Ouch got the bill

[benalexe]

Ouch got my electric bill today.   This year we used 3 698 KWh vs last year we used 2 438.  I am on a balanced billing plan with Long Island power, and 7 moths remaining my I am $534 i the hole.  We pay .105898 a kwh.  

Most of you know I got my tub for free but I guess the old adage is nothing is for free.  Oh well.  Fact of the matter is I do love the tub. Really.   I hardly use it winter months. Maybe once or twice  a month. I  definitely enjoyed it more in the spring and summer- Yes I know I am not the norm.  

It is funny as I write this i think it would be great to go in right now!

I think next winter I will close it for the winter, open it up in Mid to end of March.

[Gomboman]

Ouch got my electric bill today.   This year we used 3 698 KWh vs last year we used 2 438.  I am on a balanced billing plan with Long Island power, and 7 moths remaining my I am $534 i the hole.  We pay .105898 a kwh.  

Most of you know I got my tub for free but I guess the old adage is nothing is for free.  Oh well.  Fact of the matter is I do love the tub. Really.   I hardly use it winter months. Maybe once or twice  a month. I  definitely enjoyed it more in the spring and summer- Yes I know I am not the norm.  

It is funny as I write this i think it would be great to go in right now!

I think next winter I will close it for the winter, open it up in Mid to end of March.

Benny, that sounds pretty good to me. It looks like you used about 200 kwh more than normal. That's only a little over $20 per month. I would love to have your electric bill. My rates are 3x yours. You can't take the family out to Taco Bell for $20. Good luck.....

[hottubdan]

Benny, that sounds pretty good to me. It looks like you used about 200 kwh more than normal. That's only a little over $20 per month. I would love to have your electric bill. My rates are 3x yours. You can't take the family out to Taco Bell for $20. Good luck.....

Um, 1,200

[Gomboman]

Sorry, couldn't follow the post. "3 698 KWh vs last year we used 2 438". Thought he meant from 438 to 698. Can't believe the spa could use 1200kwh's. Are you saying 3698 vs 2438 for an entire year? Don't understand the calcs.

[benalexe]

Sorry, couldn't follow the post. "3 698 KWh vs last year we used 2 438". Thought he meant from 438 to 698. Can't believe the spa could use 1200kwh's. Are you saying 3698 vs 2438 for an entire year? Don't understand the calcs.

That is for 70 days.  So last year total bill for the same time was for 2298 KWH. This yea it was for 3698.

Long Island has some of the highest rates in he country for electric. My total bill based on balanced billing of 12 month is $306 for a 2,600 square foot home.

[Spatech_tuo]

At some point you need to better insulate that spa. The method Thermospa uses is not yielding positive results and I think that was discussed long ago. I'd get out there as soon as I could because you're heating your yard every day it’s operating.

[benalexe]

At some point you need to better insulate that spa. The method Thermospa uses is not yielding positive results and I think that was discussed long ago. I'd get out there as soon as I could because you're heating your yard every day it’s operating.

Right now i hvae it turned down to 80 degrees and econ mode.  I do this if I am not using it for a few weeks.  When I know I am going to be around I will turn it up to 102.

[ndabunka]

That is for 70 days.  So last year total bill for the same time was for 2298 KWH. This yea it was for 3698.

Long Island has some of the highest rates in he country for electric. My total bill based on balanced billing of 12 month is $306 for a 2,600 square foot home.

Did you add two bills together to get the "70 day" period?  We get a monthly bill here and are also on the "balanced-payment plans" for both our gas and electric.  Hasn't this winter been colder than last winter in your area though?  Don't you think that a lot of that difference would then be unrelated to the hot tub itself, right?

For comparisons that allow better isolation of hot tub costs, you may want to reference my results for that same period.  Our 3400 square foot home in North Carolina averages $120/month for electric and we used 1,200 KwH this period vs. 1,274KwH the year prior.  This averages out to around $3/day.  This covers the Hot tub and all electric but no heating requirements as we have gas heat and pay around $100/month.  However, our gas usage this year were 43% higher consumption than last year for the same 30-day period.  If yours is similar to mine, then it is also likely that over 40% of your increase should be attributed to your weather rather than to your tub.

[Chas]

I will generally add this to any thread dealing with the cost of operating a spa -

The only way you can possibly know how much of your bill is going to support the tub is to meter the tub by itself. Many dealers have meters you can borrow to do this, although it might require the help of somebody who is qualified to work with electrical to hook it up for you and remove it later.

