whats your power bill each month?

Thankfully I don't have to pay an electric bill. One of the many benefits to being in the military and living on base. Good thing too because I leave my 3 PCs on constantly, and I have a laptop and a 46" TV on top of that.
 
RedTalon19 said:
Thankfully I don't have to pay an electric bill. One of the many benefits to being in the military and living on base. Good thing too because I leave my 3 PCs on constantly, and I have a laptop and a 46" TV on top of that.
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Yes, but unless your E-7 and above or Officer, some on-post housing is not excellent.
 
Turns out i managed to double my girlfriend's electricity bill since i moved in :p lol whoops!
 
Around $45 a month, though I suspect a lot of it is because my water heater is electric. I save money by letting my desktops heat my apartment. I've made it the entire winter without turning on the heat.
 
thax said:
power should be dirt cheep
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Some might argue power should be as expensive as possible in order to dissuade people from using as much of it, and drive adoption and development of more power efficient equipment and AC's.

This would help get us off foreign oil, help put less toxic heavy metals in the air from burning coal (there is no such thing as clean coal, it's made up propaganda) and - if you are into that sort of thing, slow climate change.

Personally I am torn. I would support raising energy costs, but I feel for low income people who wouldn't be able to afford heat in the winter, and cooling in the summer (heat being more important than cooling.)

If I were king for a day, I'd abolish all taxes currently in existence, and have one massive use tax on energy. Those who were diligent and used less power would pay almost no tax. Those who were energy hogs would pay a lot.

There would have to be some sort of exemption for low income people, but long term this would b e fantastic for America.

Energy use would be driven down by incentive, and we might finally get out from under the thumb of Arab states that hate us.

Anyway, yes 8c per KWH is super cheap compared to here in the northeast. I pay almost 20c per KWH.
 
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Mine is approximately $100 a month, mostly due to the refrigerator and electric space heaters
 
I think it would be cool if some of todays smarter UPS's could have a setting on them that would allow you to track the amount of power they were using over time and convert it to $ figures based on you inputting your current energy rate. I know the UPS logs show power spikes and dips and everything, however, I've never seen one that tracks power usage of what is hooked up to it for energy use\planning, etc.

Does something like that exist yet?

My current UPS has an LCD on it that displays runtime, voltage, error messages, etc., but nothing that shows me how much it's going to cost me in terms of monthly A\C usage with the peripherals that are attached to it.

I mean, when I add an additional LCD panel or something to my rig, I can see that I'm using 300W instead of 2XX, etc., but I don't know what that extra amount is going to cost me. I could calulate it I suppose but it would be nice if the UPS software could do that for me. :)

The UPS could say, hey bonehead, those 2 extra LCD panels are going to cost you another $12.95 per month in electrical costs. :)


Speaking of that, does that seem about average?

I'm currently running a Q6600 system with a 700 watt power supply and four 22 inch LCD panels. GPU set is a GFX 460 and an HD3850.

My UPS readout goes from 280 to 300 watts used at idle. I'll have to test it under load sometime. Just curiuos of the people here that have UPS's with watt usage on the LCD panel what yours normally reads? Is it around 300 watts, or much less \ greater?

Update: Looking over the latest version of PowerChute personal edition, it does mention "PowerChute Personal Edition can also periodically send information to APC about your battery backup, your energy useage, and quality of your AC utility power."

Since it's doing that, it should be able to send me a nice report of how much I am paying for A/C.

And now I notice (at least with the Dec 2010 version), there is in fact a small flashing icon at the bottom of the screen near the Estimated runtime that lists the kilowatt used per day with a price and even CO2 emissions. Cool. It says I am using 6.85 kWh per day and it's costing .69 cents per day. Thats with my system at idle. When I'm using my system, however, most of the cores are at 75% for hours on end.

When did they add these nice features to PowerChute? Guess it's been over 2 years since I've used the software. Nice enhancements to say the least.

Geez, it is even telling me how many trees will be hurt due to my usage and comparing that to how much driving would cause the same carbon dioxide polution. :)

It's about time they add the features I requested only 2 minutes ago. :)

Double Update:

Oh no!!!

It's going way up the longer you use it from install time. It's at .75 cents per day now. This could get ugly, especially once I max the load on the cores.
 
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thax said:
um wtf you smoking we pay out the ass for power how it is in the summer my power bill is over $300 for 700sqft apt i pay over $100 a month for shit other then my power bill, its $50 a month for Katrina repairs still a $40+ fuel surcharge and like 10 to maintain the lines. so yea i use like 1000kw a month in the summer and pay 300-350 so fuck paying more, power should be dirt cheep
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DIS IS AAAAMERICAA!

Here's a solution, don't use as much power.
 
$68/m SoCal

i7 PC, P4 Server, Fridge, Electric Stove, Electric Washer, Electric Dryer, Dish Washer, Lights (duh)

I game on my 27" LCD TV. So it doubles as a TV/PC Monitor (Should have gone way bigger, but forgot to return it to Costco within 90 days LOL)
 
I rent out a portion of a large house (it's technically a studio apartment, but more like a glorified master suite. It's big, just remodeled, I have my own bathroom/micro-kitchen thing... I dig it) and the bill is split 7 ways. My portion was $64.39, which is "unusually high" according to the lady that owns the place.

All I know is, with all other bills tossed in, I was still under $100. If that's high, I'll take it. My last place was with 3 other kids around my age and those folks knew nothing of energy conservation. My normal utils bills would total 150+. What's $100 more in rent when I'm saving nearly $100 on utils? Looks like I just upgraded for free.

I have the system in my sig, which is on pretty much whenever I'm home. I have my MacBook which is on a lot but likely barely makes any dent in the bill. I have a small entertainment center and a DJ setup, but most things are only on when I need them. And nearly everything is on switched power strips, so when I'm not using it, it's definitely off.

All of my lights are CFLs, which I've never had trouble with. I don't know about the issues some have mentioned here, as my cheapo bulbs have lasted me years. I just like getting 150w 'equivalent' bulbs that suck less juice than a standard 50w (I'm a light whore, for sure). Yea, there is a bit of warm-up time to them, but really, I hardly notice. I prefer the color of the light, anyway.

Other than that, I live just north of San Francisco, so the weather isn't too horrible. I keep my windows open most of the time, really.
 
You guys should try paying a electricity bill in Puerto Rico... never thought it could be so high, 3 times the price as vegas.

Edit: Four bedroom's, pool, power saving products wherever possible, and a couple computers. 500+ a month. The A/C only runs about 1 month out of the year, and is a split one room unit, and never mind going a week without the diesel generator kicking in. Also I have to have a UPS hooked up to any desktops just to make sure I don't get any dirty signals (and for the time it take the gen too kick in). But watching the sun come up over the Atlantic, and the beautiful Luquillo beach is worth it.
 
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