How Much Do You Pay For Electricity Per Month?

[The Gentleman Scamp]

I haven't read any of these posts so forgive me if this has already been mentioned but it was recently pointed out to me that I am burning the baht by putting on my aircon for a mere five minutes just to cool down when I arrive home.

Apparently it costs the same as having it on for an hour.

[RDN]

I haven't read any of these posts so forgive me if this has already been mentioned but it was recently pointed out to me that I am burning the baht by putting on my aircon for a mere five minutes just to cool down when I arrive home.

Apparently it costs the same as having it on for an hour.

To get your room cooled from say 90 F (32 C) to 80 F (27 C) takes a lot of power. But to maintain it at 80 F takes a lot less power, but it is not zero as you have been told. It depends on how much heat seeps back into your room - this heat must be removed by your aircon to maintain the low temperature. Your room's insulation is a big factor in keeping costs low. (Read the earlier post about fridges and bread - same principle, but who wants a load of bread piled up around the walls )

[Roger13]

So it seems that the cost per unit is not more than 3 baht. But if you pay my landlord, its 5 baht. Maybe I will tell him that I'll take care of making the payment next time.

ChiangMaiThai

I suggest you read your Lease / Rental agreement first ...

Roger

[Kan Win]

Lopburi3, correct, tks.

http://etna.mcot.net/query.php?nid=28186

Gasoline prices to be floated, FT charge remains unchange until October

BANGKOK, June 15 (TNA) - The government would have no other means, but float gasoline prices in the domestic market if the current oil price hike continues, the Ministry of Energy announced on Tuesday.

A committee in charge of regulating power charges also announced today that the fuel tariff (FT) would remain unchanged until the end of September.

The FT is a main factor of electricity costs.

The Vice Minister of Energy Visit Choopiban told TNA that unless world oil prices drop from its recorded high level currently, the government would have to allow the prices of premium and regular gasoline (benzene octane 95 and benzene octane 91) to be floated being in line with the market mechanism.

"This is to ease the burden of the government's oil fund, which has shouldered the difference of capped and real fuel costs in the domestic market at around Bt100 million daily since 10 January", he noted.

Mr. Visit affirmed, however, that diesel prices would remain unchanged.

Meanwhile, the Director-General of the Energy Policy and Planning Office (EPPO) Mr. Metta Banturngsuk told TNA that the FT Committee resolved at its meeting today that the FT charge be maintained at the current level of Bt0.38 per power unit until the end of September.

"This is to ease the burden of the public from higher power charges for at least the next three months", he said.

Given the resolution, power costs will remain at the level of Bt2.63 a unit averagely until the end of September. (TNA)--E002

[bino]

I've just got the bill for April, and it is waaay high... 3500 Bht! Usually 2000-2500.

My GF and I live in a Thai "Condo"... 40 sq m one room studio apartment on the sixth floor of 12 floor building. The bill comes direct from the gov't.

The aircon is on all night- 7 PM to 7 AM. My GF would sleep with doors and windows open, but I like to be cool and don't like all of the city dust / pollution / crap that comes into the house when everything is open.

Also one computer CPU, modem and refrigerator running 24/7 (Monitor turned off when not using it) and fax machine standing by. We have one TV, Stereo, DVD player, hot water heater, hotplate, microwave, and laptop all used regularily while we are home, with one or two lamps (40 W bulbs). We also have an automatic top-loading washing machine, do enough washing and ironing for two people.

I'm attributing the increase to the fact that it was Songkran, and we were home for a week running the Aircon day and night in the hottest part of the year. Reading the posts has got me to thinking about having the aircon serviced and cleaned since it hasn't been done for ages and many people have mentioned the difference this can make.

Can anyone recommend a decent aircon contractor in BKK?

[davethailand]

Just got my house bill = 4700bht

Blues Factory = 30000bht

[bkk_mike]

I happen to have the biggest electricity bill of anyone I know (private house).

My monthly bill runs between 5,500 and 7,000, that depends on if my wife or myself are sleeping in the "other" room as 2 airconds all night  chew the fuel

To answer your question, I run an aircond 24 hours a day, 3 fridges, 2 tvs, 2 dvds, 2 computers and lights. I was told by my sparky friend that if you load your freezers with bread, ice or polystirene foam that it will "half" your elec for the fridge. Also having everything on standby doesnt help the bill, but I like to press the remote instead of getting up

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think I beat you - for a private home. (Sorry Dave - I don't think the Blues factory is a fair comparison).

