Yearly Archives: 2010

Time of Use and your Base Electricity Usage

It’s been almost two weeks now since Hydro One switched us to the new Time of Use billing for our electricity usage. So far, we’ve been doing pretty good at keeping our heavy usage in the off-peak times. That’s mostly running the washer, dryer and dishwasher after 9PM.

What is more difficult to control is the base electricity usage in you house. That is the electricity that you need to run things like your fridge, deep-freezer, furnace, and any other “always on” devices that are required for the “proper” operation of your house.

To reduce your overall electricity bill, you should try to keep your electricity usage as close to your base electricity usage as possible. This post will explore some options.

What is your Base Electricity Usage?

Hydro One has a rather nice online tool that allows you to see what your real electricity usage is. The Hydro One My Account Time of Use Portal presents your usage in Hourly, Daily or Monthly graphs.This can be very handy for learning what your current base electricity usage is.

We just happened to be on vacation and I was able to capture the following information from the Hydro One tool for one of the days were were gone.

Graph showing our base electricity usage before conservation efforts.

Graph from Hydro One Time of Use Portal showing our base electricity usage before conservation efforts.

As you can see, we were using 14.20kWh for a day when no one was in the house, no heating was happening and no AC was on. That’s an average of 592Watts per hour! Needless to say, that is a rather high base electricity usage for when no one is around. As I mentioned in a previous post, before Time of Use pricing started, we paid approximately $0.122/kWh (plus HST) which means our total cost for a day with no one home was $1.96, or ~$715 a year!

Now, I knew something was really wrong with that average of 592Watts per hour so I got my trusty power meter out and started trying to determine what was consuming so much power. At first I was going to check the fridge and deep-freeze but then I realized that unless I’m going to replace them, there’s not much point. That will probably be a not-too-distant-future plan. So, I focused on other items that consumed power and were left on while we were on vacation.

Dehumidifier – ~150W
HRV – ~160W
Standby Power aka Vampire Power – ~100W

Now, the dehumidifier and HRV are sort of necessary but they don’t need to run 24/7. I unplugged the dehumidifier (after seeing the 150W it consumed) and I also turned off the HRV. This is sort of a temporary thing which I will get into a little later.

As I mentioned in my Woods SmartStrip power bar saves money post, I installed a new “smart” power bar on the “TV center” and cut ~68W of our vampire power.

Looking at a recent day in the Hydro One Time of Use Portal, I have now reduced our base electricity usage to approx 280Watts per hour. There is still some room for improvement but 280W/hour is approximately $340/year or a real savings of $375/year just but turning some stuff off when it’s not needed.

I know my base electricity usage – now what?

Well, with Time of Use, there are three tiers which have different electricity rates. Knowing what your base electricity rate is allows you to calculate how much it’s going to cost you to run your house, excluding all of the other add-on stuff. Using my own home/location as an example, and looking at the winter Time of Use tiers (BTW they start today November 1st), I calculated our average price to be $0.131058/kWh (plus HST).

Our 280W base electricity usage now turns into $363/year. That’s not too bad – it’s basically $30 a month to run our basic electrical items. Remember that this number doesn’t include stuff like lights, heating/cooling, TV, computers or any other “on-demand” items.

Knowing what your base electricity usage is allows you to make more educated decisions on turning electrical items on/off.

That brings us back to the HRV and dehumidifier. We don’t need either to run 24/7. The week day off-peak period is 10 continuous hours at an adjusted cost of $0.107558/kWh. If I only allow the HRV to run during off-peak time then the incremental cost would be $70/year. If I let it run 24/7 it would be closer to $200/year. This can be achieved with a simple, properly rated, electrical timer.

The same can be done with the dehumidifier (and any other similar types of loads – like pool pumps or heaters, etc.).

NOTE: I haven’t actually done this yet. I plan on getting a timer soon and checking to see what it’s own electrical consumption is.

