On 4/15/2012 2:28 PM, Home Guy wrote:
Robert Macy wrote:

All other aspects of smart meters represents a false economy,
because residential customers don't use enough electricity
(individually) to warrant the use of time-of-day billing,

After we switched from normal meter to Time of Day meter where
the rate OFF peak hours was half the cost of ON peak hours, our
monthly electric bill dropped $60. To me, that was NOT false
economy.

Have you had it long enough for the meter to bill your air-conditioner
use yet?

I understand it can get hot in Arizona in the summer...

electric dryer [rarely used].

People with young families are (I'm told) constantly using their
washer/dryer.

Having an electric (vs gas) dryer can be a real drag given the price
difference for electricity vs nat-gas.


I have a 5 month old baby at home and we have an Energy star 4 cubic
foot front load washing machine.

I was stunned at how little electricity the machine used. And we use
cold water strictly.

Average load takes 58 to 104 minutes. Average electrical use as
measured by a Kill-a-watt device was .16 kwhr to .19kwhr. Average
electrical cost (before all hidden fees) was 1.7 cents a load peak time
and 1.1 cents per cheapest time.

We have a gas dryer that averages about 40 minutes per 4 cubic foot load
of laundry. That thing uses between .21 kwhr and .4 kwhr per load
DEPENDING on the type of laundry. Work jeans requiring more drying,
fleece requiring less. We leave it to the sensors.

I get drying loads between 1.4 cents to 5 cents of electrical use (dunno
about gas use but I can measure in summer when furnace and water heater
off) a load measured by the kill-a-watt. Remember it's a gas dryer.

I'm thinking since I'm the stay at home parent, of disregarding the time
of use for laundry because of the seemingly low cost and very marginal
savings of waiting till 7 at night for cheap rates.

I'm still going to measure electrical use of those appliances to make
sure those numbers are legit.