Holy Power Costs, batman!

Holy cow, I just found my latest powerbill. We have 113 Kwh @300% over the baseline, total kWH of 1025 (does that seem seriously high to anyone else?). That's $0.34878 per Kwh.

I broke out my Kill-A-Watt, my HTPC is running about 150W on average. At a 31 day month, that's 111 Kwh, which means that PC alone is costing me $39/month.

My god man, suddenly I get ROI on a Sage HDExtender plus IP-Serial Server or miniITX in <12 months.

I hear you. I have a server a PC based DVR, the ELk, etc, etc...

I have tried to make up for it in other ways like using CFL's where I can stand them.

I just recently installed some led walk lights to get rid of the eight 7 watt Malibu. Take it back wherever you can.

IVB said:

Holy cow, I just found my latest powerbill. We have 113 Kwh @300% over the baseline, total kWH of 1025 (does that seem seriously high to anyone else?). That's $0.34878 per Kwh.

I broke out my Kill-A-Watt, my HTPC is running about 150W on average. At a 31 day month, that's 111 Kwh, which means that PC alone is costing me $39/month.

My god man, suddenly I get ROI on a Sage HDExtender plus IP-Serial Server or miniITX in <12 months.

Click to expand...

CA has the worst electricity rates in the country.... Long Island is not far behind and rising fast. I have cut usage tremendously and still pay $305 a month on balance billing for electricity (down from almost $400).

If you can swing a solar system to supplement your purchased electricity you might get a decent ROI with those electric rates. Not feasible yet on Long Island where the payback is still around 12 years.

IVB said:

Holy cow, I just found my latest powerbill. We have 113 Kwh @300% over the baseline, total kWH of 1025 (does that seem seriously high to anyone else?). That's $0.34878 per Kwh.

I broke out my Kill-A-Watt, my HTPC is running about 150W on average. At a 31 day month, that's 111 Kwh, which means that PC alone is costing me $39/month.

My god man, suddenly I get ROI on a Sage HDExtender plus IP-Serial Server or miniITX in <12 months.

Click to expand...

we peaked at 1200 kwh/month in 2004. since then we've made a concerted effort to cut usage where we can. make sure you've got HE power supplies on your servers. and if you've got an older processor in your htpc, might be a good time to upgrade. my ha server was an athlon 2800 system running about 150 watts but upgrading it to a core2 e6420 and an HE power supply dropped it down to about 90 watts.

I've used one of the "kill-a-watt" plug in power meters for the last year to track electrical usage. It can be a real eye opener and has prompted some changes.

Here are a few examples of cost per month for different devices in my home:

Kitchen Fridge - $7.69
150 Bottle Wine Storage - $9.31
35 Bottle Wine Fridge - $6.48
Office PC & UPS - $28.37
Equipment Rack (Includes server & whole-house AV) - $65.17
Dell PowerEdge 1800 Server - $40.67 (This is the bulk of the energy used in the rack ~250w)
Russound Whole House Audio - $8.86
Living Rm TV/Surround Sound - $23.05
Security & Electric door locks - $8.08

Electricity here in Santa Barbara, CA has almost doubled in the 7yrs I lived here (average now is about 22 cents KWH for my usage, but goes up as you use more). Normal bill for my modest 1800sq ft ranch is about $300mo and gas (two hot water heaters & spa) averages about $100.

Cheers,
Paul

I'm on a fixed 5 year plan at 7 cents KWH up here in Alberta, floating rate is around 10 cents now so good thing I locked in when I did. I already complain about my power bill I can't imagine having to pay as much as you guys are.

Well, I just bought the LogicSupply 4port Serial-over-IP that NishanF talked about here. I have 5 devices in that location, soon to have a 6th (BluRay/DVD), but I can run 2 CAT5 cables as I have space in the server in the basement.

Now all I need is for the SageTV HDExtenders to come back into stock. Let's hope this all works out, could be a pretty penny saved.

You guys need to get one of these HomeTrollers. They only use about 22 watts of power. They're expensive but at those rates will pay for themselves over time.
http://www.hometroller.com/

My plasma TV is a real power hog but I can't do without that.

Rupp said:

You guys need to get one of these HomeTrollers. They only use about 22 watts of power. They're expensive but at those rates will pay for themselves over time.
http://www.hometroller.com/

My plasma TV is a real power hog but I can't do without that.

Click to expand...

But whaddya do about SageTV then? I have an E6400 Core2Duo machine running CQC/SageTV/SQL*Server Express server. And, since you need a PC for SageTV anyhow, you can save the 22Watts

Looks like i'm going back to quasi-mainframe days, where a single machine powers the whole house. Between this serial-over-IP and the Moxa, i'll end up driving 15-20 devices plus Sage plus ..., all over the single box, and leave the 8watt HDExtender for video processing.

