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How much do you all pay for Power?
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this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
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I'm paying $0.12/kwh base rate but then there's a 10% additional fee added on to support solar in my area so 13.2.
From late March to early October my monthly electricity bill is something like $89, from late October until early March my monthly bill is like $129 thanks to heating expenses.
2600 ft home in Washington State.
Any of you who are paying more than 20 cents a kilowatt hour, especially if you live in a warmer area of the country, are doing yourselves a grave disservice by not buying and installing a hybrid water heater.
They are fairly spendy, oftentimes costing $1,600 or more just for the water heater and then another thousand or two to have it installed, but heating your water is one of the largest most inescapable bills that you have and a hybrid water heater does double duty by taking the heat out of your air that you are paying to condition and putting it into your water that you were paying to heat, saving money on both at the same time by being more efficient.
If you encounter a scenario where you have $2,500 to spare on a project that will decrease your monthly bills and pay for itself, that's the one to pick, especially if you are a diy'er and are not afraid of doing a little bit of PEX work.
My electricity cost me 13.2 cents a kilowatt hour and installing an 80 gallon hybrid water heater to replace the 55 gallon that I had took $20 a month off of my power bill.
I did it myself with a little bit of help from a friend and it took me roughly an entire Saturday.
Total cost out the door was about $1,600 because I got a $500 credit from my power company to get it installed, and the water heater cost $1,600, the parts and pieces I needed cost me another $250, and I slipped my friend 250 bucks for helping out.
At an average of $20 a month power saved that water heater will pay for itself in a little under 7 years, which is a good while yes, but if you're paying 50 cents a kilowatt hour it would pay for itself in under 2 years, and if you live in a warmer climate than Washington State the extra air conditioning it provides free of charge will further decrease your energy bills especially in the summer.
I will also note that the water heater I had was 20 years old at the time and well due for a replacement, making some of this 1600 expenditure an actual necessity and not just a thriftiness move.
Take that into consideration when you are taking my advice.
Water heaters are also stupidly easy to install.
For some reason, in my locale you have to apply for a permit to replace a water heater. I strongly suspect the compliance rate with this asinine scheme is very near to zero. (For anyone reading this, yes, I will totally pay the state for the privilege of installing my own water heater in my own home when I switch mine to hybrid. Scout's honor.)
Close to the same for me here in Seattle, but my husband doesn't turn lights off (seriously--ever), so our bill is always a bit higher than yours.
Costco has smart switches from feit electric, it's a fairly simple install that should only take you a few hours to do six or seven of them.
Then anytime you want you can turn off all of those lights from your phone.
You can also upgrade all of your bulbs to led.
If you're paying roughly the same as I am, every watt you cut annually saves you about a dollar.
I appreciate the recommendation. We are gradually transitioning all of our lights on to Google Assistant because we have already had that for a little while. About a third of our lights are on it, and we have tentative plans to put the rest on it. So that will help a lot.