OMG - Just worked out our gas/electricity annual bill

[MummyNaomi]

Our Annual Water, Gas and Electricity Bills are as follows

Water $900
Gas $400
Electricity $4000

We only use Gas for the cooktop and Hot water, everything else is Electric. We still haven't put a washing line up outside since we built 5 years ago so we use the dryer a lot (we have drying racks in the laundry for other stuff). Our biggest electricity use is tv/computers and the reverse cycle refridgerated Aircon. We also have a beer fridge and deep freeze, both electricity guzzlers! Our Summer and Winter bills are about double what our Autumn/Spring Bills are, purely due to the heating and cooking costs

We just splashed out and installed a 8kW solar system, the electricity we export should cover our electricity bills and give us a credit to transfer to the gas bills and then some. I'm actually looking forward to our next electricity bill now!

[fionas]

Thanks everyone - looks like ours are high but not off the radar compared to other people's. It's insane isn't it? We've got a big house and we're home all day (well, not all day, we go out most days for a few hours obviously) but hopefully they'll go down when I go back to work and both girls are in school.

In the meantime, I'm going to look into solar and I've signed up for something with our provider that links to your smartmeter and tells you how much electricity you're using on an hour by hour basis. I'd really like to see how much the dryer is costing us. It's a crappy old one and I doubt it's very efficient. We have a laundry which has ducted heating so in winter (when the heating is on anyway) it would make much more sense to have a wall-mounted drying rack in there and hang the clothes on there to dry from the heater.

[Cassius2]

Gosh, it does seem that we pay so much! I always have dread when opening up the gas bill during the winter. i hate being cold so usually have it on and set to 20 that said, we turn it off in the evening and have a small space heater on instead. but yeah, i reckon ours must be up there...

[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!

[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?

[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....

[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.