Our electrical costs are also silmilar to Steves... I won't even get into the costs we incurred living in the Hotel Zone. However, I do believe our last bill for a 2 month period was $13,000 mxn. Keeping in mind it was a central system, in an older home with NO ceiling fans. Rip off. Didn't even work. Actually it was one of the main contributors in our decision to move to el centro! As V mentioned, costs are variable depending on the area in which you reside. We are now in the practice of unplugging everything we can, and trying to remember to turn all the fans off when not in a room. We will see what our bill comes to in our new home. We are expecting MUCH less...even in the warmer months.
Score!! Wow, Elle, you're near the top, it seems. We should start a new thread, "Who's had the biggest electric bill in Cancun!" I'm way out of the running with a bill for 1,200 pesos for two months during the hottest time of the year, last year, but still ahead of T.J., who said he runs 400 pesos a month during the summer, according to a recent post on the, "Can I Live on My Social Security" thread- a very poor showing, indeed! Don't know who's got the lead, at this point, but you've at least earned an "honorable mention"! At your new place, you'll probably struggle to finish in the top 50, even. Sorry....
Thanks for all the detail, going to look into this in more detail and see if it's a viable option for us.
HA! Errr...thanks V! It's not exactly an award we wanted to be worthy of, but what can one do? Who builds a house in Cancun without ceiling fans? Or, I guess, who rents one? US!!! Never again.... Our neighbours were running on AVERAGE bills of $16,000 mxn per 2 month period. Yes, I said on average. They'd sure as heck have a shot at 1st place in the category!!
elleboogs wrote: Some people just have waaayy too much money, Elle! If I got a single bill of that size I'd be pulling my hair out, and want to know the reason for it!! ___________________ So far, on this thread, we've had three posters report monthly electric costs averaging 200-400 pesos, even though they use a/c- T.J., Gringation and myself. We all live in modest sized housing- two bedroom houses or apartments. Then, we have several posters reporting much larger bills, perhaps by ten times. If they are part of the C.F.E. electric power network, they are, undoubtedly (is it ever safe to say that?), in tariff class DAC, and paying a huge penalty in higher charges, and loss of the government subsidies, owing to average monthly consumption running above 850 KWH/month. (There is the possibility, also, that one or more of those living in the hotel zone are not part of the C.F.E. network, and are simply being charged more for electricity. As I understand it, all who live on the "mainland", in Cancun, are part of the C.F.E. network, and eligible for the subsidies I've referred to. Simply having a look at the last bill would tell them what electric power supplier they have, and whether, if it's C.F.E., they've been reclassified to tariff DAC.) What we don't have, so far, is reports from those in the C.F.E. system who are in the middle range of consumption, those who use twice the electricity I do, for example, yet stay under the 850 KWH average consumption permitted, thereby avoiding being reclassified DAC. If this describes any of you who are living here and reading this, can you please tell us your experience, so Kgunn will have a better idea what to expect? ____________________
Tariff Class 1-C Well, Steve, for one thing it means it's a good thing I included the disclaimer, above! Thanks for responding because, as it turns out, you're just the type of electric company customer I was asking to hear from, it seems. If I understand how this works, what you've told us means you probably did not average more than 850 KWH/month of consumption for the previous 12 months. Looking over your bills for the previous six billings, you will probably find that your total consumption for the period in question did not exceed 850 X 12= 10,200 KWH. If it had, the computer would automatically have bumped you up to DAC, causing you the loss of the subsidies until the first billing period in which your running average again dropped to under 850 KWH/month- if we can believe the information contained in the C.F.E. web pages (see below). Tariff Class 1-C is applied here, in Cancun, based on our mean high daily temperatures in summer of 30 degrees C. To see the various tariffs, and the maximum average consumption permitted for each of them, see Tarifas - CFE What I would expect to see in your case, Steve, if I looked over the bills, is a pattern of very high consumption during the hottest months of the year, and very modest consumption during the coolest months, thus keeping your average consumption in check, and giving you the benefits of the subsidies, but punishing you with the maximum rates on any excess consumption in the summer. The maximum rate, this summer, is right around 3 pesos/KWH; so, cutting consumption by just 200 KWH/month could save you 1,200 pesos, at the next billing period. If we could get the efficiency of your cooling up, and the loss of cool air from your place down, it would probably produce a summertime bill you'd be very happy with! __________________
Actual usage Life wrote: That's the problem with math Life- it doesn't tell you what the actual consumption is The unit you spoke of which consumes one half a kilowatt per hour uses just a tenth that amount when the compressor is not running and the unit is "idling"- with just the fan turning- and in normal operation the unit will spend much of its time in that mode (our unit discloses the "fan alone" consumption separately and it's a mere 50 watts!) Not only that- my ac is switched off when we go out: if we spend an average of two hours per day out of the apt that further reduces the projected consumption: add those days when the humidity is low- and having turned it off when we got up- we find we don't need it again until 10 AM that day And don't forget those times when we're away for longer periods- at a movie or at the beach or staying overnight somewhere- the actual usage and consumption ends up getting reduced even further ____________________ Many home appliances have power down features- so that they may not be using the rated wattage when they are switched on- but not being actively used- such as my laptop and others: this means rated usage can be a misleading figure when estimating actual consumption "in use" in the home Anyone who is running really large electric bills would do well to examine the possible reasons for it: the savings could pay for a nice vacation annually for some
That's an "upto" figure based on the sticker on the side of my small LG unit... and I'll tell you the only time that compressor clicks off is around 2 or 3 in the morning.. the rest of the time its fighting the heat buildup in the room.... If you have a bigger unit it may cycle off more often since it can cool the area faster, but then you're using the same or more power since its a larger AC... I can attest that the small AC if run 24/7 will indeed run you about what I figured.... and thats for 1 room.... I would put in a mini split were it not for the fact that I need the AC noise to block out everything else when I sleep. Minisplits are generally very quiet..
My AC is not cycling much If I was evaluating a place for electrical savings I'd consider it useful information to be told the air conditioning unit wasn't cycling- something worth investigating further for the possible causes __________________ The area we use for an office is about 400 square feet and has an 8 foot ceiling (approx): the ac is rated at 17000 btu Once the room is cooled (after the unit has run for a few minutes) it begins to cycle- with the time between periods the compressor is running growing longer as the contents of the room and the walls and floors cool down too This is true of all three ac units we have in our apt and our consumption for the last billing period- ending today- is 982 KWH for the two months: this is almost exactly the same consumption we had at this time last year when we were living in a different apt of about the same size and with similar equipment I set the thermostats on these units at the highest comfortable setting- which varies depending on a lot of factors but is typically around 26 degrees C- and use fans to increase the cooling effectiveness so that it's not necessary to cool the rooms to an even greater degree in order to enjoy comfort With electricity here costing somewhere around 3 pesos per KWH reducing consumption at the margins can make a considerable difference on the bottom line