At this time of year, we're around 8,500 baht a month. but then that's mostly aircon, 3 fridges, 5 computers, 5 TVs, etc. etc. (and we have at least 2 aircons going every night, as the kids are in one room, and the wife and I are in another). To give an idea of the size of the house, we have 10 aircons, although I don't think we've ever had more than 5 or 6 on at the same time.

It's a fair bit less in December, obviously, because we tend to have less aircons going during the day.

[Gary A]

I stopped by to see a friend yesterday. He has a house and runs 2 air con units 24/7. His bill is about 7,000 per month. I have a condo near by and when I was living there full time I ran the air con in the bedroom most nights. I seldom used the main unit in the living room. My bill was never over 1,000 per month.

I happen to have the biggest electricity bill of anyone I know (private house).

My monthly bill runs between 5,500 and 7,000, that depends on if my wife or myself are sleeping in the "other" room as 2 airconds all night  chew the fuel

To answer your question, I run an aircond 24 hours a day, 3 fridges, 2 tvs, 2 dvds, 2 computers and lights. I was told by my sparky friend that if you load your freezers with bread, ice or polystirene foam that it will "half" your elec for the fridge. Also having everything on standby doesnt help the bill, but I like to press the remote instead of getting up

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think I beat you - for a private home. (Sorry Dave - I don't think the Blues factory is a fair comparison).

At this time of year, we're around 8,500 baht a month. but then that's mostly aircon, 3 fridges, 5 computers, 5 TVs, etc. etc. (and we have at least 2 aircons going every night, as the kids are in one room, and the wife and I are in another). To give an idea of the size of the house, we have 10 aircons, although I don't think we've ever had more than 5 or 6 on at the same time.

It's a fair bit less in December, obviously, because we tend to have less aircons going during the day.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[DaveYo]

Hmmmm, I can say this much. During the winter if there is such a winter here, my electric bill goes around 1500 baht a month. During the heat wave, whew, like now, I can expect my bill to be around 3,000 baht to 4,500 baht easy as pie.

I rent a house. Got out of the townhouse a few months back cause that townhouse was like a baking oven 24/7.

To many of those living in houses, that have two floors. Please do make your accomodations to sleep downstairs and forget the bedrooms upstairs. Make upstairs your living rooms and kitchen etc.

Why??????? Because HEAT is lighter than COLD. When you run your Air Con, that is cold air, so it sinks downwards while the heat rises up above the cold air level.

So if you have an Air Con, use it downstairs, and and sleep there or do your stuff downstairs. During all this the upstairs is cooking hot so make sure you not have soda pop up there or you will hear the ping and bangs.

Forget insulation. Thai houses are solid concrete. Concrete loves to retain heat. So if you want to have a cool house best you put up another wall between the inside and the concrete. Also you have to plywood the ceiling and install your ceiling tiles underneath it. Now the heat from the ceiling is sealed off and so is the concrete walls. Also put dark shade on your windows like they have on the cars. That alone kills the heat building up inside from the sun.

If you do that, presto, now you can run your Air Con and the house will be cool for much longer periods with the A/C off more often.

You have some other alternatives. You can go to the electric company and have the electric bill put in your name thus eliminating the extra fees being charged for your electricity and pay it yourself direct.

The other alternative is get SOLAR POWER INSTALLED ON THE ROOF OF THE BUILDING , just enough to take care of your Air Cons only. Doing so will cut your bills to the electric company like it never existed. Use your fridge or computer or your fans on your main electric line since it does not use that much electricity. A fan running continuously for one month 24/7 non stop will consume about roughly around 150 baht!!!!!!!!! One Air Con for the whole month close to 24/7 will cost you nearly on average 1800 baht a month.

Daveyo

[Ajarn]

Make upstairs your ........ kitchen etc.

But no pop bottles, of course.

Edited April 29, 2005 by Ajarn

[udon]

The other alternative is get SOLAR POWER INSTALLED ON THE ROOF OF THE BUILDING

and how much would it cost to install and run solar power for 3 medium aircons Dave?

