My electricity saving is finally paying off

That's cheap, the Philippines has one of the highest power rates in the world cause it's run by a monopoly, I had installed a small diy off grid solar system after this discussion was made and it helped us save more.

@TiarasOceanView there are a lot of burdens so I just train my concentration on making money instead of thinking what I need to pay, I think of it more in terms of quality of life that we need to pay for.

@louievill It is a great burden to you there Louie. I am sorry to hear this.

I'm being billed as commercial because my office is also in my residence, you are right, that could be another factor. I have done all your suggestions that's why I have cut it from 12k-9k last year to 8-6k this year and this billing is the lowest for the whole year and I plan to keep it that or lower it further. Earth hour in the home??? I'll be met by protesters

Yes now I know how it is to be head of the family and extended family, something I did not understand when my father was alive, no wonder he was so upset when i left the AC and television in my room, during those times he only pays around 600 to 700 pesos but the value of money was very high back then. I now always check who leaves what ON and so does my wife

So that's why! Higher rates means harder to pull down the bill. Anyway, you must really try further to reduce consumption as I know that the power supplier gives benefits for those who consume lower electricity. I know that they do have added cost for those household exceeding or meeting a certain range of wattage. As long as you can pay the bills and there is a nice improvement with the electric consumption campaign that you are doing, then there is reason to be happy. Anyway, it will be very hard to convince those dependent on electricity to sacrifice a bit, maybe pull a trick to pull out electricity once in a while. Just don't let them catch you so you won't meet them protesting!

Well at least, it's been raining lately so it's cooler and you can use electric fans instead of aircons.

Yes I heard that too but it's really quite expensive and one thing with abruptly changing to new and untested gadgets is the availability of parts. Things like that is like it's still on beta stage so bugs might appearbesides I have no budget yet so I have to make do with what we have.

hi mate, yeah think the difference comes cause unlike your country, power here is run by a monopoly. not to mention all the crap that's been going on in the strait of Hormuz that seems to threaten gas supply, another thing is our "Malampaya" station that supplies geothermal energy has to undergo maintainance . I've been scouting for some wind turbine models down there, guess you have one of the best but still quite expensive even if we are both in Asia considering shipping cost, yes solar but I still have a few months of saving to afford a modest one for my home, cheers mate!

Now a days cost of electricity has increased and we need to save electricity as far as possible. Solar lanterns and solar home system is the solution to cut down the electricity and save money.

aircon is the real monster, we have 3 but we seldom open it now, anyway if grandma needs it better give it to her, we should take care of our elders.

LED bulbs are now very cheap, I think it's high time you change friend, think you can also buy them online in sites like OLX and Lazada, This is quite an old discussion , I have already installed solar panels to at least run some of the lighting in our house, free energy and it feels good to somehow hit back at the greedy electric company.

Here the cost of electricity is very high and so I try to switch of lights and fans when they are not used. I also think that CFL lamps are best choice as the cost is low. I think most probably the cost of LED lights and bulbs will come down in the future.

I would assume that India like the Philippines has expensive electricity because of power outages, we experienced a lot of that too during the 90's, we had 8 to 12 hrs. rotating brown out back then but we sort of solved it already except in our Southern provinces especially in Mindanao. Yes there are countries where LED is still quite expensive so CFL is still the second best choice over incandescent bulbs and the old 20W or 40W tubes with ballasts and starters

The cost of led bulbs has already gone down in the Philippines and one thing nice is they offer a guarantee of return good for 2 yearsas long as you keep the receipts so I photo copied them ( i replace one at a time, when the cfl goes out..replace..so on), it won't be long before that would happen in India too cause it is a large market and whoever gets there first would make a lot of money, not unless somebody is blocking it like the electric company or politicians

hi Wilson. unlike in the States where every state has some sort of power company or several you can choose from, Philippine electricity is monopolized by a single electric company. Yes our electric bill is really expensive, like I said it's one of the highest in Asia, anyway we have 3 airconditioners ( 1 is not running cause no one occupies the room), 2 fridges guess that is what consumes a lot. We own a 327 square meter home, not much if you base it on U.S. standards but modest enough in the Philippines especially if it's situated within Metro Manila. Yes I have plans for a solar set up, and had built a small wind turbine from scrap using a junk thread mill motor and scrap PVC blades, have not tested it yet cause it keeps on raining here, once I see that the blades that I made are funtional, my next problem would be the charge controller and then the battery bank made up of deep cycle batteries that would cost around 7.000 pesos or around 167 dollars each, guess I have to get that from what i save

