Have you ever had a nasty shock when they received your power bill?
Maybe your first reaction was “How could it be so high? Surely there must be some mistake!”
There are unusual situations that could lead to a high power bill, however 99% of high power bills are due to high power usage.
We’ve done many investigations for clients who have received an unusually high power bill. Sometimes we find there has been an error with the meter reading.
Occasionally we’ve found instances where one person has been paying for someone else’s power. These are rare occasions, and always occur in multi- tenancy buildings.
The most common thing that catches people out is excessive use of electric heaters.
Most people underestimate the amount they run their heaters, and they aren’t aware of the running costs.
We have seen clients with quarterly power bills of more than $2,000 simply because they didn’t understand the cost of running their appliances.
It’s easy for costs to escalate quickly if you don’t know the best ways to manage your power use.
Very soon, Mance Electrical will be releasing a free guide to help you identify how much power your various appliances are using, so you can manage your power consumption to get the lowest possible power bill.
In the mean time, click here to download our free report which has 43 different ways to reduce you power bill, including many low cost and no cost ideas.
See the Mance Electrical team installing 40 solar panels on our workshop roof.
The process begins with installation of the support rails. These must be leveled and spaced correctly to support the solar panels.
Once the rails are in place, the panels are fixed down with brackets that clamp to the rails. The power and earth cables are installed, along with the required isolation switches.
The inverter is mounted in the appropriate location within the building and the cables from the solar panels are connected to the inverter.
The inverter takes the DC power from the solar panels and converts it AC power which can be used in your home or business.
Click here to check out our previous blog post to see how well our system performed for the first three months.
Solar power works. You can get electricity free from the sun. For more information and free quotation and avice call us at Mance Electrical Launceston on 6331 4711.
The Carbon Tax Repeal Act took effect from 1st July 2014 and consumers should now be receiving the first round of power bills at reduced rates.
Aurora Energy has lowered power prices by 7.8%. It’s only a small reduction but the move could see savings of around $250 a year for the average family.
This is probably a once off reduction and prices will rise again, due to the usual factors.
It’s a good opportunity to consider investing the savings from your power bill in an area that will provide future energy savings such as extra insulation or LED lighting or solar hot water.
Money spent on reducing your energy consumption usually pays dividends for many years, as the benefits continue long after the initial expense.
The money saved from implementing one energy efficiency measure can help pay for the next energy reducing investment, and those combined savings help pay for the next one, and so on. This is a great strategy if you are planning to stay in your current home for a number of years.
There are plenty of ways to reduce your energy consumption that won’t cost you a cent. We have created a guide that details of 43 different ways to reduce your power bill, including many no cost and low cost ideas. Go to www.savepowersavemoney.com.au to download the free report.
A number of people who signed up with a mainland solar sales company have recently had their deposits returned, and been advised that the company has pulled out of the Tasmanian market and their installations will not be proceeding. The company cited a shortage of installers as the reason for abandoning the jobs.
We are pretty sure there are plenty of solar installers available in Tasmania. It’s possible that the solar sales company has been unable to entice anyone to work at the rates they were prepared to pay for the installations. The sales company probably signed up customers with a very low price on their systems, but then relied on squeezing installers to make their profits.
Without an installer willing to work for less than nothing, their scheme has fallen over. The quality of the installation is a key factor in how well a solar system performs. It’s no good saving $700 on the installation price if it costs you many thousands of dollars over future years due to the under-performance of the system because of a shoddy, short cut installation.
Those clients who paid a deposit have got their money back, but they are no longer eligible for the generous 28 cent feed in tariff that they hoped they were signing up for.
In the the area of solar panel installations, just as in all other areas of life, you get what you pay for.
For a free on-site consultation and a detailed proposal on your solar panel installation, including a fixed price quotation and a performance estimate, phone Mance Electrical Launceston on 6331 4711
You’ve probably heard of Legionnaires’ Disease. It’s a serious and sometimes fatal form of pneumonia caused by the Legionella bacteria, which lives in warm water storage systems, such as domestic and commercial hot water and air-conditioning.
A normally operating hot water cylinder is safe because the thermostat automatically heats the water to over 60 degrees, a temperature that kills off most of the bacteria.
However, problems can arise when some home owners bypass the automatic controls in an effort to save on power costs. We have heard of timers being fitted to cylinders to restrict the operating hours and even clients turning off their cylinder for part of the day in order to cut the power usage.
Solar hot water systems are probably most at risk because the electrical back up element may be turned off completely for long periods, giving the unwanted bacteria plenty of time to multiply.
Sure, the water may still remain hot enough to use, but it may also fall below the hot temperature that kills the bacteria and into the warm zone where the bacteria thrives.
Infection can occur when you inhale fine droplets of water that contains the bacteria, so your shower is the ideal place to contract the disease.
Infections are reasonably uncommon, but the results can be deadly, so this is one area where we recommend a safety first approach, rather than trying to save the most money.
If you have any queries, please feel free to give us a call. Mance Electrical (03) 6331 4711 Launceston Tas
