What do you pay per KWH

Crumm

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With the high price of heating oil I have been thinking about installing a electric hot water heater for use during the summer so I can shut off my boiler. In all the research I have done it seems that it is a toss-up as to weather it is really cheaper and since I just installed a new high high efficiency boiler it is probably not worth it at all but I am still thinking.

I just got my new electric bill and what do you know:
The Regulatory Commission of Alaska recently approved a two percent increase to Golden Valley Electric Association's rates.

The timing of this rate increase coincides with an increase in the Fuel Adjustment by three cents per kilowatt-hour. For the average residential member, the overall effect is an increase of approximately $25 per month.
Just a few years ago my bill was under $100 a month. Since last November when we got hit with a big increase I have been over $200 a month twice and close to it the rest of the time. This bill I just got with there $25 increase is $237.82 compared to last month being $181.00. I figured it up and if I deduct the $15 customer charge it is $.203 per KWH this month and last month it was $.171 so it is just over $.03 increase. June of 07' it was $.134

What are the rates in your area? I am thinking that $.203 is very high? We run a little under 1000 kWh during the summer and under 1,200 during the winter due to lights. Even at $4.00 a gallon for heating oil I am thinking that hot water via boiler has got to be cheaper than hot water via $.203 per KWH?
 

Mike K

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I THINK (this is going from memory) it is about $.11-.12

I have electric everything. My eletric bill is about $70-$150 a month depending on the time of the year. My brother, who is living in my house, does a good job of conserving electricity. I, other other hand, use A LOT. When i am home on vacation it is not uncommon to see a $400 bill.
 

JLDickmon

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mine just went up..
$.17 per kwh...
my power company just sold a nuke plant, so they have to buy power from the new owner..
plus energy costs are skyrocketing like everything else..
 
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JimmyDee

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Back when I had an electric water heater, I figured 50% of my bill was the water heater. At the .20 cents per KWH, it is going to be costing you about 90 cents an hour to run the water heater. Usually they run 4500 watts. I would be curious to know how long it takes for your oil fired system to recover with the WH tank being cold.
Either way, your costs of heating water is going to be very costly.
BTW, not to rub it in but my last electric bill was $29 with a high last year of $38 except for the hot August with the AC running and that one was $47. I changed all my light bulbs starting about 5 years ago to compact florescent and that has cut about $10-$12 a month from my bill. We have the good fortune of having natural gas and they haven't really stuck it to us YET.
Jim
 

hheynow

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Baseline Usage $0.11559 Kwh
101-130% Baseline $0.13142 Kwh
131-200% Baseline $0.22580 Kwh

We need more nuclear power plants to lower these rates... :rant
 

MBRPCrazyford

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I think we're somewhere around $.08-$.10 around here. The rates are fixin to go up in the next 6 months to a year though.
 

Crumm

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I would be curious to know how long it takes for your oil fired system to recover with the WH tank being cold.

Just a few minutes. The system will produce 195 gallons of hot water per hour so to heat up the 40 gallon tank it should take around 12 minutes. During this 12 minutes the boiler would not be running over 4 minutes as it heats to 170º in less than a minute then the hot glycol circulates into the indirect water heater until the glycol falls to a temp of 158º then the boiler fires again. When the boiler is running it has a burn rate of 1gph so 4 minutes would be .065 gallons or $.26 at $4.00 a gallon. At this rate it is costing me $.0065 per gallon.

Daily use
5 showers = 60 gallons
2 load laundry = 64 gallons
dishwasher 10 gallons
personal(hands ext) 10 gallons
Total = 144 gallons = $.93 a day = $28 a month.

During the winter this is reduced as the boiler is already up to temp heating the house.

How much $ would it cost to heat 40 gallons with electricity at a rate of $.203 per kwh? or to heat 4320 gallons a month?
 

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