I thought it might be interesting to publish our family energy bill each month.
We are a family of four living in a four-bedroom, two-bathroom 1980’s house.
We have gas hot water heating only. Everything else is electric, including our oven, cooktop and two Daikin heatpumps for heating/cooling.
April 2022 – Autumn – $161.85
Frank Energy (Electricity) – $104.57 (345 units)
Frank Energy (Gas) – $57.28
A cooler month. Still working from home 2-3 days per week – but no heat pump running.
March 2022 – Summer – $174.52
Frank Energy (Electricity) – $104.73 (352 units)
Frank Energy (Gas) – $69.79
February 2022 – Summer – $234.25
Frank Energy (Electricity) – $164.63 (572 units)
Frank Energy (Gas) – $69.62
After a prolonged stint working from home, Mr & Mrs Power Guy are now working in ‘hybrid’ mode and kids are back at school full time.
January 2022 – Summer – $239.74
Frank Energy (Electricity) – $162.39 (565 units)
Frank Energy (Gas) – $77.35
Summer has arrived and the downstairs heatpump is back in action on cooling mode so we are comfortable during the days working from home, and both kids and adults can sleep at night.
December 2021 – Summer – $198.38
Frank Energy (Electricity) – $138.29 (469 units)
Frank Energy (Gas) – $60.09
=== NOTE ===
This month Energy Online rebranded to Frank Energy
November 2021- Spring – $183.90 [Level 3]
Energy Online (Electricity) – $106.34 (358 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $77.56
Spring is here and our household electricity usage is starting to fall. I have noticed our gas bills have been higher over the last couple of months, not really sure why actually. Unfortunately – unlike our power – the gas doesn’t have a smart meter to track hourly usage and I’m not enthusiastic enough to take a log of usage (yet!).
October 2021 – Spring – $242.38 [Level 3]
Energy Online (Electricity) – $144.78 (497 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $97.60
September 2021 – Spring – $226.27 [Level 4 / 3]
Energy Online (Electricity) – $162.31 (566 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $63.99
August 2021 – Winter – $245.59 [Level 1 / 4]
Energy Online (Electricity) – $176.84 (620 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $68.75
After quite a few months at COVID Alert Level 1, Auckland returned to Level 4 on 17th August. Will be interesting to see what this does to the power bill, if anything, over the next month or two.
The last couple of months have been relatively steady usage – around $250/month for electricity and gas water heating.
July 2021 – Winter – $240.27
Energy Online (Electricity) – $167.42 (585 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $72.85
June 2021 – Autumn – $250.86
Energy Online (Electricity) – $173.30 (603 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $77.56
The wintery weather hits – and the power bill jumps!
The heating/cooling strategy for this winter is to keep a small heat pump (downstairs) ticking over 24/7 to keep the house at a comfortable temperature and only kick in the larger one upstairs when required.
I have decommissioned/removed the original, very inefficient, underfloor tile heating from downstairs which sucks the power. By keeping the house at a relatively constant internal temperature downstairs, I figure that we wouldn’t need the tile heating anyway – no more cold morning feet!
May 2021 – Autumn – $208.57
Energy Online (Electricity) – $147.86 (511 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $60.61
April 2021 – Autumn – $153.48
Energy Online (Electricity) – $89.47 (294 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $64.01
March 2021 – Summer – $159.27 [Level 1]
Energy Online (Electricity) – $100.99 (333 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $58.28
February 2021 – Summer – $186.22 [Level 3 temporarily]
Energy Online (Electricity) – $123.02 (420 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $63.20
January 2021 – Summer – $211.62
Energy Online (Electricity) – $135.63 (463 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $75.99
December 2020 – Summer – $152.69
Energy Online (Electricity) – $95.85 (297 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $56.84
Appliance update – This month we removed our old gas cooktop and installed an induction cooktop. We also replaced our early 1990’s oven with a new Fisher and Paykel model. Theoretically, this should see our gas usage fall and electricity usage increase – but in reality I’m not really expecting much of a difference due to (a) the amount of gas used to cool is likely very low compared to that used for hot water heating, and (b) the new over should be much better insulated and therefore more efficient than the old one.
