So as we all know due to the world generally collapsing and burning around us and the fact we seem to be edging closer and closer to hell by each day, things are stupidly expensive now, especially energy..
But at least it’s Friday!
Anyway like most people here we use the air con a lot during the summer. Usually on through the night and off when we are at work/kid’s at school. Usually during the summer it always shoots up anyway and can’t be helped, though this year in particular I’m a bit nervous to see what damage we are in for.
What do you all suspect/fear?
Would I be insane to say…maybe it won’t change that much????
Enjoy the weekend and thank you!
25 comments
You should be getting a discount from government subsidies for your power bill. Although of course the bill will be higher due to air con use. Use the eco mode, set higher and use a fan to distribute the cool air around the room as quickly as possible.
From my experience, this depends on a combination of personal usage, the quality of the AC unit (power consumption efficiency) and quality of housing. I’ve been using 除湿モード for years with an air circulator since I bought a 4LDK flat and have limited my electricity bill during the summer to approx. 4000-6000 yen a month. I rarely have to use the cooling mode, and even then – I put it on a timer to switch to after 除湿モード after a couple of hours. The key is the air circulator as it distributes the cooled/dehumidified air much more efficiently around the home.
For reference when I was still renting, my electricity bills were often 8000 yen or more in a 2LDK.
Not really, for TEPCO at least the planned increase was reduced from (IIRC) 28% to 14%, which should reduce the anticipated pain, and we renewed the most heavily-used A/C units which should be more efficient than the old ones, and get by a lot with ventilation and fans anyway.
Edit: TEPCO website says the June bill is about 5,500 yen, which is apparently 1,800 yen less than the same period last year, which is probably in part due to less/more efficient A/C use by the offspring.
“Would I be insane to say…maybe it won’t change that much?”
Yes. If you’re using a typically installed aircon day and night, you’re going to get a very large bill. Find alternatives where possible: opening all windows and doors (including front door if you get an insect screen for it), smaller portable fans, curtains closed during day in rooms you’ll only use at night, a kid’s paddle pool set up in your living room to sit in during the day like a domesticated hippo.
No
We have 3 ACs running 24/7 already and they’ll be on throughout the summer. Currently using around 20-23kWh a day. Probably looking at a 2-3万円 bill every month.
Funny thing is this is actually less electricity per day than when we only ran a single AC in a shitty drafty apartment, vs 3 ACs in a 4LDK house now. Insulation is king.
not really.
My energy bill gotten pretty cheap with the discount they giving.
Was around 5500 earlier this year, now its down to 3700 with 142KW
I am . . . using the heater upped the price so much during winter
Have you tried Ayran?
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Not really, we rarely use aircon, never during night, just a bit during day time to refresh the rooms. You’ll be amazed how great fans are noawadays.
Last month my gas and electricity bill was only 4000. If this month it’s below 7000, I will be happy, I use less gas for the bath, but the Aircon run at least 8h a day now, I don’t want to lose sleep because of the heat anymore.
There’s no point in worrying about it. I’m going to be using the aircon anyway
These days my working room and bedroom on 3/F become 33C without AC (facing sun in the morning), and I don’t care about the electricity bill now, just want to get rid of the heat.
Yeah. Normally i pay 6k. I have 4 air con, one of those is huge (but have camera sensor) last summer bill was around 40.000…
Bills of 3万-5万 are not uncommon for me. If it gets much higher, I’m going to have to start turning tricks in Roppongi to keep the lights on around here.
Well who knows really, but apparently they were able to buy LNG for cheap due to warmer winter?
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-19/japan-s-lowest-lng-prices-in-two-years-may-help-ease-resurgent-inflation](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-19/japan-s-lowest-lng-prices-in-two-years-may-help-ease-resurgent-inflation?leadSource=reddit_wall)
Still I would try to limit electricity as much as possible. It is still going to be much more expensive compared to average. Also we’re talking about a lot weaker yen.
Ugh, I don’t have want to think about it. I’m using the AC just when I get ready for work and a couple of hours after I get home. Just using fans at night and hoping I don’t turn into a puddle 🙁
I see people with 5万 bill for one month but i’m wondering how is this possible ? I only have one air con but even by running it 24/24 it will maybe go up around 3000 above my average bill .
Nah, its too hot and I have too much other shit going on to put extra effort into thinking about it. Its on in the room I’m in, and then off when I’m out of the house.
Save money elsewhere. Eat out less often, for example. Makes no sense to try not to use ac and suffer at the only place you should have peace most of the time.
My electricity bill will always be higher in summer and winter and offset by spring and autumn.
To lower the electricity bill, I just come to the office 5 days a week even if my company doesn’t require me to.
I dont turn it on all night. I timer it so it turns off 2 or 3 hours before I need to wake up.
Not really, winter is more worrying tbh.
I have a small apartment (2DK), use the AC at 28 during the day, sometimes overnight but I find it makes me cough if it’s on all the time. I’ve yet to go above 1万 on my monthly bill. In high months it’s 6-8 thousand, 2 thousand in low usage months.
I switched from Tepco to Looop when they first opened up the market (around 2015?) There are lots of price comparison websites you can use to find out what you would pay with another company. For example,
https://kakaku.com/energy/
https://enechange.jp/try/input
Currently living in Okinawa.
It’s almost July now and so far my family has gotten away with not turning on the aircon by purchasing a screen guard for our front door and leaving it as well as all of our windows open to allow for airflow, and also having oscillating fans running in each room.
We’ve been able to keep our elec bills consistently under 5k.
We’ll see how it goes for July and August though. We might need to flip it on for a couple hours at night just to be able to sleep on the really hot days