Anyways, the gist of this entire post is that you can only reduce your electricity bill by so much. We could definitely get a newer fridge and deep freeze that would consume less power and lower our base electricity usage but then we need to consider the initial cost of replacing those appliances. It could easily be in the $2000 range and since our base electricity usage is currently in the $360/year range, those appliances would take a rather large number of years to pay back in energy savings. That said, if either appliance needs to be replaced, one major deciding factor will be the energy consumption of the replacement unit.

Over the next while you’re likely going to see more Time of Use related posts on ivany.org. I’m on a quest to reduce our base electrical consumption so that I don’t have to pay for wasted electricity. As demonstrated in this post, small reductions in usage can add up very quickly.

Woods SmartStrip power bar saves money

By Jeff Ivany

4 Replies

I’ve been watching the Woods SmartStrip power bar at Canadian Tire for a while now. The regular price of $44.99 seemed a little much in my opinion but a couple weeks back it was on sale for $29.99 with another $5 off because of this year’s Every Kilowatt Counts rebates. So I bought one and so far, I’ve been very happy with my purchase.

The Woods Smart Strip works as advertised. In my case, I plugged the TV into the “control” outlet and then the Wii, receiver, DVD player, etc into the “controlled” outlets. After a minor adjustment of the sensitivity wheel on the Smart Strip, the TV now causes everything to be turned on or off when it is turned on or off. Yes, there is a very minor inconvenience factor in that the Wii and DVD player have to “boot up” but nothing we can’t deal with. Heck, the TV takes a few seconds to start displaying video anyways.

Previously, we would leave the “TV center” items on all the time or in standby. The TV itself would be off but the Wii, DVD player, receiver, etc would all be on or in standby. That consumes power all the time. With my trusty Blue Planet Electronic Energy Meter (which is like a Kill-A-Watt meter), I was able to determine that we were consuming ~70W continuously. That’s not a big number until you do some math. 70W for, say, 18 hours a day (assuming you use your TV for 6 hours a day, which is pretty high), every day for a year is ~460kWh of power consumed – for something you aren’t even using.

Now with the Blue Planet Electronic Energy Meter I see that the whole setup only consumes 2W. That is actually the same amount that the TV alone is reported to consume when it is in standby. Basically, the Woods SmartStrip is consuming virtually 0W to provide the controlled outlet functionality. Fantastic!

Why did I buy the Woods Smart Strip?

Hydro One recently notified me that we are going to be billed based on the new Time of Use rates starting this month. That means we are now paying different rates based on the time of day. There are three tiers – off-peak, mid-peak and peak. I’m not a huge fan of the current implementation because the average rate over 24 hours is higher than what I was previously paying and the off-peak rate isn’t low enough. But, this is where the Woods SmartStrip is coming into play.

Before Time of Use kicked in, our rate was ~ $0.055/kWh. That 460kWh of power when the TV wasn’t even being used was costing us ~$25/year.

Is that all? Well, hang on, Time of Use increased the average cost for something that consumes 24/7. It averages around $0.075/kWh which adds another $9 to our yearly cost bringing us to almost $35. Well, the Woods Smart Strip power bar has now paid for itself if it lasts one year. Woo-hoo!

But there’s more… We don’t actually pay only $0.075/kWh. Where I live, it’s more like $0.137/kWh once you add in all of the other charges that are billed based on your consumption. Transportation, delivery, debt retirement, etc.

That turns into approximately $63/year or $71.20/year including the HST I don’t have to pay. Hell, that’s a couple cases of beer!

I strongly recommend the Wood SmartStrip for this sort of application. Why waste perfectly good beer money for no reason?

Mastercraft Warranty

By Jeff Ivany

8 Replies

A while back I posted about the Mastercraft Life-time Warranty because I was able to replace a measuring tape with no questions asked. That post has received a number of comments from people who have had problems exercising the Mastercraft warranty.

