Electricity Bill

[rolandslf]

My Bill averages out at about R3000 per month, and this is for a 6 bedroomed house with TV in each Bedroom and one in the Lounge. Their are 9 of us living in the house.
There are two geysers, a stove, a double fridge and a freezer, the front loader washing machine runs for about 4 hours twice a week, all the clothes get ironed twice a week. Couple to this a Snake Room with lighting for three Beardie Cages which runs for 14 hours a day, a 20 tub rack with Heating Cable which runs for 24 hours a day, three Boa Cages with Heating Pads that run 24 hours a day. Mr. Venom, I think that somewhere you are being overcharged.

Having said this, my Bill for July 2012, suddenly spiked at R6937.82, more than double my monthly average which was calculated over the past 14 months. I am getting my area individual readings in September, so perhaps I will get a zero account which has happened in the past.

[jka]

I contacted my local Municipality for the electricity rates.
They sell it per 350Kwh. The highest is R1.51per unit.

Depending on where you stay you wil get advantages, like the people in the townships get 100units free every month etc.
And I know for a fact that some get out with R50 a week, then its not poor people they have all the same utilities as we do in out house but they live in the previously disadvantaged area.

I'm sure those meters can be tampered with, I remember a few years back our meter caught fire and the municipality, took a month to send someone to came around, for that month we had free electricity, then it took them another couple of months to install the new meter so still we had free electricity.

[LAMB Pythons]

Ive recently bought a few electricity meters for my snake room http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B003 ... 03_s00_i00 out of curiosity just to see what and how much I use. And its shockingly low. So snakes doesn't use that much electricity.

[Davidc]

Hello everyone

Tonight my step dad brought to my attention that our electricity bill is R2045.98, he also said that it was my fault for the bill being so high this month, because of my "snakes heaters".

I only use three heat pads, and no other accessories for the tanks, and I do not use the lights.

I only use the following:

1 Exo-terra dessert heat pad, Voltage: 220-230 V/50HZ, Wattage: 8 watts.
1 Medium standard foil heating pad, wattage: 14 watts
1 large standard foil heating pad, wattage: 20 watts

I left the heating pads on every day, all day, all night for whole of August, the previous electricity bill was R1450.68, it is really possible for a R500+ increase due to just three heating pads being left on for August?

Any information, comment and help will be greatly appreciated .

Kind regards

Mr Venom

Your load is 42W. That is less than a normal light bulb or the same as 3 x 14W energy saving lights. Even at R2 per kW it is only around R60 per month.

[Marion]

Hi Mr Venom

Tell your dad it's definitely NOT your snake equipment that is using all the power. The heating pads etc do not use a lot of power but the Municipalities did hike their prices up alarmingly in May/June. My electricity, water etc account went up from R1300 per month to R2000 per month in May. In June they decided to "read" the water meter and I was presented with a bill for R5800. On checking the dates, it seems that the water meter was not read, nor was an interim amount given for well over a year.

Since then my account has been a steady R2000 a month. I have a lot less power usage than I did a year ago (I only have one large cage set up this year compared to 7 last year) but my bill is still double what it was last year this time. So regardless of what the Municipality says - they did increase our electricity and water prices by well over 50% this year. There is not one person I know that hasn't had a really big increase, so I'm sure that's what happened to your dad's account too.

I hope that helps a bit and I hope your dad sees that your usage of electricity is very small.

Good luck

Marion

[SABOAMAN]

I just got my bill for August R1003. This is the highest it has ever been. I have been in the same flat for 7 1/2 years and over 8 years in the same complex. I know the metro doesn't come as often as they would like you to believe. Had a bill stating days 117 for account. For this reason the complex has decided to go to a different electricity service provider. Unfortunately this is only available to body corporate structures and not individual house holds. This would sort out the over estimation by the metro council.

In the news earlier in the week it was said that the Tshwane metro mayor would like to change every household over to prepaid metering system. This would help them with bad debt, how he would implement this (and at what cost) is still unclear

[Denise]

To avoid all the problems of electricity bill....I prefer to use Solar Panel system for home and Business Usage .
I have Solar Panel in my home .Its working is best and it produced electricity free of cost .
I will send its Demo to all of you soon .Have a Good Day .

[TonyK]

Mr Venom welcome to the club.We all took slack from our parents over the electricity bill.In my case I had fish tanks as well as the snakes so I was always being blamed.Clearly its not your few small heating pads causing the problem.

[Mr Venom]

Many thanks to all the replies guys, even though I'm a few months late of a reply. I showed my step dad the first page and then he kept quiet and had nothing to say. Felt good , haha.

TonyK it's not the first time I am being blamed, just last week my parents were saying that I leave the lights on when I sleep and that's why the bill is so high. I never use the lights, but my parents never switch their tv off, it runs on average 20 hours a day.