Here comes summer and up goes the electric bill

Hot means very hot and that means air-conditioning

We’re almost at the end of April, meaning that summer is drawing near, sneaking up on us with those gorgeous blue cloudless skies and warm breezes. But it brings other stuff as well. Like scorching heat which has only one thing in mind – microwaving your skin and body until you are well done all over. It gets hot. And that calls for air-conditioning.

Who has the money to pay for this?

Thanks to modern technology we have air-conditioning. Thanks to the modern financial chaos we do not have the money to pay for the air-conditioning. I could take a Payday Loan for June, but what will I do in July? Or is there a system of revolving Payday Loans designed to help those who suffer?

Expensive electricity

Of all our utilities, electricity is by far the most expensive and is the one on which we rely completely. In the last ‘outage’ we had, I was practically hysterical after an hour of complete nothingness. I am totally reliant on electricity. In many ways, banging out an article on a manual typewriter had its advantages but I’m a lousy typist and spent lots of money on paper. These days I hardly print at all.

The entire household runs on electricity. I take all the necessary steps to cut costs wherever possible. We never have a light burning in an unoccupied room. All the old type incandescent light bulbs have been changed to compact fluorescents as the newspapers and electrical company advised us to do. Not that we are really happy with the new quality of light we are getting.

No way out

My study faces east, a good direction if you live in the Northern Hemisphere. The problem is that by the time I stumble in at 8 or 9 in the morning it has already been warmed up and in the blistering months of July, August and September, I have no choice but to put on the air-conditioning as I enter. Once it’s on, it’s not easy to turn off – it’s just too nice and comfortable. So it runs all day, clocking up kilowatt hours, cooling the house and my study and the cash register bells ring away at the electrical company.

Saving electricity

Saving electricity is a major art. I found many sites on the internet showing how much it costs to operate various electrical household appliances. With some due diligence and patience one can probably save quite a bit by the prudent use of appliances. Changing appliances to models that use less electricity is not always a viable deal because you have to lay out large sums of money upfront.

Saving more electricity

Where we do save electricity is on hot water. We have a solar heating system on the roof of the building consisting of glass covered panels and lots of copper piping. The cold water passes through this system and is heated by the sun and then distributed to the users. During the winter and on cloudy days we boost this by electricity. Comes spring and then summer, we never have to switch on the electric water heater at all. In fact, the main problem is not to scald oneself in the shower under the hot water coming down from the roof. Not paying for hot water is a cool saving!