Trimming the Hawaiian Electric bill
Posted Sep 28, 2008 @ 11:05 pm, Viewed by 539 Visitors, Read 577 Times.
Earlier this month I wrote about a customer's shocking bill from Hawaiian Electric. He and I did some brainstorming about conserving electricity and monitoring our usage. He started checking his electric meter everyday and flipped switches off in his breaker box when he and the family were away from home. Note: he did keep the refrigerator on.
As of this writing he has not received his latest bill. However, he continues to monitor his electric meter and his kilowatt usage is down from 30kw per day last month to 20kw per day this month.
Meanwhile, I received my electric bill and noticed an interesting trend.
The good news: Last month our kilowatt usage per day was the lowest ever, since we moved into our house a year ago.
The bad news: The electric bill climbed even higher, to $159.91 for 31 days.
Doing some quick math, I think the measures my wife and I took in the last month saved us $20-$30 on our bill. The main changes we made are as follows:
- Put our TV and stereo on a surge protector. We keep the surge protector turned off most of the day. It only takes a few more seconds to start them up when we're ready to watch TV or listen to music.
- Put our microwave oven, toaster and blender on another surge protector. The microwave has a clock that we don't need. I don't think the toaster uses any electricity when it's not in use, but what the heck, it doesn't hurt to have it on the surge protector. We love our blender, but why did the manufacturer put a light on it? The light stays on all the time unless it's unplugged or on a surge protector.
- Unplugged a cordless phone. Do you have several cordless phones with chargers and then one base phone? We unplugged the extra phone charger and then alternate the two phone handsets between the base phone/charger. A handset can hold a charge for several days with casual usage.
- Unplugged the cell phone charger when it wasn't charging a phone.
Next on the list: install a new clothesline in the backyard. I bought some cement and plan to dig a hole, then set the base of the clothesline in it on a day when we have sunshine and I'm not meeting with customers. My wife loves to use the (electric) clothes dryer and I want to wean her off of it.
Wasting electricity is wasting money. Now that electricity costs more it makes more sense to save where we can! With oil prices coming down recently we hope to see our electric bills decline as well. It's still a good practice to save energy where we can to help our environment and avoid buying energy from people in countries that don't even like Americans.
Mike Bates sells homes in Honolulu
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Mike Bates is a realtor associate on the island of Oahu. He's lived on Oahu, Maui, Molokai and the Big Island for 28 years and is here to share his knowledge of the Hawaiian Islands with you. Read More
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A late comment here and I fully understand where you are coming from. What a lot of people don't know is that even though an electric item is turned of, it still produces an outsource of power and other gases that are unsafe for the environment. The only sure way to know nothing is being used is to unplug an item when it is not in use. Tedious for sure but its the only way.
One sure way to cut cost on electric that many are catching on to is by generating green energy. For the cost of maybe two months of electricity the average homeowner can easily convert to solar or wind power. Theres not much to hook up at all, and the initial utility bill is reduced by 80%. One other good thing is that if you don't use all the energy you generate you can sell it to the power companies and eventually eliminate using them at all. To find out more about it <a href="http://earthpoweryourhouse.com/?tid="target"_top">Click Here!</a>