November 2020- Spring – $178.13
Energy Online (Electricity) – $89.33 (259 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $88.80
October 2020 – Spring – $147.74 [Level 1 (mostly)]
Energy Online (Electricity) – $77.74 (284 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $69.90
September 2020 – Spring – $187.90 [Level 2]
Energy Online (Electricity) – $123.66 (479 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $64.24
August 2020 – Winter – $218.67 [Level 3 & 2]
Energy Online (Electricity) – $149.02 (583 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $69.65
July 2020 – Winter – $201.50 [Level 1]
Energy Online (Electricity) – $137.41 (537 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $64.09
June 2020 – Autumn – $204.41 [Level 1]
Energy Online (Electricity) – $141.69 (555 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $62.72
May 2020 – Autumn – $282.49 [Level 3 & 2]
Energy Online (Electricity) – $211.76 (666 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $70.73
Still elevated power usage, but lower than April as we entered Alert Level 3 & 2 with life slowly returning to normal.
April 2020 – Autumn – $333.30 [COVID Alert Level 4]
Energy Online (Electricity) – $248.10 (790 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $85.20
COVID-19 Level 4 lockdown resulted in significantly increased power usage, as my wife and I worked from home with the kids. Interestingly gas usage also increased, I expect because of the extra cooked breakfasts and lunches 🙂
March 2020 – Summer – $192.01
Energy Online (Electricity) – $126.80 (381 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $65.21
February 2020 – Summer – $145.56
Energy Online (Electricity) – $87.22 (324 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $58.34
January 2020 – Summer – $174.16
Energy Online (Electricity) – $120.10 (464 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $54.06
December 2019 – Summer – $122.96
Energy Online (Electricity) – $69.73 (243 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $53.23
Even better than November!
November 2019 – Spring – $135.78
Energy Online (Electricity) – $70.40 (256 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $65.38
Nothing much to report this month. Longer days and brighter mornings, plus a warm spring with minimal heat pump use have resulted in our lowest power bill in a long while.
October 2019 – Spring – $157.28
Energy Online (Electricity) – $95.04 (354 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $62.24
September 2019 – Spring – $221.16
Energy Online (Electricity) – $145.00 (468 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $76.16
August 2019 – Winter – $242.88
Energy Online (Electricity) – $170.85 (584 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $72.03
July 2019 – Winter – $143.37
Energy Online (Electricity) – $94.11 (353 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $52.63
June 2019 – Winter – $146.86
Energy Online (Electricity) – $90.74 (333 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $57.12
May 2019 – Autumn – $146.74
Energy Online (Electricity) – $94.11 (353 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $52.63
Interesting note: We replaced our inefficient 1990’s Vulcan gas heater (which used $90/month of gas) eight months ago with a modern Rinnai Infinity – but for the first 4-5 months it kept using $70-80/month which seemed high. Now it has settled around $55/month on average as expected (see below from Sept 2018 for justification / payback period). I wonder if new gas heaters have a ‘settling in’ period where they are less efficient for a few months? Strange.
April 2019 – Autumn – $260.75
Energy Online (Electricity) – $179.39 (711 units)
(Guests staying, heat pump cranking – winter is here)
Energy Online (Gas) – $81.36
March 2019 – Autumn – $138.93
Energy Online (Electricity) – $84.98 (316 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $53.95
February 2019 – Summer – $121.27
Energy Online (Electricity) – $76.07 (277 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $45.20
January 2019 – Summer – $283.66
Energy Online (Electricity) – $211.41 (843 units)
So I made a big boo-boo during January. While cooking tea for the kids I left the bath running and flooded our house (both floors). Soaking the carpets and flooring. We had commercial dryers & dehumidifiers running for a whole week (at 9kW peak load!). Hence the expensive power bill 🙁
Thankfully as I write the house is dry and we have new carpet down. So everything is back to normal… finally.
