Electric use in North America / Spain

[elenetxu]

DH has always commented on how much electricity we use in the US, leaving lights/fans/AC on, etc.

We just got the electric bill from when a friend visited and it's 100 euros more than normal. Wooooooooooooah. Next time I'm not going to be so polite about the "Hey, if you're going to read until the wee hours of the morning, you could always use the reading light!"

On an unrelated note, one of the worst parts about living abroad is trying to remember where you hid your home-country money when you came back the last time. It's somewhere in these 47 sq. m. but I can't find it!

[aMrsin09]

What do you pay per kWh? and how long was your friend there?

My SS comes and stays for two-three weeks and we don't see a huge spike at all.

Our Foreign currency is all kept in its little change purses in my underwear drawer. So I have a purse for Euros, US, and Pounds.

[clogged]

We had family (all American) in our house for 3 weeks a few years ago. In March. That month, our gas and electric use doubled. Which for us, screwed us for the rest of the year because they readjusted our expected yearly consumption after Q1, and every bill for the remainder of the year was up by nearly €200 (combined, not each).

I am now a huge pain about lights being left on needlessly. My poor kid gets screamed at how she is killing polar bears because she will leave her curtains shut and use the overhead light. In the middle of the afternoon. Gah!

[Deleted]

We don't have AC (barely need it in the UK), so our electric use in the UK is much lower than it was in the US. I do find myself more conscious about turning lights off here. I think my biggest use of electricity here is when I do a lot of cooking -- maybe that is one of things that drove your bill up when you had a lot of guests?

[anna7602]

Wow, that sounds like a huge difference, especially for a small space. But, I will confess that our electricity is bundled into our rent, so I have no idea what the rates actually are.

We actually use less the lights less here because we're on a higher floor than in the U.S. Our place at home is on the ground floor and we have some huge (but beautiful) trees blocking the light from coming in certain key rooms, like the kitchen and dining room.

My U.S. money is in my underwear drawer. DH has his own stash and is never sure where he put it.

[Cheesecake]

We're not extremely particular about lights, as we use energy saving bulbs almost exclusively, but I do stress about the heat. (As I mentioned in the A/C post). With all the energy saving appliances nowadays heating and showering count for most of the energy use for most of the Dutch households.
It just makes no sense to me to heat the house when there's no-one home. And heating while sleeping just gives me a stuffy nose, so the thermostat is set to turn way down when we go to sleep. Also, I don't heat rooms that aren't in use (and hardly ever even heat our bedroom, maybe 15 minutes before bed or something, but not more than that.) So it's pretty much just the kitchen and living room that get heated on a daily basis.

Our other main energy-eater is computers. Our gateway and main computer are never ever turned off (the main one might be off on vacation, but the gateway is set to automatically restart after a power outage even). DH is just now buying a new main computer that can re-start in 7 seconds (and remotely too, it's fancy!), thus will be turned off at night/when we're not home. The old main will replace the old gateway (it'll still be on all the time, but is more energy efficient), so that should save us some money.
I think we pay about 180 euros a month for energy (pre-pay) and then once a year we turn in the numbers and get re-adjusted if we owe more or get some money back.

[aMrsin09]

I really am curious as to what some of these kWh hour rates/service fees are.

Even without solar, our highest quarterly bill would have been $294.00. When we were in France our landlord was only charging us 50 euros a month for electric (they were on a "yearly avg " type plan.

ETA: I ask because ours is $.24 a kWh with a $.288 a day delivery fee. Both of which I think are ridiculously high, but it sounds like you guys are even higher than that!

[elenetxu]

I'm an idiot and don't know how to find out the kwH price.

[clickerish]

Water. Americans also use obscene amounts of water.

[wise_rita]

Why do Americans dry every single load of laundry they do? It baffles me. So unnecessary!

We were shocked that our electricity bill was $200 for 4 months here. We budgeted $700 for 3 months!

Haven't had any visitors yet to see if that changes.

[aMrsin09]

Jul 23, 2012 4:26:11 GMT -5 wise_rita said:

Why do Americans dry every single load of laundry they do? It baffles me. So unnecessary!

We were shocked that our electricity bill was $200 for 4 months here. We budgeted $700 for 3 months!

Haven't had any visitors yet to see if that changes.

Well I know where I lived in the states it was against the HOA to hang clothes on a line or on anything outside.

I dried a lot of stuff on the backs of chairs etc.

I probably use the dryer more here than I ever did in the states. stuff starts to mold and mildew before it air drys, and I will not use a clothes line in the yard because of spiders. green ants etc.

[frlcb]

Jul 23, 2012 4:26:11 GMT -5 wise_rita said:

Why do Americans dry every single load of laundry they do? It baffles me. So unnecessary!

We were shocked that our electricity bill was $200 for 4 months here. We budgeted $700 for 3 months!

Haven't had any visitors yet to see if that changes.

I spent 3 years living in a country where I couldn't dry anything and had to air dry it and I hate having 'crunchy' clothes. I don't think it is a huge deal to dry whatever you want. I do air dry some shirts still, but 99% of stuff goes in the dryer.

[dulcemariamar]

I would love to have a dryer. In the winter, it takes FOREVER for things to dry. And it sucks if you have a rainy week because you are SOL.

[Deleted]

Clothes dryers are way more energy efficient now than they used to be. Most have sensors that shut them off as soon as the clothes are dry (or damp, depending on how you set it). My husband insists on tumble drying everything....I probably air dry just over half, because a lot of my clothes are delicate and would shrink.

[allibally]

I use the dryer exclusively because we go to the laundromat to do our wash. After 4 loads of wash I don't have the space to dry that all over my apartment. We don't have any outdoor space!