Knowing you have such a large family living under the same roof, your electric bill is considered low instead of high as i originally thought. I was assuming there is only one or two persons living in the house. In my home, we have only two adults living in a small apartment, but the monthly electric bill is always between $100- $150 between seasons. The bill just can't get any lower no matter how many time i change my bulb to more energy efficient type or watch less TV, the provider always has its way to make me pay within that range i mentioned above every month. Electric provider here can charge us with make up fees or raise few cents higher for less wattage used claiming that they have that rights to charge higher rate for providing same services. It is tail i lose, head they win type of situation, unless i can generate my own electricity without buying from them or using my own meter to measure the usage, my meter reading is always about the same according to the statement the provider sent to me, there is so many ways they can bill me over here, and it is perfectly hopeless situation for most of consumers here having to reason with their calculation, which always confusing rather than reasonable. Sigh!:=( :-(

we always lose out to the electric company, you see my situation is different, since I took over the helm from my late dad, I promised that I would take care of our family, now my family is my immediate family, ( me, my wife and 3 kids), my original family ( my 80 yr old mother that has to be kept cool most of the time), and my extended family ( my widowed aunt who is 60 years old and her son who has a little problem coping up and I think you know what i mean)whom i adopted and support, we live all together in a fairly large family estate and I guess you would presume how much power all of us has to consume, now the burden lies on me as well as my beautiful supportive wife

there was a time during the previous years that I was paying around 300 dollars and once this year as you can see in the graph so I decided that "enough is enough", got all the family involved in my saving program so as not to hurt feelings, they can use as they wish but just turn it off when not in use, the children now are very involved, they turn their pc off, the ac, the lights etc...I also explained that savings could be used to have fun instead of just handing it over to the electric company. My wife bought 4th generation led bulbs (made in Italy)which were very bright but consumes more than 50 percent less than cfl. We also stopped using the microwave and our hot and cold water dispenser, I attached an AVR type switch to the ref and turn it off at night when it's cold and transfer all the stuff that would spoil to the other ref. All the rooms have T.V. sets so we decided to just watch altogether in the sala except at night or if a member would like to watch another program and not all the sets running at the same time while watching the same program Electric company here does that too, rates are a little bit higher now that it's colder so more drastic measures should be taken to lower the bill, energy efficient appliances are good, we shifted to that too but the only way for me for them to be efficient is when they are turned off

Philippines is still one of the highest in the world even if it goes down a little bit due to oil price drop because our Electric company is ran by a monopoly, no competition, that's why i put up my modest solar system now that i plan to expand later when i have more money, some parts of our house is now solar lighted so i could somehow get even with these greedy people

sometimes it's not just the AC, as i found out now it's also about having a lot of electrical appliances. I am now more conscious now about looking at the back of appliances on how many watts it consumes, same practice when buying new ones. Sometimes it's also about size and number of people in the household plus the size of the property, we have 4 bulbs running in every corner of the house over night for security. Yes our rice cooker now is just for emergency stand by, we also now use lpg to cook rice.

I think my next move now is to find another source or alternative energy like solar and wind cause I already reached the plateau vis a vis our comfort, starting to do this now but would still take a little while due to some financial constraints, you'll hear from me again when I have alternative sources up and runningWhen I'm successful, the electric company would have no more share

Yep turn anything off when not in use, I already use power saving models of aircons and refs, and like i said I turn off the other ref at night when it's cold( around 12 oclock) and turn it on at around 4 a.m., and all things that might spoil are transferred to the other smaller ref. I save by switching to led because we have from 9 to 12 bulbs and lamp shades are not yet included, we use to use 14-18 watt cfls now we only us 5-9 watt led light, so take the difference and multiply it with 9-12. The new generation of led are now much brighter and become affordable, it also emits less heat so it somehow helps with the aircon., wow only 10 us dollars? It's really cheap in your country, hope I had that kind of electric bill, I would be rich

