Now That's a Change

So, we just received the first electric bill for this house in our name (the lease originally had our landlord receiving the bill and then billing us, but that was inconvenient, so now we're getting billed directly).

Wow what a change!

Last year our bill from SRP from June 14 to July 13 added up to $540.68. Our current bill from Avista for June 15 to July 14 is... $184.30.

Just a little bit different.

The breakdown:

Time Period	July 2009	July 2010
kWh	4451	2264
Cost	$488.87	$179.70
Cost Per kWh	$.1098	$.0794
Monthly Basic Charge	$12.00	$4.60
City Tax	$8.26	none
County and State Tax	$31.56	none
Total	$540.68	$184.30

Yeah... the cost of living is a little lower here huh...

Oh, and though we don't have air conditioning in this house, the numbers here include the cost of running the hot tub 24/7 (1500 watt heater, plus pump).

And of course, without the ever increasing AC cost through the summer, our bill should be about the same for July (actually July 15th through August 14th), through September; vs. the $700 per month we paid last July, August, and last September (yes, our June-July bill was relatively LOW last year).

The savings from one summer month alone, is enough to buy heating oil and firewood for the whole winter.

Oh and now we have an idea of how much generator we need to buy for the inevitable winter blackouts (peak sustained usage looks like about 6kw).