[quote=“Mawvellous”][quote=“Hamletintaiwan”][quote=“Mawvellous”]I rent a small studio with my girlfriend in a new building in Banqiao. The landlord charges us 5NT/unit for electricity.
Last month we used a total of 482 units of electricity, giving a total bill of 2410NT. This seems like WAY to much, especially as we are not using the a/c.
I can’t figure out why our bill is so high. All our appliances are new and when we switch the mains power off, the meter stops turning - so I don’t think anyone is stealing our electricity.
Any ideas?[/quote]
Did you pay 2410NT for one or two month?[/quote]
One! 482 units at 5NT a unit.[/quote]
That’s way too much. As (Finley?) suggested, I bet your meter also monitors some public areas.
We pay less than twice that, for 2 months. We’re home A LOT, use a lot of ac, computers…run the fan (just a plug in oscillating one) ALL night EVERY night just for white noise. Cook, watch tv, lights on till like 2am every night (I am a night owl) so something is def. not kosher.
[quote=“Confuzius”][quote=“Mawvellous”][quote=“Hamletintaiwan”][quote=“Mawvellous”]I rent a small studio with my girlfriend in a new building in Banqiao. The landlord charges us 5NT/unit for electricity.
Last month we used a total of 482 units of electricity, giving a total bill of 2410NT. This seems like WAY to much, especially as we are not using the a/c.
I can’t figure out why our bill is so high. All our appliances are new and when we switch the mains power off, the meter stops turning - so I don’t think anyone is stealing our electricity.
Any ideas?[/quote]
Did you pay 2410NT for one or two month?[/quote]
One! 482 units at 5NT a unit.[/quote]
That’s way too much. As (Finley?) suggested, I bet your meter also monitors some public areas.
We pay less than twice that, for 2 months. We’re home A LOT, use a lot of ac, computers…run the fan (just a plug in oscillating one) ALL night EVERY night just for white noise. Cook, watch tv, lights on till like 2am every night (I am a night owl) so something is def. not kosher.[/quote]
The meter only monitors the apartment. When I switch the mains off, it stops running.
Just had a shower, and it only used about 0.3 units. Going to see how much it uses tonight with everything off except the fridge.
I remember seeing devices that plugged in between the wall and the appliance to measure how much electricity was used in the US. They mentioned that you could rent/borrow these from your electric company to find power usage culprits.
It sounds like your landlord is including free utilities (internet+) and recouping those costs. If you don’t get to the bottom of this before summer then your bill could get ugly.
I don’t get the bills or look over them extensively but by far our highest was last summer at 6000NT for 2 months. You’re already paying that in the spring/winter. And we have a 3 story house (basically separate studio apts with a lot of shared non AC space) with 2 aircons running a lot.
The hot water heater will add quite a bit if someone is taking long showers but it shouldn’t be that significant. Do you know what temp the hot water heater is set at? Are you going to unplug this when you check your fridge overnight usage? the good thing about summer is that you barely need to heat the water.
Does your fridge sound like it’s running good? Is there a good seal around the door or frequent frost in the freezer?
All the apartments in this building are separate units (獨立套房) with their own washing machine/dryer.
The building is part of a huge development called the Neo-sky Dome (新巨蛋) next to Xinpu MRT.
This is NOT one of those places where the landlord has divided a property into several studios to rent out.
The building management have also confirmed that all public electricity is paid for out of the management fees.
[quote=“Abacus”]I remember seeing devices that plugged in between the wall and the appliance to measure how much electricity was used in the US. They mentioned that you could rent/borrow these from your electric company to find power usage culprits.
It sounds like your landlord is including free utilities (internet+) and recouping those costs. If you don’t get to the bottom of this before summer then your bill could get ugly.
I don’t get the bills or look over them extensively but by far our highest was last summer at 6000NT for 2 months. You’re already paying that in the spring/winter. And we have a 3 story house (basically separate studio apts with a lot of shared non AC space) with 2 aircons running a lot.
The hot water heater will add quite a bit if someone is taking long showers but it shouldn’t be that significant. Do you know what temp the hot water heater is set at? Are you going to unplug this when you check your fridge overnight usage? the good thing about summer is that you barely need to heat the water.
Does your fridge sound like it’s running good? Is there a good seal around the door or frequent frost in the freezer?[/quote]
Switched everything off last night (including the water heater), just had the fridge running, as well as a fan and a small light for an hour before I went to sleep. The meter went round by 0.6 units, so I don’t think the fridge is the culprit.
