Electricity Price Increases

[Jstpssng]

Wow! Just run my numbers here in middle TN. with power through TVA. Using your 735 KW and TVA Min. customer charge at $39 and .11/ KW it would have been $119.85 here. Easy to lose track of what people actually have to pay in other areas of U.S. Have read in CA. rates are on the order of 4-5 times as much as TVA customers!

I just recieved my bill today; 35.10 for 127KW. His bill would have been $203.13 here.

 

[ultrarunner]

Yes, much of the Sierras are still ok for wood burning, most days, and the Tahoe area has programs for the replacement or removal of less efficient wood stoves due to the bowl like nature of the lake area.

So, @WinterDeere, it isn't the Wild West, but the Sierras are not as restricted as the SF Bay Area and LA, where the geography tends to trap smoke under some weather conditions, leading to spare the air days (no wood burning, and attempts to limit driving and small engine use).

All the best,

Peter

Much argument at the BAAQMD I attended is Bay Area smoke travels a hundred miles inland and causes problems…

 

[Carl_NH]

Just got bill in NH for 381 KWH was $107.00 of which $65 is delivery and $42 cost of electricity - which is interesting - we used 3X you did Jstpssng, and paid about the same. ($35x3=$105.)

How do you use so little power? We have gas stove, electric dryer, oil boiler HW, and 1.5 HP well pump then lights etc in 3K SF house and 2 of us,

 

[ponytug]

Much argument at the BAAQMD I attended is Bay Area smoke travels a hundred miles inland and causes problems…

They aren't wrong, but somewhere between "absolutely zero particulate emissions" and the current occasional "Spare the air" day ought to have some amount of wiggle room. I do understand where they are coming from in that for the last few years the Bay Area air quality has been, on average "crappy" to use the technical phrase, so the air pollution rules do need to be tightened, but that gets harder and harder to do if things like restaurants and home barbecues get a free pass as they are a larger and larger fraction of the remaining PM2.5, VOC, and NOX sources. Yes, that will kill even more restaurants, or raise the cost of dining out or both.

The Central Valley isn't exactly a bastion of clean air all by itself either, as I have been reminded of over the last few days when we had 100+AQI wind coming our way from the Central Valley.

If it is not one thing it is another.

@Carl_NH FWIW: I can recommend a heat pump dryer. We went from 5kW/hr to 0.5-0.7kW/hr in about the same dry time, with clothes more uniformly dry.

All the best, Peter

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Much argument at the BAAQMD I attended is Bay Area smoke travels a hundred miles inland and causes problems…

I remember 50 years ago the orange smog rolling over the east hills. Sometimes it was so thick you couldn't see across the bay on what should have been a crystal clear day.

 

[Carl_NH]

@Carl_NH FWIW: I can recommend a heat pump dryer. We went from 5kW/hr to 0.5-0.7kW/hr in about the same dry time, with clothes more uniformly dry.

All the best, Peter

Is that the Miele or which model and brand? Will look at this the next replacement cycle - our Electrolux W&D are 8 Yrs now and we typically get 15-20 years from a set, running 3 loads a week on average.

 

[ultrarunner]

They aren't wrong, but somewhere between "absolutely zero particulate emissions" and the current occasional "Spare the air" day ought to have some amount of wiggle room. I do understand where they are coming from in that for the last few years the Bay Area air quality has been, on average "crappy" to use the technical phrase, so the air pollution rules do need to be tightened, but that gets harder and harder to do if things like restaurants and home barbecues get a free pass as they are a larger and larger fraction of the remaining PM2.5, VOC, and NOX sources. Yes, that will kill even more restaurants, or raise the cost of dining out or both.

The Central Valley isn't exactly a bastion of clean air all by itself either, as I have been reminded of over the last few days when we had 100+AQI wind coming our way from the Central Valley.

If it is not one thing it is another.

@Carl_NH FWIW: I can recommend a heat pump dryer. We went from 5kW/hr to 0.5-0.7kW/hr in about the same dry time, with clothes more uniformly dry.

All the best, Peter

Several wood fired restaurants couldn’t get permitted here..

I have a cat equipped stove and only seasoned oak and ask how am I a problem?

The answer given simply to hard to enforce clean burn and burning trash in a fireplace so blanket burn ban it is on many cold winter nights with billboards inviting neighbor to report violator neighbor…

 

[DarkBlack]

Several wood fired restaurants couldn’t get permitted here..

I have a cat equipped stove and only seasoned oak and ask how am I a problem?

The answer given simply to hard to enforce clean burn and burning trash in a fireplace so blanket burn ban it is on many cold winter nights with billboards inviting neighbor to report violator neighbor…

I’d move, but that’s just me

 

[Jstpssng]

Just got bill in NH for 381 KWH was $107.00 of which $65 is delivery and $42 cost of electricity - which is interesting - we used 3X you did Jstpssng, and paid about the same. ($35x3=$105.)

How do you use so little power? We have gas stove, electric dryer, oil boiler HW, and 1.5 HP well pump then lights etc in 3K SF house and 2 of us,

It's just me. I have a fridge, electric water heater, freezer and well pump but my power bill rarely goes over $35.

 

[WinterDeere]

The answer given simply to hard to enforce clean burn and burning trash in a fireplace so blanket burn ban it is...

This is why I get irritated when I see irresponsible burners around here, burning wet wood and smoking out their neighbors. Enough cases of that, and folks start complaining to the township supervisors, until someone gets fed up enough to want to shut down the rest of us.

We have one outside wood boiler guy one road over, on something like 0.5 acres, who just rolls stinky smoke out all winter long. He's sometimes blanketing neighbors out as far as 0.3 - 0.4 miles downwind with that acrid smoke that only smoldering of wet wood can produce, to where it'd almost be a miracle if his closest neighbors didn't complain about him.

Like you, I burn cat stoves and only feed them with hardwoods that have been seasoned under a roof for 3 - 4 years. The only thing you'll usually see coming out of my chimney is ripples of heat, like looking across hot asphalt in July. Zero smoke, excepting 15 minutes at start-up, and I can go months without a restart.