Trying To Determine If My Electric Bill Is Too High

[quadricorrelator]

The electric bill for my one bedroom apartment was 6533 baht this month. I am wondering if something is wrong with the bill because it seems high.

The major power consuming devices are my two air conditioners. I have determined (through experiment) that one air conditioner consumes 2.4 units of electricity per hour. The other consumes 1.8 units of electricity per hour. My apartment bills electricity at 5 bahts per unit.

My question is this: How many watt-hours are there per unit of electricity.

I can use this information to determine if the electric meter in my apartment is correctly calibrated (by making some voltage and current measurements of the airconditioner).

-q

[Maigo6]

1 Kilowatt hour = 1 unit

1000 watt appliance for 1 hour = 1 unit

100 watt appliance for 10 hours = 1 unit

10 watt appliance for 100 hours = 1 unit.

You may know this, some may not, I never did till someone told me.

[Jeff1]

I guess it's about right if you have two AC's running all day and night . In a one bedroom apartment you would probally have snow for that price

[Maejo Man]

One unit of electricity is 1KWhr i.e. 1000 watts consumed in one hour. Running those two air con units will cost you 21 baht an hour. If you run them for say 10 hours a day that's 210 baht.

Thirty days will give you a monthly bill of 6300 baht...

[quadricorrelator]

Thanks. So one unit is one kilowatt hour.

They tell me that one airconditioner is a 25,000 BTU unit, and the other is 20,000 BTUs. I am still trying to find out how much power they will use. They are split air conditioners (part inside and part outside the apartment).

I don't keep the units on all the time, but I don't keep track of it very closely either.

[Maejo Man]

Jeeze 45,000 BTU's in a one room apartment You must have ice hanging off them

[Maigo6]

are split air conditioners (part inside and part outside the apartment).

Do you mean the old style window type all in one unit just the grill inside and the ass of the unit outside ?

They tend to use a lot of power, I had one 13 years ago and it was expensive to run.

[jdinasia]

i assume he means a standard unit here ... compressor outside ... fan unit inside ... freon pipes through the wall

[Mobi]

When I lived in BKK, I always reckoned that apartment owners somehow used to srew me on the elctricity bills. However, when I moved to an enormous 3 bed apartment, where I had 2 a/c's on maybe 18 hours/day the monthly bill was 3-4000 baht. then I rented a large 3 bedroom house, with 2 a/cs on most of the time and lights everywhere, and the cost was around 5,000 per month. I am now in my own, huge, 4 bed house plus outbuildings in Pattaya with one a/c running at night, and another running about 5 hours/day in my office, but large ceiling fans everywhere, water pumps, pool pumps, waterfall pumps, lighting coming out of my ears, 4 fridges at the last count, and the monthly cost is around 7,000 baht. It's about what I expected.

I reckon your 7,000 baht bill for a one bed, 2 a/c's is a bit high. I would have though 5,000 would be about right, and much less if you could turn one a/c off and make do with a fan. Just my finger in the air guestimate - what do I know?

Edited March 23, 2006 by Mobi D'Ark

[warriors]

I am in a 2 bedroom appartment 109 sq mts with 3 aircons. one going all night from say 9 till 9in morning. One going most of the day in my office some times 2 at a time if gf in lounge.

Bill this month was the highest yet 2900 bhat, been here 7 months. So I think you are being screwed. tey to find out the meter and read it monthly that will tell you useage. Also check by turning every thing off and seeing if you meter is moving. If so you could be paying some one eles costs as well. It has been known to happen with the wiring been set up wrong.

If you pay directly to appartment block in office of appartments that can be another rort to give them extra pocket money.

[sriracha john]

The electric bill for my one bedroom apartment was 6533 baht this month. I am wondering if something is wrong with the bill because it seems high.

The major power consuming devices are my two air conditioners. I have determined (through experiment) that one air conditioner consumes 2.4 units of electricity per hour. The other consumes 1.8 units of electricity per hour. My apartment bills electricity at 5 bahts per unit.

My question is this: How many watt-hours are there per unit of electricity.

I can use this information to determine if the electric meter in my apartment is correctly calibrated (by making some voltage and current measurements of the airconditioner).

-q

I'm guessing a/c does make all the difference, glad I don't like it nor need it. Drop the 6 from your figure and that's my average bill for a 3 bedroom detached house.

[rishi]

Wow! Those airconditioners definately do make a difference for ones electricity bill.

We don't have any but we have:

4 fans on for 16 hours a day + 1 fan on the remaining 8 hours (do we miss an AC? Not at all!)

Electric outdoor sign on 6 hours

3 refrigeraters on for 24 hours (1 medium, 2 big with glassfront and light on for 16 hours)

12 computers on for 16 hours (constantly full power on everything)

2 printers + router,accesspoint and switches on 16 hours.