Simply reading your bill will never give you an accurate number, for many reasons. Some of those reasons are:

• People with a spa tend to be home more because they now have a good reason to be.
• If you ARE home more, you will run more lighting and heat, or AC in warm weather.
• You may be running more laundry, perhaps just the dryer.
• You may entertain more. More people burn more power.
• More entertaining means more food in the 'fridge, more power.
• The whole season could be much cooler or much warmer than the year before.
• Learning the ins and outs of a spa means opening the cover much more.
• You could have an appliance anywhere in your home which is getting old.
• Extra 'fridge, freezer, AC unit,
• More water use means more use of your well pump if you have such a device.

I can't even begin to tell you how many times I have gone out and metered a spa for some customer who was livid over a hundred-dollar jump in the power bill the first month. I go out, hook up the meter, teach them how to read it, and come back the next month to find that the tub only used $25 worth of power. Add four or five bucks to generously cover the cost of heating the start-up water, and they have $30 to run the spa. They stare at me as if it is now my job to find out where the rest of the money is going!

Actually, over the years I have found about ten older refrigerators which were consuming close to fifty bucks all by themselves. Those appliances don't have any warning system to let you know if they have lost almost all of their freon - they just start running 24 hours a day to try to keep cool, and that costs a ton of money.

We had one regular poster who had a huge first bill. She called the power company and they just scoffed and told her it had to be that new hot tub. I don't recall how many more large bills she had to pay before finding out that the water line from her well to her house had cracked and her well pump was running around the clock.

I know it seems hard to believe - but it is true. I hear it all the time, "the tub is the only thing that changed..." but we had to deliver the tub around a huge mess in the patio - "oh, my son moved back home, that's some of his stuff..." Uh, hello?

Sometimes I will look NOT at the bill from last year at this time, but at the bills for three months before the tub shows up, and see a steady increase. That could be weather change, or even a Bad 'fridge. Or we look at the weather - record-breaking heat wave, ran the AC all night for a week, somebody was home sick for three days, etc.

Finally, and this has happened more than once: the same electrician who wired the spa also installed four new ceiling fans, an attic fan, some nice big yard lights, some low-voltage lighting around the spa, and a security light out front... I have been out to some houses here in SoCal where we did so much metering of appliances and such that we ended up saving people a hundred a month on the power bills going forward - and that was AFTER Edison came out and did one of their free power audits.


 8-)

[Bonibelle]

  Yep, I was that regular poster who had the well pump (220 line) running around the clock..I think that filling the tub might have just made a small leak into a huge one because water was leaking in the line going to the house as well as back into the well from the pitless adapter..(whatever that is??) What a coincidence   and if the pump didn't finally fail all together, I would still be paying HUGE electric bills...

In all that time that I was going crazy trying to figure out what had happened, I discovered many ways to reduce my electric bills...Chas, you suggested that I replace my 20 year old freezer and that made a big difference.

[benalexe]

Went skiing today.  After a 3 hr ride home I decided to go to the tub, heat it up to 102 so tomorrow AM I will be soaking.  As I said I really love having it.

[ndabunka]

Went skiing today.  After a 3 hr ride home I decided to go to the tub, heat it up to 102 so tomorrow AM I will be soaking.  As I said I really love having it.

We have a similar trip to our slopes.  Oddly enough, in two different directions depending on if we ski in NC or WV.  Where did you ski?  A 3 hour trip may not seem long to most but after skiing all day, even a 3 hour trip will wear out that last bit of energy left in your system.  I LOVE jumping into the tub after getting home.  Next time, turn it but before you leave so you don't have to wait until the morning...

[tanstaafl2]

Is there a simplified meter that you could plug into an outlet and them plug an appliance like a refrigerator into that can give you a sense of how much power is being used. I have an old fridge in the basement and would be curious to see how much power it is using.

I know it wouldn't work for a spa or a dryer which runs on 220 but it might be a simpler tool for some things than having to wire something in for people not all that comfortable around a live wire...

[tanstaafl2]

Is there a simplified meter that you could plug into an outlet and them plug an appliance like a refrigerator into that can give you a sense of how much power is being used. I have an old fridge in the basement and would be curious to see how much power it is using.

I know it wouldn't work for a spa or a dryer which runs on 220 but it might be a simpler tool for some things than having to wire something in for people not all that comfortable around a live wire...

May have answered my own question. Anybody used something like this?
http://www.smarthome.com/9034/Kill-A-Watt-P4400/p.aspx

[gwstudios]

I'll trade bills with anybody here. Two furnaces, a hot tub, plasma TV's, you name it.

$500+ a month is average.

* I forgot about four fridges running all the time. Two full size side by sides, a wine fridge, and another behind our bar. By the way, a PS3 at idle draws as much as those fridges combined.