Electricity Costs

I can pretty much guarantee you if a heater was shorting out it wouldn't
last long enough to make a dent in your Electricity bill!

--
Craig Williams
_________________________________

www.Canadiancray.tk
"FishNut" wrote in message
et...
I have a 150 watt heater, a 75 watt heater and a 50 watt heater. My
lighting consists of 4 T8 bulbs 32 watts each and 1 small 18 watt reptile
light. All I can think is that one of my heaters is shorting out and
causing all this extra electricity use. It doesn't make sense.

"Andy Hill" wrote in message
...
"FishNut" wrote:
Yikes. I it's costing me about 65.00 a month to run my aquariums. I
have a
55 gallon tank, a 10 gallon turtle tank and a small 3 gallon acrylic
tank.
Does anyone else have this problem? Apparently the tank heaters are
very
costly to run. And I have 3.

What's your cost per kWh?

Geez, that shouldn't be more than 200W worth of heaters, top. Assuming
they're
on 24x7 (as opposed to a more "normal" 5% duty cycle), that's 144 kWh.
At the
US average of $0.075 / kWh, that's only $10.80 (and, for a more likely
duty
cycle, more like $0.50).

Naw.

It's gotta be something else sucking down that kind of power. What are
you
using for lighting? If you're not using fluorescent, it might be time
to
rethink the decision.

I think that any short which would cause that much extra consumption,
would cause the wires to the heater to get hot, would pop the circuit
breaker/fuse, and would quickly destroy the heater. The only short which
would not cause an appreciable amount of heat generation would possibly
occur if it was dissipating through the water, but you would discover
this by getting an electrical shock.

NetMax

"FishNut" wrote in message
et...
One guy said he had unusually high electrical bills to discover a short
in
one of his heaters. Does anyone know how to check for this?

Thanks

"FishNut" wrote in message
news
Yikes. I it's costing me about 65.00 a month to run my aquariums. I
have
a
55 gallon tank, a 10 gallon turtle tank and a small 3 gallon acrylic
tank.
Does anyone else have this problem? Apparently the tank heaters are
very
costly to run. And I have 3.

"FishNut" wrote in message
et...
I have a 150 watt heater, a 75 watt heater and a 50 watt heater. My
lighting consists of 4 T8 bulbs 32 watts each and 1 small 18 watt reptile
light. All I can think is that one of my heaters is shorting out and
causing all this extra electricity use. It doesn't make sense.

Something non-fish? Perhaps an electric kettle? Tumble dryer? Storage
heater?

Marcus

"Dick" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 15:53:56 GMT, "FishNut" wrote:
snip
This is my first winter, but I think it cost me about $50/month extra.
I air condition my home and keep the ambient temperature about 74
degrees in the summer. I don't understand why 76 is comfortable in
the winter but too hot in the summer, but that is the way it comes
down for me.
snip

The difference is the humidity levels. Low humidity (winter) causes us
to lose heat more rapidly from the surface of our skin, so we feel cooler
for the same temperature which under high humidity, could have us
sweating in the summer.

It's like wind chill. It's -5 but with wind chill, it feels like -10,
but that only affects exposed skin. My car doesn't get any colder, no
matter how hard the wind blows ;~)

NetMax

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 11:59:58 GMT, "FishNut" wrote:

Where do you live. I'm in NY?


Small town in West Texas, electric and gas rates have been
skyrocketing in the last two years. However, I keep a record by
energy use separate from actual dollars. I had a 10% increase in KWH
in the year after getting my tanks going from 9145 kwh to 10,780.

"Dick" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 15:53:56 GMT, "FishNut" wrote:

Yikes. I it's costing me about 65.00 a month to run my aquariums. I
have a
55 gallon tank, a 10 gallon turtle tank and a small 3 gallon acrylic
tank.
Does anyone else have this problem? Apparently the tank heaters are very
costly to run. And I have 3.

I have one 75 gallon, one 29 gallon and three 10 gallon tanks. I run
them at 79 degrees. In the winter I keep the room temperature set to
76 degrees, but the actual temperature at each fish tank varies by
location from 70 to 76 (near the thermostat).

I run under 2 watts per gallon in each tank, but I leave the lights on
for 13 hours each day.

This is my first winter, but I think it cost me about $50/month extra.
I air condition my home and keep the ambient temperature about 74
degrees in the summer. I don't understand why 76 is comfortable in
the winter but too hot in the summer, but that is the way it comes
down for me. So the short of it is in both summer and winter I must
add heat to reach the tank temperature of 79 degrees. Thus my gas and
electric bill does average the extra $50 all year round. I spend
more for my ISDN internet service and drink more than $50 a month, so
the price is acceptable for the pleasure I get from the tanks.

"FishNut" wrote:
I have a 150 watt heater, a 75 watt heater and a 50 watt heater. My
lighting consists of 4 T8 bulbs 32 watts each and 1 small 18 watt reptile
light. All I can think is that one of my heaters is shorting out and
causing all this extra electricity use. It doesn't make sense.

OK, let's work back. $65 of electricity at $0.075 per KWh (you don't give your
cost per KWh, so I'll just go with the national average) is roughly 1200W
continuous draw (that's 24 hours per day, 30 days per month, all the time).
Shoot, that's 10A -- a large proportion of a "normal" 15A circuit. If any one
of your heaters was drawing anywhere near that on a continuous basis, you'd have
boiled fish in short order.

