How simple life could have been ,year unknown

Glad I don't have all electric. I'd need a 2nd job...lol. We pay about .17/kwh. My wifes sister and her husband built an all electric house about 20 years ago and they were paying .03/kwh back then. Neighboring towns are paying about .12/kwh now.

But funny how most everything they mentioned in that video is standard today

 

That was back when a kid could still walk around packin' his favorite gun. I remember when I was in 2nd grade, I'd wear my double gun belt to school. I'd have those 6-shooters loaded up with a fresh roll of caps in the morning. It wouldn't take long and the classroom smelled like gunsmoke. My teacher, Miss Castle, would sometimes say 'now Woody, you better holster those guns or you won't have any ammo left for recess'. She was really nice, I thought she was hot, school was so much fun.

 

Betty Furness was the WH spokesperson in the mid 50's. That was a relatively simple time to live by comparison to the current era.

 

Wow, .17/KWH. I don't know how that compares with other areas of the country but it's higher than ours. We pay .0673. Who says we don't need those dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers? They sure provide us with some inexpensive power.

 

My off peak electric is 6 cents/kWh. And my geothermal heat pumps are 560% efficient. That compares to paying less than 25 cents for a gallon of propane. I don’t thing there is a more economical way to heat a home.

 

Maggie, to be fair, what did you pay for the geothermal, and what is the payback time?

 

Being in the hvac business I was able to install my system quite reasonably. But a standard forced air geothermal system is not that much more than a gas furnace and a/c. There are situations where geothermal makes sense. (Having off peak electricity available for example) And some situations where geothermal doesn’t make financial sense. Our family business has been installing geothermal since the late 70s.

 

Yep. My town owns the electric dept and raised rates to pay for police. We don't have a chief but out Lt made $170,000 last year and of the 9 full timers about 6 made over $100,000. We only have about 8000 in our town. I bought a rental property years ago and went to get the electric turned on and they refused until I paid the previous owners bill. I called the PUC and they said that was illegal and asked who my provider was. When I told them they said they had no authority over them and they could do what they want. They admitted they use it as a taxation device but the state rep found that was illegal and an auditor came in. There are no accounting records from when they transfer funds from the electric fund to the general fund. So far nothing has been done but it has been all over the local news. They even went as far as to ticket cars that were legally parked at a town hall the state rep held. That made the news since all cars were parked legally but the mayor was standing there in the picture. It was a new cop they had just hired and he knew the cars were legal but the mayor directed him to ticket them. So anyway, we pay an outrageous electric fee because of it. Alot of people around here pay more for electric than they do for rent or mortgage.

 

Electric on Long Island is pretty expensive. The power supply Rate is about 0.10 kWh now, but one once you add in the other stuff the effective rate is about 0.18 kWh. We installed solar panels so it’s. I e to have a credit balance for much of the year.

In the 70s a lot of 55+ communities were built on Long Island with all electric heat. It was supposed to be less maintenance and the Shoreham nuclear power plant was supposed to generate super cheap electric - making it more affordable for seniors. The plant was built, fueled, and run-up - then never put into revenue service. It left a huge debt for LILCO that killed the company and that the successor power authority is still paying off via rates. Those electric-heated homes get killed too. Last year my barber rented a house in Florida for 6 months in the winter for less than what it would have cost them to heat their condo with electric.

 

Electric bill near zero...

 

Maggie, where are you in Wi? M

 

What town near Pitt do you live in? Sounds like a fiefdom. My sister lives in Wexford, so I know all about the PA taxes.

 

I'm in Ellwood City. Do a search for Ellwood City and electric.

I'm familiar with Wexford. My son's fiancee works there and I used to work in Warrendale which is a few miles north of Wexford.

 

I have always been a big geothermal fan.... Can you explain some situations where it doesn't make sense?.... We are in central Indiana.

 

Indiana went wind crazy a few years ago when the wind farm went up on 65 near Purdue and Bravini came in to Muncie to build the gear housings... The state approached me to put a wind mill on my factory property... When you did the math with government grants the cost of the windmill never paid itself back over its life. There has to be a better solution without governmet/taxayer subsidies that don't offer a return

 

36 panels @ 305w each.. total cost installed $29k, US federal tax credit 1st year $9k, state of Washington tax credit $1500/year for 8 years = $12k our cost $8,000 and in Seattle with our clouds & rain we are saving over $1500/year on our power bill so in 6 years we are ahead $$

 

That is a lot better then a windmill... So the tax payer gets a 14 year payback... You get 6.... and the panels last between 20-25 years before they start to fade..