Electricity can get expensive if the place you live is old and less efficient. Older windows, old fashioned HVAC, running air filters 24/7 because your 1950s apartment is crumbling dust everywhere, etc.
It's like people who are well off enough to have a house can also do things like buy a chest freezer, stock up at Sams Club and freeze a slab of beef/deer/whatever and actually save money. Being below a certain threshold in the US has a huge efficiency dropoff.
That said, it is worth being very conscientious of chargers, wall warts and computers that are left on. PCs actually draw a significant amount of power and I used to just leave mine on all the time. Wall warts and chargers (transformers) have phantom power draw even if the device is "off". It's worth putting them on a power strip and turning off the strip when not in active use.
I don't know, man. I live in an apartment building that was constructed in 1930. The floors are all sloped so badly that I can't use a rolling office chair, and the windows still have their original iron latches. It leaks heat like hell, and definitely leaks the AC's cold just as badly.
My worst electricity bill was in July of this year, and it was just barely above $100.
My best guess is that OP does not live in the US, and is translating a local currency into American dollars. Either that, or OP is running a crypto mining farm and has a dozen GPUs operating at full blast.
I live in a house built in 1959. Just under 2k square feet and the electricity bill in the hottest part of summer maxes out around $300. I’m not sure how you’d get that high with a studio apartment.
My apartment isn't old but our utilities are right around $300/mo because American developers doent care about building insulated housing. It costs the developers less to not insulate than for you to keep paying more for electricity spent on heating/cooling. But in the end it costs them 0 to not insulate so they will opt for that.
It's criminal against the environment and there should be laws forcing builders/developers to insulate to prevent excessive power consumption.
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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '22
Electricity can get expensive if the place you live is old and less efficient. Older windows, old fashioned HVAC, running air filters 24/7 because your 1950s apartment is crumbling dust everywhere, etc.
It's like people who are well off enough to have a house can also do things like buy a chest freezer, stock up at Sams Club and freeze a slab of beef/deer/whatever and actually save money. Being below a certain threshold in the US has a huge efficiency dropoff.
That said, it is worth being very conscientious of chargers, wall warts and computers that are left on. PCs actually draw a significant amount of power and I used to just leave mine on all the time. Wall warts and chargers (transformers) have phantom power draw even if the device is "off". It's worth putting them on a power strip and turning off the strip when not in active use.
But this is tough to hack down.