Power bills

[pete-blen]

my power bill very rearly goes over $100 a month...
in summer I have seen power bills below $80 a month..

gas hot water... around $30 every 3 weeks...
heat pump...

500 watts of solar panels ( 5 100watt / 36volt panels ) though a mains inverter
no batteys... panels surply the power directly into the house system
reduceing the amount of power being drawn from the mains...

simple maintaince free.... you forget they are there... no
battreys to look after or replace... the inverter can handle
up to 2000 watts of panels so I can just keep adding panels..


you can set a useable system up for a $1000....



..

[pritch]

so for 738kw used cost us $207.03 for 31 days.

There's not much that I can compare, too many different headings. It's a smart meter, maybe it needs a smart bastard to understand it. As I read the last bill though 337kWh cost $131.86. Hopefully we're over the peak and on a down trend to summer. It dipped under $70.00 in February.

I don't have gas connected but I do plan on burning some charcoal during daylight saving - which is coming soon.

[BMWST?]

One thing I will add, is that I've found it beneficial to have multiple energy sources available. Ideally I'd like to also have gas and at least one form of solid fuel burner in a property, so you can juggle between them somewhat depending on price and availability. Like when I had the big place, when I was too busy to cut firewood then power/gas bills weren't a problem anyway, but if I had time then dropping a big gum tree and cutting it up saved heaps and was a great workout.

All of the extra systems do cost more to build though.

PS: I like pellet burners, but I don't like the price of the pellets, maybe there's a lack of suppliers, whatever, the price is higher than I think it should be. (Sound familiar?). One of my many pet plans is to make a pellet maker. They're not hard if You've got the gear. Could even sell them to pensioners with access to treewood wanting to supply their neighbours as a cash based pension stretching business.

I have a pellet burner.The cheapest i have found locally is Bunnings have 20 kg bags for $13.50 ea

[Ocean1]

I have a pellet burner.The cheapest i have found locally is Bunnings have 20 kg bags for $13.50 ea

Sounds pretty reasonable. When I was looking at them the price of pellets was pretty obviously the only reason pellet burners weren't out-competing everything else on straight $/KWh. Which, in a country blessed with lots of pine trees was ridiculous. In Canada, where they originated pellets were about a quarter the price.

I don't think there were too many commercial pellet makers around then, and a machine is too expensive for a single home, so I was looking into a smaller, simpler design. Would still have been too expensive for individual use, but would have been a good option for me then because I had both the engineering capacity and lots of gum trees.

Interestingly, they're also pretty environmentally sound, considering the source of the fuel.

[Grumph]

Pellet burners don't seem to have taken off down here. I only know one person with one of them - and he's on here too.

A couple of guys I knew in Timaru had set up a machine to produce wood pellets for cat dirt box use. Naturally scented and absorbent.
When they moved out of the district, I was offered the pellet machine. Too dear for me then and now.
Not an option now anyway as I'm forbidden to use a chainsaw. Rotating magnet magneto interferes with the pacemaker apparently...