I didn't know solar cells could run aircons unless they filled a football field!

[Steve2UK]

Also put dark shade on your windows like they have on the cars.  That alone kills the heat building up inside from the sun.

If you do that, presto, now you can run your Air Con and the house will be cool for much longer periods with the A/C off more often.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Good point. When I spent summer holidays with my grandparents in Southern Germany (high up near the Black Forest so not even the hottest part of Europe), all the houses and flats had either external shutters or metal roll-down blinds. Point being that you closed them during the part of the day when the sun was on those windows. Kept the inside pleasantly cool.

Looking around new-built houses in Chiang Mai with a Thai friend recently, he could always tell me whether they were for Thai's or farang. How? The Thai houses all had minute windows on the sunny side(s)............... It's a very western habit to go for the big "picture" window and the heat penetration is a price you'll pay if you don't compensate for it in some way or other - at least an opaque drape/blind to cover most of the window while the sun's full on.

Edited April 30, 2005 by Steve2UK

[Ajarn]

The other alternative is get SOLAR POWER INSTALLED ON THE ROOF OF THE BUILDING

and how much would it cost to install and run solar power for 3 medium aircons Dave?

I didn't know solar cells could run aircons unless they filled a football field!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I remember reading last year that the cost for solar for a Thai house without AC was in the neighborhood of 300,000 baht per home... There was a government program to encourage homeowners to take out loans for solar which was partly financed by EGAT, as I recall.

With the extreme load on an AC, I'd guess using solar would be cost-prohibitive to the max...

[Lancelot]

I live in a "condo" (one room) in BKK and pay B5/unit to the landlord. Usually my bill is B400-500 per month. One refrigerator, lap top on most of the day, one fan running when ever I'm in the room. Have A/C but rarely use it.

A/C is your biggest consumer of electricity. After that, probably your fridge, because it's on 24/7. Filling up the fridge will help-but only marginally.

If your really serious about bill, simply list all your electric appliances on a spreadsheet, enter the wattage for each device * hours used (for a/c when the compressor is actually running) per day / 1,000. That will give you kWh or units of electricity consumed per appliance. Sum up all of your appliances, then * your unit cost. Should give you a pretty accurate pro forma bill. If your way off, look for neighbors tapping in or possibly a fast meter. But 95% of the time, the meter (especially as they age) runs a little slow, because it's mechanical. Think about it: most mechanical devices slow down with age-not speed up.

Watch out for those mobile phone chargers-they really suck up the juice

[ozzydom]

Air-conditioning appears to be the the main contributor to electric useage and air-con efficiency is mainly governed by the ambient temperature it has to deal with.

One way of improving the situation is to extract the hot air from inside the house (walk outside Ihear some-one say).

Ceiling vents in the rooms and extractors ( spinners) on the roof, and only open windows on the shaded side of the house lowers ambient temp appreciably inside.

On reccommendation of an engineer, we did this on a house in Queensland and it worked a treat, power bills dropped by 40% in summer.

[thai_norman]

in the summer months if you have your aircons on 24 hours perday in each room it only works out to about 100 baht per room extra than if you have them on 12 hours per day,thats over the month, this is because the walls and floors retain the coldness so the compressor which uses the big electric aint coming on all the time, so if you reckon on 800 baht per month to cool each bedroom everynight and 900 baht per month to keep them cool all the time, i know which i go for, you do not turn off your fridge when you go out, so why bother turning off your aircon to come back to a boiling hot house? try it, you will be suprised, well as long as you dont have antique aircons.

[Ajarn]

in the summer months if you have your aircons on 24 hours perday in each room it only works out to about 100 baht per room extra than if you have them on 12 hours per day,thats over the month, this is because the walls and floors retain the coldness so the compressor which uses the big electric aint coming on all the time, so if you reckon on 800 baht per month to cool each bedroom everynight and 900 baht per month to keep them cool all the time, i know which i go for, you do not turn off your fridge when you go out, so why bother turning off your aircon to come back to a boiling hot house? try it, you will be suprised, well as long as you dont have antique aircons.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If your ceiling and outside walls are as well-insulated from the outside heat as your floor and inside walls, and be sealed.... That might make more sense to me. But at least in my house, I'm pretty sure your theory wouldn't really work. I can feel the heat from the ceiling radiating down... Even with 18,000 btu, that compressor runs most of the time, any time. Plus, I set it at a cool 21c..

