Lighting Cost Useage??

[miss_kristyn]

Can someone tell me how much there electricity bill has gone up with having lighting on for there torts?

 

[Tim/Robin]

Can someone tell me how much there electricity bill has gone up with having lighting on for there torts?

A lot!! But we have had a lot of cold and cloudy days, so the furnace is running a lot too. I am not sure of a dollar amount, but there has been a noticeable increase. But,they are worth it, just think, summer all the time!!

 

[miss_kristyn]

I was just wondering how much kilo watts difference do people see? Like a 1,000 in month?? Cause I got a meter read of 1,000 more kilo watts a month. And sorry I just don't see two lights being the source of 1,000 kilo watts. I also talked to the guy and he said the meter could be busted. I was just wondering the actual rise in kilo watts for a month of two clamp lights at 24 watts (the 5.0 UVB light bulbs) being ran all day excluding night, making an increase of a 1000 kilo watts in one month?

 

[miss_kristyn]

The increase in my electric bill was 200.00 and I cant see two little lights doing that.

 

[twtraudio]

It will probablu\y go up 2-5 bucks per light per month. Its not that bad at all really.

 

[tortoisenerd]

Miss Kris-Sounds like another factor, such as winter heat costs, or like you said, a busted meter. In a household heating and cooling is usually the huge cost. See this pie chart for example: http://www.pesinc.org/Energy Star Pie Chart.gif

To calculate the impact of a tort's energy costs, I'll use myself as an example. I have a 100 watt Mega Ray I leave on 12 hours a day, and a 150 watt heat emitter on all the time. I'll say the Mega Ray uses 50 watts for the 24 hour day for an average.

50+150=200 watts
200 watts*24 hours =4,800 watt-hours=4.8 kilowatt hours (kwh)
4.8 kwh/$.10/kwh=$0.48
$0.48*30 days average a month=$14.40 it costs for my tort's electricity based upon an electric rate of 10 cents per kwh

Some electric companies have a base rate per an allocated amount, and if you go over that usage amount they start to charge you a higher rate. I used 10 cents to make the math easy--I think I actually pay a little more like 7 or 8 cents per kwh.

It's easily seen how this can multiply for many animals!

I can't compare to my own bills because it's our first winter in our place (don't know how much it actually went up with the tort). We just got a $140 bill though so I was sad.

Hope you get this figured out! If this is a new place for you or your thermostat is set higher than last year, I could actually understand the $200 increase though.

 

[galvinkaos]

Also check your meter reading vs the billed reading. We had a problem last year with fluctuating bills over like six months and had our meter reread. We then got a revised bill of $900.00. Ouch not the direction we expected. We had to make payments over 3 months (plus our regular bill) but we paid it. I actually estimated that our meter reader had been estimating our read for close to a year and just used close to our previous months. In Nov we got an unusually high bill and in Dec an unusually low, So I called and demanded a reread (no way it was going to compound again) We were adjusted and they gave us a credit for going way over baseline in Nov. So checking your meter vs the bill may be your answer.

Dawna

 

[nrfitchett4]

I paid 0.067 per kw last month, after all the charges (fuel, electricity availability, etc) here in SA.