I decided to contact Canadian Tire, the retailer who sells the Mastercraft tools brand in Canada, to ask them about their warranty policy. The response I got back from one of their Corporate Customer Relations people was:

Limited lifetime warranty is issued on certain types of Mastercraft tools and can only be exercised with a proof of purchase and/or the visible marking of the Mastercraft name. Without either one of these criteria, the store is unable to honour the replacement of a tool. The warranty excludes any damage resulting from apparent negligent handling, misuse or lack of maintenance or care.

Based on this policy, we would be able to exchange the tools that meet the above criteria. In the event there is no replacement tool available, the store would then issue a refund. The stores reserve the right to refuse to credit or exchange the article should a receipt not be available or a defect cannot be found with the product.

From the response above, it would appear that if your tool has an obvious Mastercraft marking, Canadian Tire should replace it with the same tool, as long as it is available, no questions asked. Of course, don’t abuse your tools or they won’t honour the warranty.

Unfortunately, it also sounds like each Canadian Tire store can refuse to honour the warranty if you don’t have a receipt. If you are lucky enough to live in an area where there are multiple stores, you should try a different store if the first one rejects your warranty exchange. If you do get refused, you should contact Canadian Tire and request their help in exchanging the defective Mastercraft tool.

Good Luck!

Bell TV soliciting already!

By Jeff Ivany

No more Bell (ExpressVu) TV

By Jeff Ivany

2 Replies

As of tomorrow we will no longer have Bell (ExpressVu) TV. We finally pulled the plug on the dish and I don’t think we’re going to miss it.

We’ve been giving Bell $80 a month for something we barely use anymore. That’s almost $1000 a year! Other than watching most of the NHL playoffs (much of which I watched on the second TV that only has rabbit ears!) I think I’ve watched a total of maybe 20 hours since Christmas. The Boss has watched more but not by much. We just don’t have time anymore. Well, that and I’m still pissed with Bell and have been putting this off for far too long. ;)

Now, don’t get me wrong, we’re still planning on watching TV. We can pull a surprising amount of stuff Over The Air (OTA) with our little rabbit ears. All of the major Canadian networks come in. I’m tempted to cruise the garage sales and spend a couple bucks to get a better antenna that I can put up in the attic to see if I can improve the reception. Supposedly I can get some US stations too if I get a digital box and a good antenna. Not sure if I’m ready to try that though.

If we had an HDTV, I’d already have an antenna setup to get the CBCHD feed. A lot of people I know are doing this, even though they already are paying big bucks for Bell or Rogers HD. Why? Because the CBCHD OTA feed is apparently uncompressed which means there are none of those crappy digital artifacts. Both Rogers and Bell compress the hell out of most of their channels, HD or not.

Anyhoo, another thing we’re doing is we’ve joined Zip.ca (on the basic $11/month plan) which is a DVD rental thing all done through the mail. They have thousands of DVDs, including kids stuff and TV shows. Since we’ve missed nearly every popular TV show in the last 4 years, I think we have a good selection of stuff to watch to “catch up” with the rest of the world. ;)I think we should be able to get 4-5 DVDs a month. Our first arrived yesterday – only two days after signing up. If you’re thinking of signing up with Zip.ca, let me know and I’ll send you a referral email. That way you can give us a little kick back and help our TV viewing. ;)

Also, we’ve had great experiences with downloading and/or streaming stuff from online. We actually started doing this a while back because the stupid Bell TV PVR stopped recording certain shows for some reason. I don’t know if Bell blocked them intentionally or not but shows like Survivor, Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy never recorded properly in the last year. We’d end up with an hour long show but it would just freeze if you tried to play it. So, I turned to the net and we were able to watch the episodes we had missed.

If we decide that Zip.ca isn’t really working out, we could also put some of the $80 a month we’re not spending on Bell TV towards buying full seasons of TV shows and movies, or just renting DVDs from the local DVD place. We can also turn to the iTunes Music Store as they have TV shows and movies you can purchase and download.

Finally, we may cave yet and get basic cable from Cogeco (the cable TV provider where we live). Their basic package offers up nearly all the channels we want for around $35 a month. And the channels it doesn’t have, well, we’ll just get used to not having them. ;)