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Cheap(er) ways of heating...

M

Mikanik

New member
I've had my two corns for about three weeks (?) now and my better half loves them, but...he's constantly complaining about how much our electricity bill is gonna go up. I, personally, don't think two 60w bulbs is gonna do that much damage to the bill. They're only on during the day to add a little extra heat..maybe left on over night the first night after feeding just for a little extra heat (they only add about 4 or 5 degrees difference). I do have under tank heaters as well, and I can't imagine those use a ton of heat. I do plan on building a custom viv in the next few months though. They're in 10 gallon tanks now and the heat escapes so easily. My customs will be made of wood (melamine) so any advice on how to heat it without raising the electric too much would be appreciated. I was originally thinking of just putting a heat pad or heat tape between two pieces of ceramic tile (thinking they would hold the heat fairly well especially with the substrate covering it) and lighting it with florescent bulbs.

I'm not very savvy when it comes to how much a 60w bulb costs to run and all that so even any advice on what I can tell him when it comes up again would be great too! ;)

Thanx! :D
 
Reposted from a post I made on Alex Hue:

This got me curious. I'm not home where my electric bill is, but I googled average cost of electricity and found .075/kWh. So 75 cents for 1000 kWh. If a (small) UTH is 10 watts, it costs .00075 cents per hour to run. There are 8760 hours in the year. I think that means the 10 watt UTH would cost $6.57/year if it ran 24 hours a day- but mine are on thermostats, so are off a good portion of the time. I do not know how much the thermostat itself costs to run, however...

I think this means my seven UTHs of various sizes cost about $65/year or $5.40/month. In the worst case scenario of the UTHs running 24 hours/day.

Nanci
 
just did some reasearch, and those calculations are a little off, at least that's what I see.

Here's my vertion:

Dec. 06 average residential kwh electricity price: 9.81 cents. The highest prices are in hawaii, alaska and newengland where it is in the teens on average.

So, a 60 watt bulb uses 60 watts of electricity, a kilowatt (kw) = 1000watts so one light bulb would be .06 kw. On, say 12 hours a day, thats .72 kwh's a day times 365 days is 262.8 kwh per year times 9.81 cents is $25.78. Not really that cheap, but not to expensive either.(Nanci, in the one you used the person said 1 Kilowatt Hour = 1000 Kilowatt Hours where what he ment to do was 1 Kilowatt Hour =1000 Watt Hours)

For a ten watt heat pad the price is a mere $4.30 a year, if it's on for 12 hours a day (and $8.60 if run 24 hours a day), so that's the way to go if you can. Flexwatt is 10 watt, and if you use it on the bottom and side of the tanks that should previde the same heating as your light bulb and heat pad. And that's $21 less per year to run!

60 watt lamp = $26.78
10 watt heat pad = $4.30

That's what I get, at least.
 
Now I'm home. My electricity cost is .03738/kwh- sorry...Just cut my cost in half!!

Nanci
 
It might also be useful to factor the cost of electrical heating into the overall costs of maintaining the snake. If properly cared for, corn snakes shouldn't need regular visits to the vet, so maintenance costs basically involve a mouse every 5-7 days or so and a bit of fresh substrate every now and then. I don't own a dog or cat, but I suspect that the cost of simply feeding such animals for a month would be more than the cost of running a UTH, a thermostat, and a 60w bulb for a year (and I only use the bulb during the winter months when the house's ambient temperature is often below 70*). The heat is critical to the snake's health in the same way that food, vaccinations, etc. are essential to the health of our mammal friends, so to object to the cost of the heat would be similar to saying that the household budget only allows kitty to eat once a day.

One might make the argument that the extra heating contributes to a slight increase in one's household carbon footprint, but it would be an extremely small increase for the typical household, and if a family is that concerned about their carbon footprint, they're probably already buying carbon offsets, in which case the added cost would be insignificant compared to the overall monthly cost of the offset.
 
Yeah, well the price of a snake, from animal to care, is soooo much lower than any "standard" pet, that I don't think there's much of a point in worrying. Except caging is a bit pricy, but that's nothing compared to the total price of dogs and the food and stuff.
 
LOL I really enjoyed this thread! Thanks to all of ya! :D I think i have all the info I need. You all *really* helped!
 
This is one I'm gonna jump right in on.