[thai_norman]

ajarn, you will never save money with your aircon set at 21 degrees, most aircons blow air at 18 to 22 degrees, thats as cold as they get, so if your aircon is blowing at 22 degrees your compressor will never turn off, just stick a temp gauge in your fan unit for the aircon to see what it blows at.

my aircons are set between 26 and 27 but i use fans aswell, this dont work the compressors too hard=cheap bills =

[RDN]

28C aircon + fan. Sometimes feels too cold

[barryofthailand]

When i first moved to Thailand i kept the air on 24hrs a day. When i woke up i shut the air off in the bedroom, and turned the one on in the livingroom. Needless to say my bill for the month was 2700 baht. Now i just use them when i sleep, and in the livingroom in the evenings and the electric runs about 1800 durring the 3 month hot season, and 800 to 1500 durring the rest of the year.

[Ajarn]

28C aircon  + fan. Sometimes feels too cold

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

21c and the fan, here. Plus extra blankets. Kind of a comforting feeling for me, which equates to a good sleep. Getting the right eviromental balances took some time.

Oh, and my window stays open. I like the fresh air, too.

[bartender100]

Here's a great artical on saving money.

Now I always turn off the TV and Video,and not leave it on standby,as it uses 60%-85% of power,as when its on.

http://www.computerbuyer.co.uk/buyer/pcpro...tric-shock.html

Another,bit long winded but some Thai relate

http://www.unescap.org/esd/energy/publicat...andby-power.htm

[Thaicoon]

My electric bill is 5000 to 6000 baht a month, when i am not there it is about 1500 to 2000 baht, its them air conditioners that eat it up.

[Khun Bob]

Does anyone use solar power or any other ways to generate some power ?

I know that in Greece solar power is massive and in the cities and towns many houses have panels installed on there roofs. No idead whether it would work in thailand. Could be a cheap way of running a fan, but would have high initial costs. Alrough if you look around panels can be got for a reasonable price now compared to a few years ago - although i think they are still on the pricey side.

[davethailand]

Does anyone use solar power or any other ways to generate some power ?

I know that in Greece solar power is massive and in the cities and towns many houses have panels installed on there roofs.  No idead whether it would work in thailand.  Could be a cheap way of running a fan, but would have high initial costs.  Alrough if you look around panels can be got for a reasonable price now compared to a few years ago - although i think they are still on the pricey side.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not for power but my hot water is solar heated by 2 big panels on the roof.

[mike100]

Between 900 to 1,500 THB depending on how often we use the A/C.

Last months bill was 1,260 baht @3.41 per unit.

This is for a fairly large 5 bed room bungalow, although pretty much the same as our 3 bed room bungalow which is rented out.

[simey]

Just got my bill, 76,000 baht for last year. What costs me is the swimming pool, having the filter running for 12 hours per day.

[haha]

I have a hard plastic fan in my a/c which seems to work better than a metal fan.

also, my place charges 4 baht per unit versus 5 or 6 baht unit that a lot of other studio apartment complexes charge.

if you are like many of us on budgets, and living in studio apartment units, select a studio that is in a lower part of the building away from the roof or the sides of the building. it makes a big difference in the amount of electricity you use for your a/c.

I will never live on the top floor of a building here in bangkok. just to do that will increase your electricity bill at least 2x.

and yes, do check from time to time to see if your meter is moving when you have everything turned off.

I use about 200-300 units of electricity a month depending on time of the year.

[RDN]

... do check from time to time to see if your meter is moving when you have everything turned off...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Excellent advice ! My next door neighbour has an air con that makes my lights dim when it switches on, so I went outside in the street and looked at both meters to see which one sped up when his air con came on. It was his, so all was OK - I didn't really fancy asking him for a year's worth of electricity bills for his air con.

[jayenram]

I paid Bht 2.533 / unit this morning (416 units) plus Bht 0.4328 / unit fuel tariff plus 7% VAT.