1 water heater on for 16 hours (for tea/instant coffee)

1 water heater (for 3 people showering 2-3 times a day)

1 big aquarium on with light (6 hours) and pump (24 hours)

Coffee/expresso machine in use several times per hour

Juicer/blender in use several times per hour

1 water pump (to pump water to three upper floors)

2 big lamps on 16 hours + extra 2 big lamps on 6 hours

Radio/TV ad hoc and occationally a vacuum cleaner

A few minor things involved by living i a 4 storey shophouse.

How much do we pay for power? ... About half of that of a A/C'ed 1 bedroom apartment. (Glad, that I don't need a A/C here in Chiang Mai).

[quadricorrelator]

My air conditioner does have freon pipes through the wall. I am not sure which part is outside and which part is inside. The inside unit does have a fan, but so does the outside unit.

I do not think I am paying for someone else's electricity because I have checked the meter. I will know for sure tommorrow because I am keeping all the aircon off for 24 hours before my meter check.

I think I could be overcharged if the meter is calibrated incorrectly. I can try to determine if the calibration is correct by measuring the power used by the airconditioners and other appliances.

Where can I find a cheap volt/current meter? I found one at Home Pro for 2000 baht, but I think it should cost 400 baht. I could also use a current clamp (if I could find one), but I think those are expensive.

Even if I determine that the meter is calibrated incorrectly, I don't know if I can do much about it. What could I do about it? Could I ask them to check the meter calibration?

It could also be that the air conditioner is inefficient and I have it on high all the time.

-q

[Chopper]

How old are you Air Con units? A friend of my replaced one of his old Air Con units recently and it made a huge impact on his bill. You could of course have a service carried out on your existing units that may help.

My electricity bill is about half the cost of yours for a 250 sq./m apartment. Running three fridges one industrial on 24 hours, about 150,000 BTU of Air Con used quite a lot, multiple water heaters including a 30 litre hot water tank for the Jacuzzi, and all of the other assorted miscellaneous uses the likes of which 'rishi' has mentioned.

I would suggest your bill seems erroneously on the high side by comparison.

[quadricorrelator]

How old are you Air Con units? A friend of my replaced one of his old Air Con units recently and it made a huge impact on his bill. You could of course have a service carried out on your existing units that may help.

My electricity bill is about half the cost of yours for a 250 sq./m apartment. Running three fridges one industrial on 24 hours, about 150,000 BTU of Air Con used quite a lot, multiple water heaters including a 30 litre hot water tank for the Jacuzzi, and all of the other assorted miscellaneous uses the likes of which 'rishi' has mentioned.

I would suggest your bill seems erroneously on the high side by comparison.

I don't know how old the air condition units are. I can't find the manufacturer on the internet. The air conditioner says "Central Air" on the front. It was serviced last June. I don't think there has been any maintaince since then.

I think I am using 45,000 BTU of Air con when they are both on. I think there is about 121 cubic meters of air volume in my apartment (50 square meters of area by 2.42 meters of hieght). Maybe I can figure out how many degrees this should cool my apartment from the outside temperature. I will see if I can find it on the internet.

[Phil Conners]

I think someone is leeching off your electricity.

I have about 150,000 BTU in total for a 200m2 house. I use A/C frugally (being a kid of the energy crisis in the 70'es) but I use it when it's hot which is often at this time. My bill, including all the other stuff, computers, pumps, TV's, fans, fridges and such has never been above 4,500 baht and as little as 2,500 during the "winter".

Try turning off *everything* in your apartment and see if the meter still runs.

[Kerryd]

I'm not surprised at all. I have a tiny broom closet of an apartment with a single (12,000 BTU) air-con.

I used to have it on when ever I was home, along with the computer running 24/7, fridge, TV and the other junk.

In January my bill was 3,800 baht (1,300 more than my rent !). I get charged 7 baht per unit. I know I'm paying more than I should, because the landlady doesn't record the electricity usage for the apartments her extended family lives in. So the rest of us end up making up the difference.

I've been making a consious effort to reduce the amount of time I use the air-con this month, just to see how much of a difference it makes.

It kind of sucks here though. I used to have an "outside" window on my rooftop apartment. Then the woman in the next section of the buidling put apartments on her roof as well. Now my outside window faces into a hallway, reducing the natural airflow.

[Chopper]

Kerryd, that sounds outrageous 7 baht per unit. I only charge my tenants 4 baht per unit.

I think there was a thread before on cost per unit. If I can recall the more units you use the cost per unit decreases. Though I may stand corrected on that point.

[sriracha john]

Not completely out of line with what other apartment owners charge. Back when I was in one, they charged 6 per unit... plus some other similarly outrageous mark-up on per water units... AND per call per minute phone connection charges through their ancient switchboard.

There were no discounts on any of them according to usage amounts.

Same as KerryD, they often added up collectively to be more than my rent. Moving into a house 3 times the size REDUCED my utility bills...

