electricity (Tucson, Chandler: apartment, how much, house)

[sabin]

Does anyone have any advice on choosing between the energy plans. I think the ones available are a 9p to 9a off peak, a 7p to 12p off peak, and same rate all time. i initially chose the 7-12 because of cooking, but i'm not sure if that matters much

[sablebaby]

I have the anytime plan as their comparisons for my usage all came out about the same.

[m1ndless]

You don't save much useing the 7-12 or 9-9 plans, for me it was only about a $10 difference each month, I would stay up and do my laundry at 9 to save some money, but it wasnt worth waiting..

[TurcoLoco]

Yeah, either way the Summer months the electricity bill is ugly. My bill for this month has more than doubled!
The worst part about the bill is the break down of the charges! This month's bill was $91.26, mind you that this is for a 1bdr apartment where I am not even from from 7am till 5pm, AC set to 80 degrees. The actual Delivery Service charge + Generation charge was $62.62, the rest is stupid itty bitty fees, charges, surcharges and not to forget city/county/state taxes totalling almost $30! Totally ridiculous!

I am not so sure what a 3/4 bdrm house bill would be like...

[Bummer]

Originally Posted by sabin

Does anyone have any advice on choosing between the energy plans. I think the ones available are a 9p to 9a off peak, a 7p to 12p off peak, and same rate all time. i initially chose the 7-12 because of cooking, but i'm not sure if that matters much

Sorry, Sabin . . . not much help here.

As far as I know, those special usage plans are not offered in Tucson but I have always understood them to be overrated.

[aj661]

I like SRP's. Summer peak hours are 1-8pm and it's easy for us to work around that. Winter peak is 5-9am plus 5-9pm. A little tougher but still doable. The entire weekend and some holidays are off-peak. I had the plan at my last house and never got around to signing up here until last month. We saved $25.65 for the roughly three weeks on the first bill on the time of use plan.

[nehazaidi]

I am sorry to sound so dumb, we just moved from LA and dont have any such options you guys are talking about. Its just plain out simple bill, here I guess it is different. I am currently in Chandler in a two bedroom apartment and have SRP. Can you explain how this all works, and how I can save some money! My friend who just moved with me but she is in a house not apartment, got her first bill for 15 days as $400, I CANNOT afford to pay $800 a month. She is in a 3 bedroom town house. PLZZZZZZZ help

[country pride]

My own peronal thoughts are probably different than may others but, here goes.
Im not sure how much better off you may be in using that 'off-peak, on-peak' plan. When weather permits, we save a lot by using the clothesline rather than the dryer (and I used to think I was the only one who preferred this anymore...). And when we do use the dryer for one reason or other, usually 30 min is all it takes to dry a load, we never run it just for a few items. We have a timer on the water heater, its on for 2 hrs in the evening and 2 hrs in the morning, so thats when showers are taken. The water stays hot pretty much all day so dishes are done all at once in the evening. All but a few of the smaller lamps are on flourescent energy saving bulbs and the a/c is set to 80....which here is pretty cool when you have ceiling fans to circulate the air in the rooms used most often. And, when no one is going to be home for a long period of time, we bump it up to 82...just enough to keep it cool but turning it off would mean the a/c would have to work harder to cool down this house when someone were to turn it back on again later.
Not everyone may agree to this method but it works here!

[aj661]

Originally Posted by L_A_Woman

My own peronal thoughts are probably different than may others but, here goes.
Im not sure how much better off you may be in using that 'off-peak, on-peak' plan. When weather permits, we save a lot by using the clothesline rather than the dryer (and I used to think I was the only one who preferred this anymore...). And when we do use the dryer for one reason or other, usually 30 min is all it takes to dry a load, we never run it just for a few items. We have a timer on the water heater, its on for 2 hrs in the evening and 2 hrs in the morning, so thats when showers are taken. The water stays hot pretty much all day so dishes are done all at once in the evening. All but a few of the smaller lamps are on flourescent energy saving bulbs and the a/c is set to 80....which here is pretty cool when you have ceiling fans to circulate the air in the rooms used most often. And, when no one is going to be home for a long period of time, we bump it up to 82...just enough to keep it cool but turning it off would mean the a/c would have to work harder to cool down this house when someone were to turn it back on again later.
Not everyone may agree to this method but it works here!

You nailed it!!! We can't use a clothesline (HOA) but large items get draped over patio furniture to dry. Sometimes I'll "pre-cool" the house to about 78-80 degrees late in the morning during off peak hours, then set it at 84 for the day. I've never had the room temp go over 82 so it keeps the a/c off. It's easy for us to do the laundry during off-peak hours and the dishwasher goes on at bedtime. We have 9-ft ceilings (10 ft would be better since heat rises but wasn't an option) sunscreens on all windows, ceiling fans in every room and use fluorescent bulbs almost everywhere. Our water is heated by gas so that doesn't come into play.

Originally Posted by nehazaidi

I am sorry to sound so dumb, we just moved from LA and dont have any such options you guys are talking about. Its just plain out simple bill, here I guess it is different. I am currently in Chandler in a two bedroom apartment and have SRP. Can you explain how this all works, and how I can save some money! My friend who just moved with me but she is in a house not apartment, got her first bill for 15 days as $400, I CANNOT afford to pay $800 a month. She is in a 3 bedroom town house. PLZZZZZZZ help

https://www.srpnet.com/Default.aspx or call SRP at 602-236-9644. We also are on the managed pay plan. I think you need at least a six month history to start this, but it's simply averaging your bill so the payments stay about the same for the entire year. We pay $210 per month for a 1720 sq ft house. That should go down a couple bucks now that we're on the time of use plan.

[TurcoLoco]

Is it really better to keep the AC at around 85 degrees when not at home then drop it to 80 when inside than completely turning it off when not home?
I have been shutting off the AC when I leave in the morning and when I get home turn it on and of course it runs for a long while to bring it down even 7-8 degrees.
Clothesline is something I could try as well since the Dryer consumes electricity and also warm the fricken apartment big time forcing the AC to work harder....so that definitely makes sense.

Thank god I don't have any visitors cuz I walk around wearing nothing but an underwear!