That’s what I was afraid of… How many months of aircon will I have to sacrifice to be able to afford one…
I wish my aircon had a better timer system. It is by the hour… And if the thermostat turns off the outdoor unit, the indoor unit continues to run. I have developed the habit to hit 1 hour on the aircon, and something I even go “ok that’s good” and turn it off. Other times I don’t even notice it go off after an hour, and at some point after that think, “the aircon isn’t working too well”. Then I look up and it is off, so I put in on for another hour. I just wish I could do it in 30 minute intervals.
We’re quite heavy users. Depending on how hot it is, our “idle” usage is about 2kw per hour. We have 2 inverter aircons running 24/7 so if it is hot, that idle usage goes up to 2.5kw/h and if it is cool, it goes down to about 1.5kw/h. That excludes the geyser since that isn’t running through our solar system so don’t know how much that usage is per day. So our idle usage mentioned above is basically for 2 fridges, a 165" tv, 2 inverter aircons, 2 high-end PCs (and they’re mining) and 4x 32" screens / TVs.
Some fun facts:
Kettle uses a lot of power. About 2kw/h while on. We’ve replaced our stove top with gas so we boil the kettle on there now, but it takes forever.
Induction plate uses about 1.5 - 1.8kw/h, but it finishes quicker than conventional stove top.
Dishwasher uses about 1.5kw/h for 10 minutes, then nothing for a while, then again for 10 minutes and so on.
Tumble dryer uses over 2kw/h
Defy 18000btu aircon (non-inverter) uses about 2kw/h
Samsung 18000btu inverter aircon uses about 2.2kw/h when you just turn it on (if it is hot) and then it can go down to using about 100-200W/h. I think it is probably more economical to just leave it on as it drains a lot of power that first while to try and cool down the room.
Washing machine is barely noticeable
Geysers <= 150L uses 3kw/h while heating and Geysers >= 200L uses 5kW/h while heating.
I’ve always thought this way, but after my last bill… Then again, maybe I should just leave the house for longer periods of time (like work from the office instead of home) so it would be warranted.
I have been, for the most part, successfully living within my budget for prepaid electricity and water for the month. Though this has been a thumbsuck based on past expenditure. I was wondering if there is a way to calculate it more precisely.
e.g.
if R200 prepaid electricity gets me ~75KWh and I use approx. 15KWh per day which should last me 5 days.
If there are 30 days in a month that should be R200 x 6 = R1,200pm on electricity usage.
That’s not taking into account the fact that sometimes I can spend the same ammount but get a different amount of units. It seems the more you spend, the less you get. So it would make more sense to buy a larger initial ammount once off.
You actually get the same amount whether you buy in bulk or top up during the month. The first x amount will give you a bit more electricity (cant remember how many units) then after that the price goes up and you pay more for less.
We tend to buy in bulk R1500 per month and then I sneakily top up with at least R300 a month as well since my dad refuses to pay more and cannot understand that when he runs certain things aka aircon for cooling or heating…
You have a tiered system. lets say for argument sake tier 1 = 400 units. That means the first 400 units you buy cost you say R5 a unit (just example, dont tell me what it costs :P)
tier 2 is then R7 a unit.
The tier resets first of every month… so say you need 400 units a month. so you buy 400 units at start of month (costing R5 a unit). Now its near end of month (say 30th) and you wanna top up. Well if you buy another 400 you gonna be paying R7 for those next 400…rather buy say 40 units (at R7 each) and then at start of month buy the rest when it goes back to R5.
This only applies if you use enough to reach the next tier, which varies between municipalities. But basically if you bought in bulk at start of month, dont be an idiot and buy in bulk near end of month, rahter “top up” and then buy in bulk again at start of new month.
Ironically I too have recently started tracking my usage a bit, but it’s basically me taking a photo of the prepaid meter whenever I remember so that I can put it into a chart… at a later stage, which is 3 weeks in and hasn’t happened yet
It’s interesting to see that you top up with small amounts compared to buying bulk at the beginning of the month. I don’t know which is better.
Are there any good apps to track things for us? I can google it but then it’s about trial and error.
So since im a trustee in our complex, we have created graphs for all units etc so that if people query increases in their electricity etc we can provide them with sort of an explanation. We dont have prepaid electricity and get billed by COJ. That being said COJ sometimes dont bill us. We have a meter reading company that has to come and read the meters on the first of each month and when COJ eventually send us a bill they will query any differences for us with COJ.
This is the electricity usage of my unit. We are 2 adults and we mostly sit in one room of the house and use a normal electrical stove. It hasnt been updated yet and will be updated shortly
Also these are the steps that COJ charge on usage which will equate what you pay in rands per unit.(This is from Feb though i cant find the updated one for July as that is when COJ put their increases)
That’s exactly what i did! I tried to get into habit of checking around the same time every day (5pm when home), and track daily usage that way. Heres mine
So i have the 3rd column (that 426.7) which is when i top up), and i take it into account on the change per reading so that the top up is “ignored”.
I then sometimes miss days, and then take a 2-x day average between readings… I’m actually kinda proud of my little formulas etc, takes me back to high school/varsity math
But yea, I started the whole thing when we moved in so I could get a good idea of what our usage is…I have since stopped doing the dailies and capturing and know roughly what we use in a month.
EDIT: we are 3 people, 2 tv’s, 2 pc’s, and no pool, otherwise standard (quite energy efficient as they’re new and we didn’t ignore efficiency rating) appliances (2 fridges total) and a gas stove electric oven.
It worries me about our new place (provided I get the bond). We currently pay very little for water, electricity and our municipal bill because our place is tiny. I saw the bills for the new place and it’s a lot more. It’s currently being used as a business though so there’s servers running and lots of computers and heaters and stuff. Their electricity bill was R5000 last month. I hope we can get it low again.
I have no idea how the prepaid electricity works except for what @Blazzok and @Beo explained to me. Will see when we get there. Stupid everything that’s so expensive these days.
So over the course of last financial month we have used a combined total of R2,250 (water and electricity). Three quarters of which was likely electricity, with an average of about 20KWh per day and approx. average of 400L per day of water.
These seem like quite a bit considering we have been taking measure to actively try and save water and electrcity. Things like not switching on the geyser, or not showering/bathing, no oven usage, etc.
