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 Post subject: Energy Consumption During Baking
PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2012 1:05 pm 
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Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2012 1:51 am
Posts: 121
I'm paying my monthly bills and wondering since I'm playing "Johnny Baker" how much it costs to fire-up the oven each time. I have a KitchenAid oven - electric (duh). It's fairly new, less than 5 years old.

I'm being billed at about 18 cents per KwH (average), I just need to know what the energy consumption is presuming it's on for 1 hour.
So if it's 4000 watts, the hour would be about 72 cents. Kind of a shame since materials per loaf are about 20 cents.
Anyone have data for such?

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 Post subject: Re: Energy Consumption During Baking
PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2012 2:58 pm 
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Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2008 8:19 am
Posts: 215
Location: Just outside of Philadelphia PA
not seeing the shame...bread costs less than a dollar a loaf where you are?

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 Post subject: Re: Energy Consumption During Baking
PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2012 4:41 pm 
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This is why I rarely turn my oven on unless my heat is on, in which case, it really costs very little, since it is just another way of heating the room, which would have been done anyway. And what is really bad is when the AC is on, and you are hit with a double whammy!

I hope your AC wasn't on, too.

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 Post subject: Re: Energy Consumption During Baking
PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2012 7:41 pm 
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Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2008 8:10 pm
Posts: 1060
Location: PA
Tunaoue wrote:
I'm being billed at about 18 cents per KwH (average), I just need to know what the energy consumption is presuming it's on for 1 hour.
18 cents??

I pay around 13 cents (8 cents is generation and 5 cents is transmission).

Where do you live?

I'm guessing that your heating element is probably only on about half the time the oven is running - what does your calculation assume?


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 Post subject: Re: Energy Consumption During Baking
PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2012 5:36 pm 
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Joined: Thu Dec 18, 2008 7:18 pm
Posts: 1244
We have low electric rates here. I pay about 7 cents per KWH if I am reading my bill correctly.

I foundthis website that calculates costs for many different types of appliances. The calculator says that if I use the oven @350 degrees for 20 hours it will cost me $1.09. At 18 cents KWH, it would be $2.81. That's 14 cents per hour. Your refrigerator is probably costing you a lot more than your oven. Of course, this is a very simple calculator and doesn't factor in any heat gain that would need to be offset by your air conditioning. I expect that is pretty minimal though.


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 Post subject: Re: Energy Consumption During Baking
PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2012 6:47 pm 
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Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2009 7:50 pm
Posts: 2062
My husband has on of these (link). And, yes, he is a complete loon with it.


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 Post subject: Re: Energy Consumption During Baking
PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2012 1:20 am 
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Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2012 1:51 am
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Kathy's Pete wrote:
18 cents??

I pay around 13 cents (8 cents is generation and 5 cents is transmission).

Where do you live?

I'm guessing that your heating element is probably only on about half the time the oven is running - what does your calculation assume?


To spill the beans; my electric bill for the last 30 days was $346.
Egad; I think it's the highest I've ever had.
All I did was take the total KwHours and divide by the cost. Our baseline rate is less, it's just that we're in the "penalty phase" for going over the pre-assigned limits. So the AVG is about 18 cents, but our base-line is a little over 12 cents per KwH.

I have a good idea where the bulk of the cost is going; the Mrs. is a nurse and an absolute cleaning freak (in a good way). She admits she's very OCD about it. Examples are she would vacuum the entire house every day. She washes our bedding EVERY DAY. We do about 6-8 loads of laundry every day even though it's just us TWO and no kids. The clothes dryer is electric. It was way cheaper when we had natural gas. We also have two large side-by-side fridge-freezers along with all the other little things (TV, lights, appliances, whatever).

We just need to manage our usage better.
So per the appliance web site (Thanks Darcie) says I use about 14 cents to bake a loaf. I wonder about that; to maintain a 350 degree temp takes far less power than to ramp up to temp during the preheat phase, so the total rate is less over 2 hours than 30 minutes. I do appreciate the link, it's a great start -- Thanks again.

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 Post subject: Re: Energy Consumption During Baking
PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2012 5:35 am 
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Joined: Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:58 am
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Location: Florida Gulf Coast
Would your wife like a Florida vacation?

I'd be happy to put her up in my guest room for a couple of weeks! ;)

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 Post subject: Re: Energy Consumption During Baking
PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2012 11:14 am 
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Posts: 5280
Location: Portland, OR
Due to having a power monopoly (PG&E) which is not effectively regulated, NorCal pays some of the highest electric rates in the Western Hemisphere. This seemed like more of a fair tradeoff when PG&E spent a lot of that money maintaining really good service, but lately they've taken to blowing up their customers, so I sense a power revolt coming. That's why PG&E wants to drain the Hetch-Hetchy Dam, so that they can shut down a power plant they don't control. But I digress.

The electric bill on my 700sqft apartment, with no climate control and a 3/4 size fridge, is regularly $80 to $100 each month. I think that's about the same bill my father pays on his 2500sqft house in Texas.

Tunaroe, most of that power is going to the laundry and the freezers. You wanna save some money, first suggestion is to start eating your way through those freezers and get rid of them. Likely to provoke less of a fight with the DW than the laundry.

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 Post subject: Re: Energy Consumption During Baking
PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2012 8:23 pm 
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Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2011 8:05 pm
Posts: 1191
Location: Chico, CA
My good deed of the day, you can all feel good about your power bills. Mine in beautiful Northern CA. is a minimum of $400.00 a month thanks to P.G.E. We are all electric (no gas when we bought, can't really afford to retrofit now). Granted our house is not small 3350 sq. ft. with a pool, but everything is as energy efficient as we can get it (appliances, light bulbs, cooling and heating units, thermostats, etc.), just the 2 of us. Our bill can be as high as $1100.00 for one month (Jan usually). We just reinsulated the attic in the older part of the house (2300 sq. ft.) so we hope our bill will be going down. We have wonderful oaks and evergreen trees that help keep us cool in the summer and provide shade, but also preclude most solar options. If we ever had big bucks to spare (we are both retired). I'd replace all the original windows and glass doors, but roof will need to redone soon, so I don't have much hope there. We just got a smart meter a couple of months ago, so I am going to start monitoring it daily and hope something tells me when and how the energy is being used. Anyway, if I could get it below $400.00 a month, I'd be ecstatic. :D

Now don't you all feel much better?

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