Your light bill

[Dad02]

For the entire season.....$67.09 extra.

[texascop]

With the electric company's smart meters, my power consumption is updated on the internet every 24 hours and shows an hour by hour use. My electric costs went up ten cents per hour (50 cents for the night) when I ran my display. I have about 15, 000 individual bulbs and a CCR. Probably 15% of the display is LED. So, it cost me about $16.50 for the season.

[WilliamS]

Last year 2011 Season December was 64.02 for my power bill, mind you Im in Florida, and didnt have a cold winter, well for us. 2010 Season no LOR just static lights it was 78.61.

I ran my show all LED for 2011, 4 hours a day from Nov 28th-Jan 1st. From December 24th-the 31st I also ran an all on fade for an additional 2 hours a night till 11pm.

[JoeKinne]

We're up about $100 for the month of December with 45k light, of which approx 30k are static mini's and C7's. (lower than in the past when we were 40k all static). Well worth it in my opinion.

[james campbell]

mine went up 35 bucks for both November and December,7500 mini ican on lor and 1000 other minis and other props static,not bad

[gizmomkr]

4 Controllers w/ enclosures and misc - 480.00
couple spools of STP, plug etc. - 350.00
S3 upgrades, DMX Dongle - 125.00
assorted Lights (a wild guess) - 800.00
Rainbow floods - 160.00
Pixels & DMX stuff - 200.00
Water feature - 150.00
Not sure how to acocunt for labor.
Wow, I really tought it would be higher, I'm still under 2k. I'm cheap.

Oh right, power - We are about 80% LED, and our power cost is about 30.00 for the month.

[Scott T]

My went up about $90 with 50k lights.

[ItsMeBobO]

gizmomkr wrote:

4 Controllers w/ enclosures and misc - 480.00
couple spools of STP, plug etc. - 350.00
S3 upgrades, DMX Dongle - 125.00
assorted Lights (a wild guess) - 800.00
Rainbow floods - 160.00
Pixels & DMX stuff - 200.00
Water feature - 150.00
Not sure how to acocunt for labor.
Wow, I really tought it would be higher, I'm still under 2k. I'm cheap.

Oh right, power - We are about 80% LED, and our power cost is about 30.00 for the month.

I am with you gizmomkr. People ask me what my electric bill is and I give them the hardly anything compared to the lights and controllers talk. Much more spent on extension cords and cable ties I presume since I dont know. My electric is budget billed which means the bill is the same every month. Kinda reminds me of the days when we would fret over long distance charges. Been doing this for years and I have not once tried to calculate my electric bill difference. Have never figured my gas mileage either since I am driving that car no matter what the mileage is. Besides I keep my CCRs and other stuff like lasers and drip tubes plugged in and testable all year in my shop and they light when I sequence them. Should I include that testing & prepping cost in my December cost or exclude it from my month variance?

[1983ss454]

We were $450 last year for about 40k static lights, 12 spot lights, and 14 motors....... This year we converted some LED's, used CFL spot lights, 17 motors and it was $240 for 3 weeks... More LED's for next year and more motors, so hoping it stays about the same

[pyromill]

I do not have the power bill in hand because I do not even want to look... BUT I am curious... looking at a power bill is anyone considering the price of running blowers on ac and heating units as reasons for increases along with the lights?

[Richard Hamilton]

In Northern California, I think we have the highest rates in the Nation and it is tiered. Thus, we easily pay greater than 32 cents per KW. Even so, our bill is about $35 in December by running about 300 strings of LED lights.

[rescue_653]

pyromill wrote:

I do not have the power bill in hand because I do not even want to look... BUT I am curious... looking at a power bill is anyone considering the price of running blowers on ac and heating units as reasons for increases along with the lights?

With it being a mild winter this year mine went up $60-$65 last year when it was so cold during the entire month of Dec mine went up nearly $100. So it is fair to say with $60-$65 is about right on light usage for me with 45,000 lights

[Terry Hurrle]

My bill was about $120.00. I am converting to all LED next year so I should see a difference

[Rich]

Cost of electricity for 30,000 LED lights flashing for 25 days =$20.00.
A smile on a child's face = priceless.

[Richard Hamilton]

I think it is of more significance for people to mention what rate they are paying for electricity. In northern California we are at average 35 cents per KW at our house and my siste in Tennessee pays 9 cents. A big difference.

[columbus27]

3000 lights, 4 flood, 2 inflatables about $20

[trafficman]

150,000 lights + 6 led traffic signals and 21 controllers around $500 bucks for the season. Thanksgiving night to Jan 1st.

[caniac]

we were at $450 for that period but aren't sure how much was lights and how much was a heat pump low on freon. have a service contract on the heat pump but it wasn't checked in November like it should have been. the reason for the low freon was their guy didn't put the caps back on tightly after the last service call. They did us right and ate the cost of the freon.

[Steven]

It's really hard to say, but here's my January electric bill:


For comparison, here's a bill from earlier in the year:


One reason for the big summer increase is my new Chevy Volt. The December 2011 use is more than the December 2010 use for unknown reasons. Maybe because I switched some elements to LED, but more likely because we used the lights less.

If you think these bills are complicated, we just added solar power this year, which will make them even harder to read. The goal is to have a 100% solar powered Christmas light display.

[shakeonit]

80k lights, 5 controllers, about 80% LED so it went up about $100-$150 running it almost 6 hours a night.

LED saved me huge, I used to have C9 and C7 incan, plus a ton of mini's, and my December bill would rival my August bill, somewhere in the neighborhood of $500.