We just bought a Kilowatt meter on the past weekend :) It's a device you plug into an outlet, then plug whatever your checking into it. It tells you exactly how much $ it's costing you to run ( you pre program in how much your hydro costs you, it will allow 2 different prices if you are like us where the hydro is one rate for certain times of the day, and a different rate during peak times)as well as wattage readings, energy use time, how efficient the energy use is, etc. etc.

Anyways.... our hydro bill has always been up there a bit, and my hubby blamed it on my room :rolleyes:

So the first thing I tested was my newest built rack.
Currently only running 5 shelves ( waiting for the rest of my clipsets to come in).

On the one side I have 5 x 1ft of 11" flexwatt heat tape (20watts per foot)
the other side I have 5 x 14" of 4" flexwatt heat tape. ( 8 watts per foot)
Temps kept at 88-90F ( taken on the heat tape) by a dimmer switch.

Our current hydro rate is 0.055000cents per kWh.

I monitored it for 48hrs.

I spent a WHOPPING 0.090 cents running the above rack for 48hrs. 9 cents. That's it, for 2 days of running non-stop.

In addition, I put my racks on timers. So after testing that one, it went on a time, and the heat shuts off for 8hrs at night. So it costs even less than that for this rack to run.

I will be testing all my racks ( ones with heat rope instead of tape, etc) as time progresses. :)

But my hubby can no longer blame the hydro usuage solely on my room :grin01:
 
I want to get a kilowatt meter! I am trying very, very hard to lower my electricity bill, but I don't think I'm a huge consumer anyway, except AC in the summer. And I water a lot of trees, etc, on drip irrigation, to the pump has to run (but the water is free). But I'm switching all my lights over to fluorescent, which are 1/3 to 1/4 the wattage of incandescent. Except they don't work on dimmers. And I'm trying really hard to not use AC or heat, but my limits for the snakes are 65 and 90.

Nanci
 
Yeah, we're switching to florescant lighting as well to reduce the electricity we use, although it is all payed for by the school, since my family lives on the campus of my school. And making sure to turn everything off when we're not using it (lights, computer etc.) is anopther big thing we're doing.

As for heat and AC, I'm stuck in the same predicament you are!! My snakes couldn't stand the cold, or warmth for that matter if we didn't use it.
 
Nanci said:
I want to get a kilowatt meter! I am trying very, very hard to lower my electricity bill, but I don't think I'm a huge consumer anyway, except AC in the summer. And I water a lot of trees, etc, on drip irrigation, to the pump has to run (but the water is free). But I'm switching all my lights over to fluorescent, which are 1/3 to 1/4 the wattage of incandescent. Except they don't work on dimmers. And I'm trying really hard to not use AC or heat, but my limits for the snakes are 65 and 90.

Nanci
Click to expand...

Call around to hardware stores, etc. and ask :) I don't know where you would get one in the US without paying an arm and a leg. Home Hardware is a Canadian company, so I really don't know. I paid 30 Canadian for this one. I know you can get more sophisticated ones that can be hundreds of dollars... but I really didn't want to spend that. This one, I have no complaints about at all. 30 bucks is worth it to me, I couldn't warrant spending hundreds on one though.

Fluorescent lighting is great. That's all we have. Here you can get bulbs that work with dimmers, they are more expensive but you can get them.

We have the same issue with waterring our lawn. Our soil is sandy so we have to do it frequently. But the same as you, the water is free but it costs to run the pump.

Contrary to my own beliefs, computers are actually not bad on the hydro. I always thought they were.

Simple things like fridge and freezer temps, put them at the minimum it takes to keep things cold or frozen. ( I actually stuck a thermometer in my freezers and adjusted the dial based on that).
 
Yes, I did a project on costs of running equipment in a hhouse, and the Washer and dryer are the most expensive to run, followed by the electric stove. The computer is a little ways down the list, I'm not sure exactly where. Refrigerater might have been forth. It was actually a very interesting project. Id on't remember the costs but the fridge and stuff were pretty expensive. The dryer was crazy!
 
Good thing my dryer is de-commissioned, then. (It had a big melt-down in the middle of the night a couple years ago- and I haven't replaced the receptacle yet, and then how do you even know if the dryer caused it, so I'd have to get a new one, and it really hasn't been a big deal, except for not having nice fluffy clothes.)

My snakes and tortoises and birds are a lot more tolerant of warm temps than my ex boyfriend was!

And I'm trying to grow up some shade trees- that should help.

I use the toaster oven and the microwave way more than the real oven. But I do use the stove top a lot, and it's electric, not gas.

Nanci
 
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