High Tide Aquatics

Almost had a Heart Attack!

Yeah, my bill hit $650 one month too. (It was a spike due to AC)

I've managed to get it back down for the past few months to $400-$450 by changing one of the tanks from MH+T5s to lowlight T5 only and reducing AC use.

New roof getting installed in a month. Going to put in some serious insulation.
 
sfsuphysics said:
I nearly had one of those heart attack moments this morning when I opened a bill from my dentist and looked at the Amount Due box... yikes. Of course further reading shows they sent a request to the insurance company for reimbursement, so that bill will get knocked down by about 75% (and yeah it was around the same cost as Brian's electric bill :D)
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That's not bad Mike. Dental work is expensive. Haha.
 
iani said:
sfsuphysics said:
I nearly had one of those heart attack moments this morning when I opened a bill from my dentist and looked at the Amount Due box... yikes. Of course further reading shows they sent a request to the insurance company for reimbursement, so that bill will get knocked down by about 75% (and yeah it was around the same cost as Brian's electric bill :D)
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That's not bad Mike. Dental work is expensive. Haha.
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Too bad you can't work on yourself.....or can you??? :lol:
 
Maybe the barter system, 4 fillings for a crown or something :D

Ian, yeah I know it can get expensive, it was two fillings that had to be redone, one of them was a large one, and the dentist decided composite would be best for the overall tooth.. an hour and a half in the chair too, I didn't realize it because my jaw was numbed up but man it was painful after it wore off.
 
You are getting me to have second thoughts about a big tank one day and start selling off the equipment already acquired for it.
 
After a phone call today with PG&E I have learned that the state puts a standard base line amount on power usage of 375 kilowatts a month for single family homes. This is the amount the state says we can use with no additional fees or surcharges. What this means is whether you live alone in a 500 square ft single bedroom apartment or with 6 people in a 5 bedroom 5000 square ft house the base line amount is the same. This really sucks. The lady at PG&E was very nice and helpful and was trying to help me find ways to save on energy.
 
Ouch you didn't know about the multiple tiers? yeah they can get you good, when you hit that 300%+ tier I think you're paying almost 3 times as much for electricity.
 
http://www.pge.com/myhome/customerservice/financialassistance/medicalbaseline/understand/

5-Tier Rate Structure for Electric Use
Tier # Description
Tier 1 Up to the Baseline amount
Tier 2 Electricity usage from 101% to 130% of Baseline
Tier 3 Electricity usage from 131% to 200% of Baseline
Tier 4 Electricity usage from 201% to 300% of Baseline
Tier 5 Electricity usage in excess of 300% of Baseline

http://www.pge.com/tariffs/electric.shtml
 
I knew about the different tiers. I didn't know that the state sets Your base line amount and that it is only set by the type of housing it is, not by the size or even the # of people that live in the house
 
I have 32 Solar Panels on my roof! Summer Peak I produce about 35KWhrs every day... Now it's down to about 22-20 (non cloudy days)

I have a 160 G Tank with Solaris LED I 48 System which is supposed to save power... I also have 2x 250MHs. Chiller and The normal 2-3 pumps (including the Skimmers).

I'm on a metered time of day usage billing which is cheaper than normal rates... Last month was a shocker!

$330! My max power bill used to be $200 tops! But I have a feeling PGE increased rates without contacting us! Could that be the case! It's not the AC... I also have a pool/spa which takes power, but my stove and Washer/Dryer are gas! It does not make sense... AC is running as usual... But it has not been too hot last month!

I smell something fishy.... Oh wait, I cleaned my sump last night... That's it :p

I have 3 Kill a Watts installed... One to watch my Chiller and one for my frag tank which uses hardly any... I dropped my light ON hours last week to see if that makes any difference!

Still... The plot thickens...
 
Brian, yeah it's based upon a particular single family home and the area that they live, for instance me in San Francisco I don't get as high an electrical usage as any place where AC is the norm. Is it fair? Eh... how else would you do it? Should you get more power allocated to you just because you have a larger house? How about people in the house? Want PG&E knocking on your door every year or so to take a census of who lives there? :)

What I hate is the water company when it would implement mandatory water rationing when I already was conserving a lot, so I was skirting the edge of the bare minimum (no lawn, minimal laundry, quick showers) so when I had to cut 10% it was a lot harder than someone who washes their car every weekend and has a huge lawn they keep nice and green. So rather than getting pissed I got a reef tank, and a girl who moved in and takes showers on average 6 times as long as I do, now if I need to cut water no problem, I give her less time in the shower :D