Unless you have sky-high electricity rates, there's *gotta* be something else
causing this besides the tank stuff.

And a lot of dead fish!!!!

--
Craig Williams
_________________________________

www.Canadiancray.tk
"NetMax" wrote in message
. ..
I think that any short which would cause that much extra consumption,
would cause the wires to the heater to get hot, would pop the circuit
breaker/fuse, and would quickly destroy the heater. The only short which
would not cause an appreciable amount of heat generation would possibly
occur if it was dissipating through the water, but you would discover
this by getting an electrical shock.

NetMax

Yes sir!! : )


On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 11:50:02 -0800, "Boris"
wrote:

It's starting to die. Buy a new one now.


"Ryan Minaker" wrote in message
.. .
Too funny!

Hey, I have a question for you:
I have an ebo jagger 200 watt heater and it's been working great for 3
years. Recently I've noticed that the temperature setting is all "out
of whack" if I set the temperature to 79F it'll heat the water until
it reaches 85F to 88F.

So now I have my temperature set at 71F and the heater heats the water
to 79F. Any ideas on why my heater might have suddenly stopped being
accurate?

R.




On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 17:51:29 GMT, "Dinky"
wrote:



"Ryan Minaker" wrote in message
.. .
| That sounds a little bit expensive to me!
| I would assume that it might cost you $10/month at the absolute
most
| even if the heaters ran constantly.
|


I agree. I have 6 tanks, and at best guess, my power bill is only 15
bucks a month more than before I had them. The OP needs to check his
water heater, if one of the elements burns out, it will continue to
make hot water, but the burned out one will be constantly shorting,
running up the power bill. I've had this happen twice, one time it
cost me over 85 bucks in power. The other time it was a rental, so
the landlady ate the bill, boy was she ****ed.

b

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 12:01:33 GMT, "FishNut" bubbled
forth the following:

One guy said he had unusually high electrical bills to discover a short in
one of his heaters. Does anyone know how to check for this?

Thanks

I think this is the article you are thinking of:

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 17:51:29 GMT, "Dinky"
bubbled forth the following in
Message-ID: .net:



"Ryan Minaker" wrote in message
. ..
| That sounds a little bit expensive to me!
| I would assume that it might cost you $10/month at the absolute
most
| even if the heaters ran constantly.
|


I agree. I have 6 tanks, and at best guess, my power bill is only 15
bucks a month more than before I had them. The OP needs to check his
water heater, if one of the elements burns out, it will continue to
make hot water, but the burned out one will be constantly shorting,
running up the power bill. I've had this happen twice, one time it
cost me over 85 bucks in power. The other time it was a rental, so
the landlady ate the bill, boy was she ****ed.

b


He is referring to the household water heater, not an aquarium heater.
Most water heaters have two 1500 watt elements. A burned out element
can short to the point where it draws quite a bit of current without
producing much heat, leaving one element to do most of the heating,
which means the heater stays on longer but uses as much (if not
considerably more) power.

As most water heaters are installed on 240V 30 amp circuits (7200
watts), you can draw quite a bit more power than normal without
tripping the breaker.

An ohmmeter can be used to check a water heater with the POWER OFF;
Most of the time this type of problem will show up as a less than
infinity reading from one of the heating element terminals to the
mounting bolt (ground).

This is just one link from google that shows how:

http://www.bobvila.com/FixItClub/Tas...terHeater.html

If you have access to a clamp on type AC Current meter, you can easily
check the current drawn by each element.

A stuck thermostat can run up a bill quickly too, but you would have
noticeably hotter water.

HTH

Jerry
--
When things go wrong, don’t go with them. - Anonymous

I too live in texas. What Size A/C and what size blower do you have in your
house? I have a 3.5 ton inside and a 2.5 outside. My electric bill was
350+ last year. I was told that the outside Unit can't keep up with the
inside and it draws large amounts of juice. I've had up to 4 tanks running
in the apts and only ever had a bill of 250.

Gotta love the texas summers.


"Dick" wrote in message
...


On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 11:59:58 GMT, "FishNut" wrote:

Where do you live. I'm in NY?


Small town in West Texas, electric and gas rates have been
skyrocketing in the last two years. However, I keep a record by
energy use separate from actual dollars. I had a 10% increase in KWH
in the year after getting my tanks going from 9145 kwh to 10,780.

"Dick" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 15:53:56 GMT, "FishNut" wrote:

Yikes. I it's costing me about 65.00 a month to run my aquariums. I
have a
55 gallon tank, a 10 gallon turtle tank and a small 3 gallon acrylic
tank.
Does anyone else have this problem? Apparently the tank heaters are
very
costly to run. And I have 3.

I have one 75 gallon, one 29 gallon and three 10 gallon tanks. I run
them at 79 degrees. In the winter I keep the room temperature set to
76 degrees, but the actual temperature at each fish tank varies by
location from 70 to 76 (near the thermostat).

I run under 2 watts per gallon in each tank, but I leave the lights on
for 13 hours each day.

This is my first winter, but I think it cost me about $50/month extra.
I air condition my home and keep the ambient temperature about 74
degrees in the summer. I don't understand why 76 is comfortable in
the winter but too hot in the summer, but that is the way it comes
down for me. So the short of it is in both summer and winter I must
add heat to reach the tank temperature of 79 degrees. Thus my gas and
electric bill does average the extra $50 all year round. I spend
more for my ISDN internet service and drink more than $50 a month, so
the price is acceptable for the pleasure I get from the tanks.