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bodhipooh t1_j55k1td wrote

Personally, I would consider a $200 bill to be excessive, but there are SO MANY factors. How often do you cook and bake at home? What kind of light bulbs do you use? How much AC do you actually use? Do you watch a lot of TV? When working from home, do you use a lot of electronics? Do you have good (ie, direct) sun exposure (not the same as good amount of daylight!)

On a personal note, we just had our highest Winter bill ever in JC, but much of it can be attributed to hosting family and friends a lot over the holidays, the PSE&G rate increase (~10% increase compared to last year?) and additional usage as a result of our recent move. I expect our usage to normalize in the coming months. We have a large 2bd unit (just shy of 1200sf) and reside over 40 stories high, but we have direct sun exposure from sunrise to sunset, so that helps keep the apartment warm without having to use much AC at all. We also use LED bulbs throughout our unit, which I find lower our electrical bill substantially. Unfortunately, we now have electrical stove/oven, so that will incur a substantial bump in our electrical bill given how often we cook and bake at home.

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j55zlxx wrote

Unless you’ve extensive light usage lighting is a rounding error on most home electric bills.

Even a few 60W incandescents are dwarfed by a simple 1500W space heater running at the same time. AC and electric heat dwarf even them.

I totally recommend LED’s, but let’s not oversell it. Unless your lighting Times Square, odds are you’re saving < $10 a month if you do the math. The bigger savings is actually the longevity and not replacing them as often.

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halocene_epic t1_j564p07 wrote

Lighting load is dwarfed by the washer and dryers too. 240V motor and thermal load.

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j569akk wrote

Yup. Though those run for pretty short periods in many households (I guess depends on occupants and habits of course).

But complaining about lights goes back to the 1940’s when lights and refrigerator was 90% of the power bill. That’s just not the case anymore.

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bodhipooh t1_j56xexg wrote

You always bring up that point, which ignores all the heat those incandescent lights give off. So, on a hot summer day, you are running MORE a/c to undo the added heat all those bulbs add to the ambient air. The math of comparing the usage of 14W bulbs to 60W bulbs yields an incomplete and erroneous take if you don't account for all the other energy being spent.

I can tell you, without any sort of doubt, that I was saving a good chunk of money after switching all bulbs to LEDs. Enough that the cost of replacing bulbs (before LEDs became as cheap as they are today) was recouped within two or three months. And, those same bulbs are still going strong today, which is another upside. Heck, some newer bulbs I bought recently may quite literally outlive me.

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j56ydpd wrote

Even if it were 0% efficiency 60W is 60W of heat. That’s negligible. A fresh cup of coffee on your desk is heating the room up more.

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bodhipooh t1_j575cq0 wrote

You are really missing the math on this one. It is 60 W spent to power the bulb, with about 95% of that radiated as heat. You combine that several times over for the amount of bulbs turned on at any given time, and then you have to remove that heat from the ambient temperature by using MORE energy to power the AC. In essence, it is x2 for whatever bulb wattage. In new construction luxury buildings, where recessed lighting are common, and multiples of those, you could be looking at 6 - 10 bulbs turned on at once.

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anubis2051 t1_j56zuli wrote

You missed the big one, is your heat electric or gas? If it's electric, that makes sense.

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bodhipooh t1_j571yzo wrote

Totally... I lump that as part of A/C. But, even with electric heat (as is more common in new construction, due to the use of PTACs) I would find $200 to be excessive for a winter bill. Ours is usually around $100. This past month was a notable exception for us, for a number of reasons, as I already explained.

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anubis2051 t1_j573k2e wrote

In a 2BR? Damn those must be efficient. I had electric heating once and swore never again...

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bodhipooh t1_j576ed8 wrote

Well, like I explained above, the trick is to be savvy as far as how to minimize usage by leveraging other things. We have great Sun exposure (this is a factor that weighed heavily in choosing our current place, as well as our previous one) and we have our blinds open all day (during Summer) which allows in all the Sun available during the day. Our place gets warm enough from just the Sun exposure that we never run the heat during the day. At night, if we need it, we may run heat in our bedrooms while sleeping, though that is somewhat rare, as our place remains warm enough. For Summers, it is a bit trickier. After 9 or 10, we bring down the blinds, or it would be unbearably hot. Even with blinds down, AC may become necessary from time to time. I do like having windows open (more like cracked open, as few buildings allow you to actually open them more than a few inches) and if the day is windy enough, the draft can help keep things cooled nicely.

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objectimpermanence t1_j581n2m wrote

Depends on the type of heating. Newer electric heat pumps can very efficient for heating/cooling in our climate since we don’t have too many days where temps are consistently below 20F or so.

I’ve lived in two apartments with them and my electricity bill has rarely been over $60 even though I keep the thermostat at 68-70F whenever I’m home.

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