OMG - Just worked out our gas/electricity annual bill

[fionas]

We live in a cold area. I've always been gobsmacked by how much we pay for gas/electricity but I've never had enough back copies of paper bills to work out what we spend over the year. Today, I called our utility company to work it out.

Last year:

Gas - $3133 or $120 a fortnight

Electricity - $2617 or $100 a fortnight

(have based that on 26 fortnights though I've a feeling there's 27. Anyway, whatever, still a huge amount).

AND we also pay for wood for our woodburner.

We don't even use the heater anywhere near as much as I'd like to. Don't have it above 20 degrees and it's zoned.

[fionas]

AND I don't understand how we can be using that much electricity - the heating is gas. We don't have aircon. We have one TV which isn't on that much. I use the dryer a fair bit but no more than other people I wouldn't have thought.

[briggsy's girl]

it's not hard to believe that sort of expense. sadly, it's very expensive to keep the house warm, and it really doesn't take much to burn through electricity...

we pay about 150 a fn for gas and electricity combined. our house is very new, and generally not bad for needing heating and cooling - and we try to keep the heating at a max of 18 (hard to go any cooler when DD won't keep blankets on!). our previous house wasn't well insulated, and we were paying about that just in electricity (due to having to use electric heating cos gas too exxy and not in right part of house!), and then bottled gas on top (about 120 a fn)....

[~clover~]

I use less gas than power. But I have a R/C air con, so I use that rather than my gas heater. My hot water is gas though.

My gas is $110-$140 every 8 or so weeks. Power would be $40 - $80 a week depending on the heater.

[LimeSlice]

I use less gas than power. But I have a R/C air con, so I use that rather than my gas heater. My hot water is gas though.

Can I ask why you choose to use the RC Heater over the gas one? The RC Heating is MUCH more expensive to run than a gas heater in itself, and the price of gas is much less per unit than electricity...

[~clover~]

Can I ask why you choose to use the RC Heater over the gas one? The RC Heating is MUCH more expensive to run than a gas heater in itself, and the price of gas is much less per unit than electricity...

Number one reason is that I don't trust the gas heater on over night. I have the R/C on over night. I've not really thought about price. I think I'd be buying a gas bottle once every 2 weeks, rather than 8 - 10 weeks if I used the heater. I really am not sure gas here is all that cheap.
I've no idea of city prices or how it works, but compared to what my parents paid for a bottle, I pay about $50 more.

[TaRhLi.]

We live just west of Ballarat and are 100% Electricity, and over Autumn/Winter/Early Spring our electricity bill is about $1500 per quarter. Over summer it's about $400 per quarter and the summer/early Autumn quarter it's about $700, so we pay a heap in power costs.

Saying that we have 4 split systems for heating/cooling an older house (although I only use them for cooling on scorching hot days), plus TV's going and also the dryer in Winter as well, we have the heaters on around 20 degrees but on really cold nights I have to put the heater in the boys room up to 22, as they a HUGE room and won't sleep under covers yet .

Next year hopefully it will decrease a little as we will get in a load of firewood for the log burner in the lounge room - we didn't get any wood the past 2 years while the twins were babies and then just starting to explore as even though we have a fire guard it was still too risky we thought. Next winter though they will be 2 and I can hopefully make them understand to stay away from the fire, but time will tell.

Saying that it will be an interesting test to see if paying $500 for firewood means a $500 reduction in our power bill over the same timeframe, I'm tipping it will be more cost effective to just use the spilt systems but we need to try it out to see.

[helle]

We recently bought a cent-o-meter. It is a little thing that hooks onto your meter box and then you have a hand set that tells you how much electricity your house is using. We spent like a day going through the house seeing what used how much electricity and you'd be quite surprised.
The freezer used 11c an hour constantly. The kettle boils at 50c an hour, the hot plate cuts in an out a $1 an hour... Some things use masses just sitting on standby and don't even get me start on halogen lights, electrical boosted hot water systems and fish pumps.

[Jaycee]

wow! we have quite a large home and our electricity bill is usually around $350-$400 per quarter and our gas is usually around $230 per quarter, so approx 2.5k for both for the year!

[chody47]

wow! we have quite a large home and our electricity bill is usually around $350-$400 per quarter and our gas is usually around $230 per quarter, so approx 2.5k for both for the year!

Ours was around that - then with the new higher elec prices that came in mid year we suddenly had a bill for about $1000 for both! A massive increase and we didn't use any more power than usual, if anything we used less than last year as last year I was home all the time on maternity leave and this year we are all out during the day....

[fionas]

We recently bought a cent-o-meter. It is a little thing that hooks onto your meter box and then you have a hand set that tells you how much electricity your house is using. We spent like a day going through the house seeing what used how much electricity and you'd be quite surprised.
The freezer used 11c an hour constantly. The kettle boils at 50c an hour, the hot plate cuts in an out a $1 an hour... Some things use masses just sitting on standby and don't even get me start on halogen lights, electrical boosted hot water systems and fish pumps.

Thanks helle - our house is full of halogen lights! I hate the things, they were here when we moved in.

Did your cent-o-meter tell you which appliance was using what or did you have to work it out yourself by process of elimination?

[MLR1901]

We just changed providers.
Our last gas and electricity bills were around the 4-500 mark. That's with just two of us! We had gas ducted heating put in, in Jan. so was interesting to see if our electricity dropped. Previous winter we had an oil heater on a timer in our room only and a split system and air con that heats before. We only ever used the device in the room we were in and not on constantly, but peak times.
We have a smart meter installed, so I'm not sure if we will be able to track our usage by item.
But will look into it.
The new provider estimates we should see a drop by at least $100 per mth!! Both gas and electricity.
Will be interesting.
Oh forgot to add we're in Melbourne.

[Mum2SweetCs]

We have a double storey house 50sqm of living space with ducted aircon/ heating and our bills are:
300 a quarter for water
200 a quarter gas
250 a quarter electricity

We have the ducted on a few times a year but trying to save money so during winter we only use upstairs living space and during summer we will be using downstairs living space to avoid using the ducted.

We are also going to install whirly birds as upstairs gets really hot.

We looked into solar but wasnt worth our while since the solar was only good for off peak and when i go back to work we wont have anyone home.

[onthefly]

We looked into solar but wasnt worth our while since the solar was only good for off peak and when i go back to work we wont have anyone home.

Why's that? We have a small system and planning to double it. We paid $95 for electricity in the past year.

[Mum2SweetCs]

I think my husband worked it out that for the cost of the solar panels and the savings it will give us it will take many years to break even?

He said something about it working only in off peak and not in peak so thr savings is very small or something like that

[helle]

Fionas, process of elimination unfortunately. We switched everything off then back on again one at a time.