hydro one

[baronrenfrew]

Ontario vs Germany

Min wage in Switzerland is cdn $24
My cousins are excited about fishing for carp in the canal. Here we have a multitude of great eating fish and a few trophy monsters (pike and muskies) and its accessable to everyone (the better spots are worth the hassle). Ice fishing in winter? Only in Sweden (or Norway or Finland).

You hunt and are not a member of an exclusive (and high priced) private hunting club? You keep your guns at home and not at the clubhouse?
What? You own a land with trees and don't need to ask permission from a gov't rep to cut a few down?
Wilderness... A half hour drive from your home? On gov't land? And you don't need to pay a ridiculous fee to use it?

You can drive a car at age 16 and not 21?

Most of us don't drive to our destination with heavy traffic. And there's a ditch so if you lose control in the snow your car may not even be damaged (vs hitting a wall?!)

Yes our transit sucks (or is nonexistant) and we have a 100km/h speed limit vs autobahns with no limit (most of the time) but we don't need an annual safety check (but that's not a bad idea).

And we have mosquitoes and lots of other bugs where my cousins don't even have screens on their windows!

Balance it out... And I love Germany...I'll take Canada. Bring on a winter I can play outside in (vs rain).

[WLLady]

Well so far so good and no switches flipped here because the only switch i can think of to flip would be the breaker to turn off the water heaters.....and that would be a very unhappy valentines day for a certain husband....lol
having seen the price of gas first hand in germany i am glad to be here. I would love to live off the grid, but....like my creature comforts too much.
Like lights in the barn at night. And no hazmat permit for battery banks. Simple things.

[Epona]

Was telling your situation to the man of the house, he mentioned how we heat water. So if your woodstove is in basement, and you can get your hands on an additional water heater or upright tank this might help you. He has rigged the water coming in from our well to go into the secondary tank; that in turn, feeds into the house's water heater that is connected to the house plumbing. The primary water heater for house is wrapped with an insulation blanket. He figures we use very little electricity to heat water. The tank that sits by the woodstove is so hot you can't touch it with your hand. Plus he says the woodstove you use can't have the shields on the sides. Thought I'd throw this into the idea pile.

[thegawd]

thats really cool Epona! if I ever get the chance to build a house ect... I will do that a long with some other alternative energy options. our wood stove is in the living room... no basement here. its a Drolet and it has an optional shroud n hlower that I have that turns it into a wood fired furnace. there is 2 air ducts to plumb it in. but it has to be its own system... really cool. when we bought it the sales clerk came running out to the truck to say there was another box that goes with it.... scored big time but cant use it here.

[poultry_admin]

I've been reading into the two suggestions I gave earlier and would like to update them a bit.
Ted5000 (theenergydetective.com) gives you a good minute by minute consumption sheet, but IMHO that is not very useful. I can't imagine anyone reading spreadsheets and applying a bunch of math to determine which appliance is on for how long and then do stats analysis to find out if it's abnormal. They have a newer product now called TEDSpyder that clamps on individual ciruits in the fuse panel. That makes more sense to me, because it breaks down the data per fuse, but the recommendation/analysis part is still missing.

Better would be what Bidgely offers. They have a hardware that reads the meter much more frequently than the local distribution company (LDC), apply a whole bunch of math and claim they can identify individual devices (from the meter data). Too bad that individuals can't sign up and report their numbers to them. LDC has to sign a contract with them. So I checked, London Hydro offers it, HydroOne does not. (Check your LDC website if they offer it). I will be contacting HydroOne and suggest they offer it. Maybe someone else can join me?

The next one I ran across is PlotWatt. They offer a service and are geared to restaurants and the like. They have a monthly fee.

Here is the crazy part. I have a power meter installed and can tell you that we are using 560W right now, but I don't have the software to make use of the data.... I am not always looking... Oh, fridge just came on, we are at 720W now....

[thegawd]

thats great information Martin. I looked at the 1st 2 websites and I was honestly quite confused myself. just like you said you can get the data but have to compute it. and for the bidgley i saw that it was directed toward utility companies... and honestly we cant afford to purchase that equipment.

we have made drastic changes in our hydro use and I guess we will figure out in 2 months time if it helped or not... of course ill he running an incubator 200 watts, hatcher about 70 watts, and brooders... still all those are cheaper than one infrared heater.

im sure that the crazy bill was self induced. this house is twice the size of the old one, we just have to adapt.

[thegawd]

and oh I took a pic of the meter so I can verify if the next bill is accurate or not...

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[poultry_admin]

I agree the stuff is expensive.
Found another one that is on the low end of cost, but watch shipping.... http://openenergymonitor.org/ They also don't analyze the data.

I also have experience with the mFi from Ubiquity (ubnt.com). They are outlets that can be wifi controlled. Great system, but you have to have a computer running all times to turn the outlet on and off. Power failures and wifi range is an issue. => not for livestock!

[Bayvistafarm]

QR_BBPOST I agree with all of you, but have to admit, I live in paradise/dreamland (=Canada)
Germany's rates:
1kWh in 2014 = EUR 0.29 = CAD 0.45
1 liter regular gasoline (last few days) = EUR 1.23 = CAD 1.92 (I just filled for 69.9 tonight )
My parent's lot the house is on (150x300 yards) ~EUR 1Million = CAD 1.56Million (and no, it's in a small town with 15k people and 1 big employer, not a hot market). I guess that's why @baronrenfrew calles himself "Baron". Still holds true today .... Every time they come they shake their head at our 100 acres for much less....

Just my happy thought for Friday evening....

And, yes, reading what you guys pay monthly, I decided to look into my hydro bill, too. Let's see if I can squeeze a few more bucks out of it without doing all kinds of crazy things and spending the next 3 years savings on something that might return it, might not.
Oh, I know, there are 16!!! water heaters plugged in at the barn tonight. I just do the "ross" and flip the switch.

Now THAT will be a Valentines day to remember!!!

You WON'T remember it, because you will be dead, lol.

[StarviewRidge]

Make sure you always check the meter yourself...I haven't been at our farm even 4 years yet, and we have had 6 discrepancies. As soon as you have a large bill once...it is almost like they try to gouge you more if you aren't paying attention.

We used to have a geothermal system here, was nice and warm, except when it got below -25. Then I get a $4000.00+ hydro bill....for one month! Turns out our geothermal wasn't working...the asshats that set it up for the previous owners didn't have it wired right...so the warning lights that I am looking at looked fine...but the whole house was being heated by a little backup electrical element. I had those geothermal guys in twice (at 700+ a pop) they told me everything was fine and running again....nope! Got another crazy bill....we wouldn't know (because of those damn warning lights) that anything was wrong...because we were still getting heat. Had a new guy come in and rip it out and replace with a gas furnace....but we still had over $14,000.00 in hydro to pay....Hydro One wouldn't do a damn thing to help...just threatened to cut us off when the whole thing wasn't paid in a 2 month period. This was just our house....barns, shops and outbuilding are on a seperate meter!

The game is rigged, and I can tell you that the techs that come here are much safer than anyone I have talked to on the phone....If any of them had come...I would be heating my house with their ground bones!

First month here, we had solar assessments done...I didn't go with the first company...they seemed a little fly by night....I was right...they were closed 6 months later. I will be putting a solar system on our barn though and eventually (once it is paid off) going right off grid. Those Hydro execs should be jailed...right along with the members of of gov't that created this ridiculous scam.