserve energy and to do this they are going to charge extra for power. So instead of power costing $0.06550 it is now going to cost in total $0.18 on average BUT it will depend. I quote "If you use less than 2260 kWh on a bi-monthly basis you will pay less than under the previous flat rate structure" it goes on to say "The new rate structure provides a price incentive to encourage conservation"
It says on the hydro website if you use more than 1350kWh you will pay 7.21cents/kwh until April 1 2009 at which time this price will go up to 8.21/kwh cents. But if you use less than 1350kWh then you only pay 5.95/kwh cents until April 1, 2009 when the price goes up to 6.35 cents per kwh and this is on top of the rate we are paying now which is a little over 6 cents...
.

Maybe I'm reading my bill wrong but I don't think it's "on top of the rate we are paying now which is a little over 6 cents"
My bill has been separated into 2 parts, before oct 1st and after oct 1 and nowhere after oct 1 is there an extra 6 cent charge just the $.059 and the $.072

Oh yea and I'm paying about $120 a month and I have 4 tanks running, 1 of them is my 175g

[skabooya]

Marie: That is why I called them yesterday to figure this out. It didnt make any sence to me. My bill says that under the normal rate of 0.06550/kWh i would have spent 76.05 last month. Which is what i would have had to pay before.

Under that it says Usage Charge step 1 and step 2 "Oct 01 to Oct 16 (residential conservation rate 1101) Basic charge: 16 days @ $ 0.12380/day"
Step 1 then goes on to charge me $21.23 and step 2 charges me 63.81 and then gst 8.29

Now the charge of my 75.05 for the normal usage plus step 1 and 2 and gst and the rider rate and the clean energy fund levy My total comes out to $174.79 for everything in my house.

So they basically charged me 3 times. Now, what i was told on the phone by these people was to wait until the november reading for a re-billing. She said that it would make more sense next month but If im paying a total of 18cents / kWh staying under the 1350 kWh line then i will be paying about 2Cents extra /kWh (20 cents total) if i go over that AND it will all change April 1 when the rates go up. SO then the norm would be 19 cents normally if i stay under the 1350 line and 21 cents if i go over.

And marie whats your secret to only paying that much for your tanks??
I currently have only one tank running (i tore down the other two) and its FW. I got rid of my hot tub, switched to cold water, changed all the bulbs in my house, etc etc etc and Im paying more now than what i did last year. WTF??? makes no sense to me. Please Please tell me your secret.

X-Treme
Is it wrong to have a heater running 24/7 ?? I thought that the temp would be regulated that way. Thats the way ive been doing it for years and my temps stay constant. When the temp goes over what i set it too on the heater then the heater shuts off until the temp falls below what i set it too and then it comes back on.
Please explain why its not a smart thing to do to run a heater on 24/7 im confused with this.

[X-Treme]

Well in your billing summary you are figuring out power usage for your heater RUNNING 24/7. Just because it is plugged in 24/7 doesn't mean it RUNS 24/7. Due to lighting and ambient temps, I would say that your heater actually RUNS (is turned on) 6 hours per day at the ABSOLUTE MAX. Therefore it only draws power for that amount of time. So you would use 600 watts per day rather than your calculated 2400watts.

[skabooya]

very true X-treme but even with those calculations i would only be saving a couple of bucks so i would still be paying over $100 a month for a 28gal tank which is outrageous to me. And you also need to remember that a heater isint completely turned off if it is still plugged in think of it as on standby. There is still some energy being used so that it can detect when it needs to be turned on or off. Its the same as a computer in standby or sleep mode. Technically its still on and using power but not as much.

[fkshiu]

Originally Posted by skabooya

Is it wrong to have a heater running 24/7 ?? I thought that the temp would be regulated that way. Thats the way ive been doing it for years and my temps stay constant. When the temp goes over what i set it too on the heater then the heater shuts off until the temp falls below what i set it too and then it comes back on.
Please explain why its not a smart thing to do to run a heater on 24/7 im confused with this.

What he means is that your heater is only drawing electricity (i.e. "ON") when the little red light is on. You may have it plugged in, but it's not drawing electricity 24/7. Therefore, you cannot say that your 50W heater is using 50W all day long as say your return pump would be.

[skabooya]

Ok i dont know what i was doing yesterday but i think i was typing in 18 instead of .18 or something.
So let me do these calculations online so you guys can make sure im doing it right. Math is not my best subject

Heater 100w
hk1 3.5w
hk2 4.5w
skimmer 10w
lights 160w

the first 4 are 24/7 so i will do them together. they come out to 118watts total divided by 1000 = 0.118kW

then I go 0.118 x 24hours x 0.18 cents x 31 days = $15.80

next: 160/1000 = 0.16kW 0.16kW x 8 x 0.18 x 31 = $7.14

15.80 + 7.14 = $22.94 a month.


That is much better than the $100+ i did yesterday. What the heck was i thinking for those equations? Wow.

[X-Treme]

You are still wrong with calculating that your heater will draw 100w 24/7. If you want a 24/7 figure I would go with 25w. (ie. drawing 100W 1/4 of the day)

[skabooya]

ok so im overestimating slightly. The point is that im not paying $100+ a month anymore. And if the heater isint on all that time then the price will be under $20 a month YAY!!!!