Edited March 24, 2006 by sriracha john

[Phil Conners]

The official cost per KWh from the power company is about 3.8 baht but a lot of condo managements charge 5 baht or more per KWh.

[seonai]

My electricty bill varies between 250 - 450 Baht a month

[Chivas]

The official cost per KWh from the power company is about 3.8 baht but a lot of condo managements charge 5 baht or more per KWh.

Not sure what are unit costs are direct from company but our bills for running a three bedroomed house with usual facilties has never been higher than 1450 baht.

Thats with a washing machine running every day and one of the 15,000 btu units running about 12 hours a day.

Chivas

[Gary A]

I live in a two bedroom house out in the boonies. We run a very large refrigerator, a smaller one, water pump and a washing machine. Four hot water showers a day and the air conditioner in the bedroom at night. The bill has never been over 1,200 a month. Paying that large of an electric bill would certainly make me consider moving.

[Kerryd]

Kerryd, that sounds outrageous 7 baht per unit. I only charge my tenants 4 baht per unit.

I think there was a thread before on cost per unit. If I can recall the more units you use the cost per unit decreases. Though I may stand corrected on that point.

Any Vacancies ?

(the savings on my power bill alone would make a move worthwhile !)

[Phil Conners]

What do you expect for 2,500 baht ?

[monochaser]

Yeah pal, you are burning the juice running those ACs, but you must be running both at same time a good part of the day. I'm an AC freak and used to run AC in at least one room all day in a 66 sq mtr apt. My bills used to run about 4K. always turned off before leaning apt. Dont blame you for running AC though, I'm an AC freak. nothing worse than having a layer of sweat all day from the BKK heat. You get people talking about their 800 baht elec bills for their 100 sq mtr apt, sure, all u gotta do is turn off the AC and you got that. These are people who dont mind roasting and sleeping on sheets soaked in sweat. nasty

[monochaser]

What do you expect for 2,500 baht ?

Good point, I know for sure that these dirt cheap room rentals are base value cheap but they shaft you everywhere else. People's cheap apts are really up to 10K more after uts and monthly appliance rental. You are better off paying 5K up for base apt rent, you get a much better place, no appl rent charges and much lower uts. Dont be fooled by the insanely low base rate. The only time when that is better is when moving in and paying the 2 months deposit but that's a one time thing so not worth it

[Mobi]

I've got the last 2 months's bills from the power co. in Pattaya in front of me.

January, I used 1914 units. There are two charges; the first is 5515 Baht, the second 1088 Baht. Total: 6603 Baht, plus 7 % vat gives a total of 7065 Baht. Before vat the rate works out at 3.45 Baht per unit.

February, I used 1506 units. The two charges are 4300 and 1142, giving a total before vat of 5442, or 3.61 baht per unit.

I don't understand the second item, In Jan it says Ft 0.5683 against the second item, and in Feb it says Ft. 0.7584 against the second item. It may be soemthing to do with an extra loading for being a high domestic user - I read something about this. Does anyone know?

Anyway Kerryd, the cost is definately under 4 baht per unit.

(Just to recap, I have 2 a/cs running say 12 hours/day, four fridges/freezers/ several large ceiling fans, 3 TV's, large pool pump, water pump for house, waterfall (2 pumps) hotwater heater 24/7, masses of lights, several electrical appliances 2 computers and perriferalls 24/7) Jan was so high beacuse I was entertaining over 40 people from Sa Kaeo for New Year!)

[sriracha john]

Yeah pal, you are burning the juice running those ACs, but you must be running both at same time a good part of the day. I'm an AC freak and used to run AC in at least one room all day in a 66 sq mtr apt. My bills used to run about 4K. always turned off before leaning apt. Dont blame you for running AC though, I'm an AC freak. nothing worse than having a layer of sweat all day from the BKK heat. You get people talking about their 800 baht elec bills for their 100 sq mtr apt, sure, all u gotta do is turn off the AC and you got that. These are people who dont mind roasting and sleeping on sheets soaked in sweat. nasty

Three words come to mind:

acclimatization

noun: The physiological adaptation to changes in climate or environment, such as light, temperature, or altitude. [syn:acclimatisation]

fan

noun: A device for creating a current of air or a breeze, especially: A machine using an electric motor to rotate thin, rigid vanes in order to move air, as for cooling.

shower

noun: A bath in which the water is sprayed on the bather in fine streams from a showerhead, usually secured overhead.

It's amazing how all three come into play to make a very cool and comfortable night's rest...

[zzap]

Where do your electricity bills come from? From the landlord or directly from the company?

I used to pay 3-4k when I rented an apartment (1 aircon unit), if you buy your juice from the landlord, the price for electricity is considerably higher than at source - not a rip-off, it's standard practice.

Normally it's hardly noticable, until you get a high-consumption appliance.