Is your electric water heater the problem? I ask because in the place we rented the landlord had an electric water heater that stored a few litres of water. Naturally, the heater was plugged in and switched on 24/7, so it would keep heating up the tank of water every few hours when it got too cool. Our power bill was 3500NT for 2 months, and I nearly shit my pants because this was much higher than what we were used to. After switching the water heater off and only switching it on when we wanted to take a shower, the bill came down to 2000 - 2500NT every two months.
Think it might be. Have been monitoring electricity usage with the water heater off. In 1.5 hours of using the computer and two lights on, plus a coffee machine keeping the coffee warm, I used 0.3 units - which seems reasonable.
Overnight I used 0.6 units with the hot water heater off, including running a fan for an hour and the fridge all night.
Used 1 unit in four hours surfing the internet, watching some TV, and brewing coffee - but with the hot water machine switched off.
I think I have found the culprit.
My electricity use was only about 100 units higher, but that’s a full sized apartment with a dehumidifier turned on 24/7 in one room (thats my wood storage room, it needs to be at a constant 45% humidity).
However I really don’t like elevator buildings when it comes to electric bills, for some reason the rates are higher than normal to account for elevator use, and those independent serviced apartment really rips you on electric use… I had gotten close to 4000nt per billing period one summer and I had no idea what is using up all those electricity.
I know Taipower charges you higher for using more electricity in order to keep you from hogging up power, but you really have to use more than 1000 units in the summer to get around 5nt a unit (and only for powers that are above that cutoff limit).
I’ve lived in a studio apartment in the US where your electric cost is flat rate, that is it’s charged based on the size of your apartment, fat chance anyone will offer a flat rate plan for power use in Taiwan. However the rate seems to be one of the lowest in the world even at the highest rate (around 5nt a unit in the summer for going above a certain power use)
[quote=“Taiwan Luthiers”]My electricity use was only about 100 units higher, but that’s a full sized apartment with a dehumidifier turned on 24/7 in one room (thats my wood storage room, it needs to be at a constant 45% humidity).
However I really don’t like elevator buildings when it comes to electric bills, for some reason the rates are higher than normal to account for elevator use, and those independent serviced apartment really rips you on electric use… I had gotten close to 4000nt per billing period one summer and I had no idea what is using up all those electricity.
I know Taipower charges you higher for using more electricity in order to keep you from hogging up power, but you really have to use more than 1000 units in the summer to get around 5nt a unit (and only for powers that are above that cutoff limit).
I’ve lived in a studio apartment in the US where your electric cost is flat rate, that is it’s charged based on the size of your apartment, fat chance anyone will offer a flat rate plan for power use in Taiwan. However the rate seems to be one of the lowest in the world even at the highest rate (around 5nt a unit in the summer for going above a certain power use)[/quote]
Rate is going up by 0.4/unit in June though, which makes 5NT/unit seem a bit better. Still, without the hot water heater running all the time, our usage seems to have fallen dramatically. Hopefully next month we can use around 300 rather than 482 units.
Don’t think the elevator makes any difference here, our rate was just agreed between me and the landlord. The electricity in public areas is paid for out of the management fee.
Your problem is you are paying over the market rate for electricity to your landlord, just pay what the bill says you should pay OR count the units used per month and multiply by a reasonable average rate.
Why are your paying more than market rate to your landlord?!?
[quote=“headhonchoII”]Your problem is you are paying over the market rate for electricity to your landlord, just pay what the bill says you should pay OR count the units used per month and multiply by a reasonable average rate.
Why are your paying more than market rate to your landlord?!?[/quote]
4NT/unit seems like a more normal rate from my searches of local message boards. 5NT/unit is a little high - although with the proposed increase in June it may not be so bad.
The main problem is that we were using too many units. Yesterday without running the hot water heater all day we used a total of 7.9 units, which is less than half our previous consumption. Multiplied by 30, that makes 237 units a month, or 1185NT - which is quite manageable - if the rate was reduced to 4NT a unit we would only save a couple of hundred NT. The landlord pays for the management fee, water, and cable so I guess he wants to make a little back on the electricity.
Anyway not much we can do about it now as the rate is set out in our contract, maybe we could renegotiate if we decide to renew the contract next year.
I’m guessing the landlord won’t want to renegotiate the electricity rate, which is high but hardly outrageously so given what else is thrown in free. FWIW, it might help if you note to him that because you will now be using much less power than before he’ll probably be getting a discount from Taipower for year-on-year reductions.