No we do not live in in a mansion, just an old modest bungalow type house in a private subdivision. Yes, when you have a baby power is expected to go up, 24 hrs use of the AC plus you cannot turn the lights off on the cute poor little child not to mention power you are going to use for heating water, sterilizing etc... Yup defective appliances would also raise power because of inefficiency. You are right, some appliances still consume power even when turned off so the best way is to unplug, would also prevent fires.

you got me counting appliances, we have 8 electrics fans in every section of the house, now all of us turn it off now when you move to another section. We have 4 exhaust blowers, 2 opens automatically in the 2 bathrooms every time you switch on the lights, so that is just fine with me, one blower is in the kitchen that blows odor out when cooking and one is in the dinning area, we turn it on now only when odor from the kitchen escapes while we are eating 4 tv sets but now i already change 2 to lower watt lcd ( not led, still can't afford it right now) instead of the old huge Sony crts, my 2 monitors are now lcd and scrapped the older crts , yes complacency = large electric bills, but as the graph shows, seems like my program is working.

I see. I just think you're bill is too expensive. You probably have a lot of appliances at home that you're using more often. I'm really desperate to lower our power bill. I always remind our helpers to minimize use of electricity and to always turn them off when not in use. I hate it when they are too complacent on things, when they're not the ones paying for their usage.

As you can see in my energy bill graph, they tend to rise during summer vacation months where the kids are all at home, they turn the pcs, laptop, charge cell phones, turn on the aircon in 2 or 3 rooms ( cause it was really hot)all at the same time etc... and tend to be careless turning it off, think my saving program is working cause july this year is lower than July last year and is the lowest in one year , Yes money we save could be channeled to something more fun instead of being trapped paying a high bill.

Seems like, i should plan my vacation that way, too. i had also learned to shut off my computer whenever not in use. At least, i see there is some reduction in the consumption of my electricity. thanks for sharing some interesting tips, Marg.

We have a mild climate where I live, so I don`t use central heating nor AC. But even if you use them, it is wise to use warmer clothes in Winter and have the thermostat lower. As for AC, we have about a month of over 30º C in Summer. I wear shorts and T shirts at home and drink a lot of water.

good, vacation would lower the bill cause you are out and expenses goes to having fun instead of handing it over to the power company. It's the reverse here, we consume more energy during summer because of the AC, we do not have heaters, we have no use for it. Yes I think there are certain hours of the day where electricity cost is lower. We have 2 desk top pcs, the cpu of the older one consumes around 110 watts i think but the newer one my technician explained to me uses only around 35, yes i do that too now, turn it off when not in use unlike before where I just leave it to log off or sleep on it's own.

I understand you, it's like the electric company is getting what we intend for our children's education, Ah Filipino middle class let's not give up!, Think we are now on the brink of progressing if we just hold on haha, yes let me know if you have any ideas too

We do not use flat iron on our clothes cause it's mostly "wash and wear", flat iron is used only in my children's school uniforms or if we have to go to an occasion where we have to wear formal or semi-formal. Our aircons are always well maintained, we have a technician ( my boyhood friend) that does the cleaning for us, besides that we wash and launder the filters ourselves. yes I am thinking of what I can do without without sacrificing comfort or over doing and look funny

yes. it's cooler now and for sure less use of the AC and the children are in school most of the time, oh so you are from Paranaque so we are just neighbors and basically experience the same climate and temperature, I said funny because you know how it is here sometimes when you are trying to save too much, people would suspect that you are losing money or going bankcrupt, sure a lot of middle and upper middle class people will have a change of mind once they see their own bill . I know that they have a raise in rate this month so in a way it was positive cause it made me and my whole family more determined to save.

You would not look funny because now a days people have to be practical and measures to save is always the best way to survive. Try lowering the use of the aircon. The weather is not as bad as last summer so its the best time to cut the use of the aircon however with the pending increase AGAIN on the rate of the electricity, cutting your consumption would not really be felt. Geez!

yes the chest type freezers really use up a lot of power, glad we do not have any but we have 2 refrigerators. Power bills will go down soon as it becomes cool but would be better if we can make it go down a little bit further by saving on other appliances.

LED is getting cheaper by the second, just check and make sure that you buy it from a reputable seller, I made a mistake before of buying led bulbs that was advertized to last 3-5 years but ended up conking out in a couple of weeks. If the cfl is still running then leave it as such but replace it with led when it goes out, good luck