Energy Online (Gas) – $72.25
December 2018 – Summer – $168.83
Energy Online (Electricity) – $104.08 (390 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $64.75
November 2018 – Spring – $154.87
Energy Online (Electricity) – $81.66 (302 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $73.21
October 2018 – Spring – $183.98
Energy Online (Electricity) – $102.64 (389 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $81.34
Had extended family staying for school holidays, hence the higher gas (hot water) bill.
September 2018 – Spring – $172.47
Energy Online (Electricity) – $101.96 (385 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $70.51
Major gas upgrade this month. We replaced our 20-year-old Vulcan Freeloader gas water heater with a modern continuous flow water gas water heater (Rinnai Infinity A26, $3050 incl. GST installed).
This will give us more outdoor space (the Freeloader was large and in a silly location) and I am expecting will lower our gas cost per month from $90 to $60-ish on average, which gives a rough payback period of 7 – 9 years.
August 2018 – Winter – $230.31
Energy Online (Electricity) – $138.65 (494 units -> 38% less than July)
Late July we installed a heat pump (Daikin Cora 6.0/7.3kW cooling/heating, $2800 incl. GST installed).
This means we shouldn’t have to use the underfloor heating very much at all. The underfloor heating works well but is 100% resistive and expensive to run – about 75c per hour – and needs to run for 3-4 hours to start making a difference.
By comparison, the heat pump as has a rated power input of 1.7kW for 7.3kW of heat output and can heat the house easily within 30-45 min. Efficiency.
On average we should save approx $2-3 a day compared to the underfloor (maybe more, because we often forget to turn the underfloor off before going to bed) which gives a rough payback period of around 8-10 years.
Energy Online (Gas) – $91.66
July 2018 – Winter – $285.78
Energy Online (Electricity) – $192.96 (795 units – yikes!!)
A couple of things massively influenced our power bill during July:
1 – We have been keeping the house warm using the existing underfloor heating system (Hotwire 3kW) which is expensive to run.
2 – There is an old spa pool, which I decided to get up and running for fun. It is a nice luxury… but also poorly insulated needing $6 – 7 of power per day to stay hot (more than $2000 per year). So after two weeks, we switched it off again. The spa experiment used about $90 of power over the two weeks.
Energy Online (Gas) – $92.82
Gas cost is almost double our previous place. I’m busy getting quotes to replace the Vulcan unit with a continuous flow gas water heater (Infinity or similar).
June 2018 – Winter – $213.92
26th June Update: I have crunched the numbers on our family power consumption and pricing for the last 16 months with Flick Electric Co.
Conclusion: We are switching power company. Better deals to be had elsewhere for our family. More info to follow…
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $125.06 (395 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $88.86
As suspected – gas consumption is a LOT more than our previous setup. Nathan needs to look into replacing the water heater with something more efficient. Another project coming up!
May 2018 – Autumn – $167.28 *
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $53.09 (209 units) (old house) + $36.06 (126 units) (new house*) = $89.15 (335 units) total
Energy Online (Gas) – $78.13 (both properties)
* Big changes this month – we have moved house!
A little bit larger than our previous place, we now have four bedrooms and two bathrooms, but also less energy efficient. Lighting is a mix of inefficient 1990’s incandescent & halogen lighting which I have already started replacing with new LED downlights. Not much in the way of heating or cooling – but we are looking to put a heat pump in soon.
On the gas side of things, we have moved from a modern continuous flow gas water heater to a 21-year-old Vulcan Freeloader 300. The Vulcan looks like it’s a combination gas water heater and water storage cylinder. My gut feeling is that the Vulcan is going to use a lot more gas than our usual $55/month – but time will tell.
Because of the move, $ this month are likely to be a little messed up – as they will cover two properties for the last week of May. Should settle down by the June billing cycle.