Aalhait, well your solaris is 400w for the 48" fixture right? 500w for the 2 halides, lets say 100w for the 3 pumps so if you have all the lights on for 8 hours a day (just to get a number) .4kW * 8h + .5kW *8h * .1kW * 3 * 24h = 14.4kW a day just from the lights and pumps, the chiller could also add to that quite a bit depending how often it kicks on. Even if you run your tank on a night schedule your chiller most likely will be working more during the day and your pumps end up costing you more since peak usage is 3 times as much as non peak, so really during those hours they're costing you 3 times as much as they do at night (even though the electricity amount is the same)

Here's a question you mention a time of use meter with your solar panels which IIRC might not be a good thing to do, while yes your solar panels sell power at that higher peak rate, which IIRC is close to 30cents per kWh just for the first tier but shoots up to over 60c per kWh if you're in the 300% range. So if your solar panels are not keeping up with your usage during the day you could potentially be majorly screwed because even in off peak rates its still 9 cents per kWh which isn't much cheaper than a standard usage rate. So in order for you to break even on power usage you need your panels to make more power than you use during the day plus 1/3 of what you use at night. ToU is great only if you aren't using much of any power during the day. If after all your AC, Pool, Spa, etc your panels still aren't making adequate power to cover that load you should really think about switching back to an E-1 usage which is a 1:1 trade off, every kWh you make you bank with no conversions at all.

Yikes just looked at PG&Es rates for E-1 apparently the 300% baseline is charging $0.44348 now!
 
Keep in mind that most of the solar power that you are producing with your solar panels is getting made during peak hours and you are credited at that rate.
 
True enough, however if your solar panels are not creating more than you're using during that same time then your most likely are getting hosed over because you're paying almost three times as much as a standard usage rate, so unless you barely squeak over during peak hours and use a ton of off-peak power you really aren't saving yourself anything.

Note this does depend how much over you may be using, and by what amount, etc, something that could easily be compiled in a spreadsheet program using your bills to compare to, and it really is something that needs to be done, I've heard way too many solar providers instantly knee jerk say that time of use meter is superior without even considering when the residence uses its electricity.

But I agree in that moving your tank to an off-peak lighting schedule is a good thing if it hasn't already been done.
 
Another thing to look at, for those who "don't have much money..." if you really must be hard headed and keep a reef tank look into PG&E CARE program, you don't really have to be as poor as you think to qualify. Granted 30.5K might be hard to live on in this area for 1-2 family homes but it's possible.

http://pge.com/myhome/customerservice/financialassistance/care/eligibility/index.shtml

If you can qualify you pay slighly lower rates for tier 1, less than 9c per kWh, but for all other usage beyond that you're paying less than 10c per kWh. SO if you have a huge reef tank taking pay cut might actually save you more money in the long run :D
 
aalhait said:
Still... The plot thickens...
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I'm sure you have a time of use meter like me.
Set the timer on your lights to come on during "off peak " hours. Its 3x less $ ! .
Also try to use other stuff in the house during off peak also.
If you don't already do this you may be surprised what the difference is. :)
 
JAR said:
We do have an electric spa!
We heat with a wood stove and the house is passive solar.
All the south facing windows heat the house.
I would not heat with electric.
It's too costly to make that much electricity with solar.
I think natural gas is most efficient.
Insulation is your friend.
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JAR said:
Insulation is your friend.
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I agree: We have a wood stove, but they're coming under fire, and soon, may be outlawed as spare the air days in winter have been successfully implemented, so we are planning to go central heating in the next year or so. We have a gas line to our house, but it would cost more the four grand to bring into the house. After reading your post, I'm beginning to think it may be worth it. I'll have to crunch the numbers. Our electric spa has a massive 5000 watt heater in it so I wondering if solar would be strong enough to power it; and that's what prompted my inquiry.

Thx,
R.K.
 
Tumbleweed said:
Yes when I was talking with PG&E yesterday she told me that they did raise the rates. .05 a killowatt
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Did she tell you about "time of use" plans? Not sure if this would benefit your household. I think it evolves putting a special meter on the house which has a upfront cost, but is suppose to lower your monthly costs. They also have a plan averages out the bill over the year, so your peak months get spread out to lower your monthly bill in, and in the low use months when your bill is lower, they average the cost so those months now cost a little more, but it the end, it's all the same, they just level out the cost over the year so you don't get hit with a $600 bill that needs to be paid all at once. These may be good things to discuss if you haven't already. $)

R.K.
 
Solar only offsets powering stuff. It makes some power as you are tied to the grid and it depends on the weather. A 5KW system could power 5000 watts but If your spa is on a timer, and you have solar with a time of use meter,only run it during off peak hours. The best use of solar IMO is to minimize use during peak hours thus you are making power that goes into the grid and you get credited for the peak usage rate.
 
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