IVB said:

Holy cow, I just found my latest powerbill. We have 113 Kwh @300% over the baseline, total kWH of 1025 (does that seem seriously high to anyone else?). That's $0.34878 per Kwh.

I broke out my Kill-A-Watt, my HTPC is running about 150W on average. At a 31 day month, that's 111 Kwh, which means that PC alone is costing me $39/month.

My god man, suddenly I get ROI on a Sage HDExtender plus IP-Serial Server or miniITX in <12 months.

Click to expand...

I used 1192 Kwh last month, it was a good month for me, I paid an average of 20.5 cents a Kwh. I bought a new larger refrigerator last year and my electric bill dropped a lot. I replaced my original HTPC that used to pull 250 watts last summer also. I have been playing with L.E.D. lighting and using much more efficient PCs every time I upgrade. I notice huge differences in PC power supply efficiency also. I would like to get my power use below 1000Kwh per month before the end of this year. I too am waiting on more Sage HD extenders so I only have to use my bedroom HTPC for photo or video editing instead of as a Sage client.

IVB said:

Rupp said:

You guys need to get one of these HomeTrollers. They only use about 22 watts of power. They're expensive but at those rates will pay for themselves over time.
http://www.hometroller.com/

My plasma TV is a real power hog but I can't do without that.

Click to expand...

But whaddya do about SageTV then? I have an E6400 Core2Duo machine running CQC/SageTV/SQL*Server Express server. And, since you need a PC for SageTV anyhow, you can save the 22Watts

Looks like i'm going back to quasi-mainframe days, where a single machine powers the whole house. Between this serial-over-IP and the Moxa, i'll end up driving 15-20 devices plus Sage plus ..., all over the single box, and leave the 8watt HDExtender for video processing.

Click to expand...

SageTV should run fine on the HomeTroller. It's uses the XPe operating system.

Rupp said:

IVB said:

Rupp said:

You guys need to get one of these HomeTrollers. They only use about 22 watts of power. They're expensive but at those rates will pay for themselves over time.
http://www.hometroller.com/

My plasma TV is a real power hog but I can't do without that.

Click to expand...

But whaddya do about SageTV then? I have an E6400 Core2Duo machine running CQC/SageTV/SQL*Server Express server. And, since you need a PC for SageTV anyhow, you can save the 22Watts

Looks like i'm going back to quasi-mainframe days, where a single machine powers the whole house. Between this serial-over-IP and the Moxa, i'll end up driving 15-20 devices plus Sage plus ..., all over the single box, and leave the 8watt HDExtender for video processing.

Click to expand...

SageTV should run fine on the HomeTroller. It's uses the XPe operating system.

Click to expand...

Oh, I thought eXP required a pre-configured image, didn't realize you could add stuff onto it easily.

How would you capture DirecTV or cable using the zTroller for Sage? Wouldn't you still need a PCI capture card?

IVB said:

Rupp said:

IVB said:

Rupp said:

You guys need to get one of these HomeTrollers. They only use about 22 watts of power. They're expensive but at those rates will pay for themselves over time.
http://www.hometroller.com/

My plasma TV is a real power hog but I can't do without that.

Click to expand...

But whaddya do about SageTV then? I have an E6400 Core2Duo machine running CQC/SageTV/SQL*Server Express server. And, since you need a PC for SageTV anyhow, you can save the 22Watts

Looks like i'm going back to quasi-mainframe days, where a single machine powers the whole house. Between this serial-over-IP and the Moxa, i'll end up driving 15-20 devices plus Sage plus ..., all over the single box, and leave the 8watt HDExtender for video processing.

Click to expand...

SageTV should run fine on the HomeTroller. It's uses the XPe operating system.

Click to expand...

Oh, I thought eXP required a pre-configured image, didn't realize you could add stuff onto it easily.

How would you capture DirecTV or cable using the zTroller for Sage? Wouldn't you still need a PCI capture card?

Click to expand...

USB Capture cards will work as well as it has one PCI slot.

IVB is right, you can't just throw any app on an XPe machine. Most XPe machines have only the minimum required applications/drivers/dependencies installed.

Dan (electron) said:

IVB is right, you can't just throw any app on an XPe machine. Most XPe machines have only the minimum required applications/drivers/dependencies installed.

Click to expand...

So, one thing we do is remove vampire (phantom) loads. For example, our non-HD TV (I know, I know) uses up $2.00 of power a month. And its rarely on. So we have it wired to an X10 outlet, and the automation controller turns it off when we're not home and at night. SR227 outlets are inexpensive and consume almost zero power