April 2018 – Autumn – $145.18
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $85.81 (312 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $59.37
Heated towel rails kicked in again this month…. but warm towels are worth it. Also had family to stay for a week so some extra power usage inevitable.
March 2018 – Autumn – $111.17
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $64.36 (234 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $46.81
February 2018 – Summer – $100.60
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $66.32 (237 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $34.28
January 2018 – Summer – $125.96
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $86.91 (263 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $39.05
December 2017 – Summer – $121.38
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $63.58 (172 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $57.80
November 2017 – Spring (feels like summer!) – $144.17
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $84.27 (281 units)
(Interesting that we used approx 20% less power than last month, but our bill was very similar. Stubbornly high spot prices during November – potentially the unseasonably warm weather?)
Energy Online (Gas) – $59.90
October 2017 – Spring – $136.60
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $88.95 (354 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $47.65
September 2017 – Spring – $178.01
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $125.98 (517 units)
A very wet and cold month meant lots of heat pump and dryer for us. Power consumption 36% above last month but power bill up only 19% due to lower wholesale energy costs. Plenty of hydro lake water to go around I guess!
Energy Online (Gas) – $52.03
August 2017 – Winter – $163.93
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $106.35 (381 units)
Lower power consumption combined with a drop in electricity spot prices compared to June and July has resulted in a significantly lower power bill for August.
Energy Online (Gas) – $57.58
July 2017 – Winter – $233.83
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $181.39 (543 units)
Some pricey power this month. Our most expensive day was Friday 14th July where we used more than $18 of at an average cost of 50c / unit.
We also hit our maximum power consumption for the year, averaging 17 ½ units of power per day, double what we used back at the start of the year. The increased consumption is most likely due to heat pump, towel rail and dryer.
Energy Online (Gas) – $52.44
June 2017 – Winter – $192.01
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $138.88 (453 units)
Our May and June power bills are around 2x the summer months due to:
a) Increased wholesale power pricing (‘spot pricing’) due to falling hydro lake levels. For much of the year, the South Island’s hydro generation is exported to the North Island via the HVDC link. Low lakes = less generation available = higher priced generation (e.g. Huntly) required more often = higher prices.
b) It’s been cold and wet. So we have used more power than usual. Heated towel rails, heat pump in the mornings and dryer after work.
Energy Online (Gas) – $53.18
May 2017 – Autumn – $ 163.80
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $108.22 (412 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $55.58
April 2017 – Autumn – $93.04
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $65.36 (267 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $27.68
March 2017 – Autumn – $110.60
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $57.88 (221 units)
Energy Online (Gas) – $52.72
February 2017 – Summer – $123.06
Flick Electric Co. (Electricity) – $61.32 (238 units)
With our recent house move, I have decided to move our power to Flick Electric Co. The business model seems a step in the right direction for the power industry, with our unit cost for power changing in line with the wholesale power market.
We will see how it goes and I hope to provide an update on my Flick experience in a couple of months.
Energy Online (Gas) – $61.74
As Flick does not do gas, I have kept our Energy Online account as the mains gas rates were decent and with no contract, we can always switch later.
January 2017 – Summer – $168.58
Energy Online
December 2016 – Summer – $140.28
Energy Online
November 2016 – Spring – $218.00
Energy Online
October 2016 – Spring – $182.73
Energy Online.
September 2016 – Spring – $251.81
Energy Online
August 2016 – Winter – $204.31
Energy Online
July 2016 – Winter – $343.76
Energy Online
June 2016 – Winter – $285.92
Energy Online
May 2016 – Autumn – $197.18
Energy Online
April 2016 – Autumn – $71.12
Energy Online. Actual reading benefits from over-estimate in March.
March 2016 – Autumn – $250.26
Energy Online. Power consumption was over-estimated, this reverses in April.
February 2016 – Summer – $205.32
Energy Online
January 2016 – Summer – $204.79
Energy Online
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Nathan’s Notes:
Our family power bill figures are what we actually paid each month, they include GST and any prompt payment discount.