Fuel costs

I think gas is $3.31 to $3.41 last time I looked. Can't help with propane.

I filled my vehicle up yesterday for 2.29/gallon at Lionel's Gas Station on STX. They take credit cards also. The cheapest I have seen this week is 2.27/gallon with most stations charging 2.49/gallon. Gas is cheaper on STX than on STT.

Ed Trade is on stt and for some stupid reason gas has always been higher there. Sure they dont have a refineray but they're just 40 miles from it. Last time I filled up my tanks it was $69.50 a tank from stx gas for my home. But are you talking a large propane tank for a house or for something small like a bbq grill?

Trade is probably quoting prices for an island that is not STX.

Gasoline on STX is around $2.60/gallon right now.

Propane is around $17 for a 20 pound tank right now.

Bulk propane was $3.40/gallon in Nov 2006. I haven't filled up recently.

Gas is around $2.60 a gallon for regular on STX. A 25lb tank of propane was $19 the last time I refilled.

Jim

Sorry, yes I was talking about STT. I don't know the ins & outs but I think I've heard the gas has to go from STX thru Puerto Rico before it gets here which is why it's so much more expensive. Seems somebody gets a chunk of change out of that deal.

I'm back with an update, after my morning errands on STX:

Regular gasoline:
$2.29 to $2.50/gallon on the Northside Road stations.

Propane:
$16.75 for a 20 pound tank at Antilles Gas
$3.25/gallon for bulk at St. Croix Gas

Thanks for the info,I'm trying to decide if I wanted to use a propane fridge to help with the electric bill.A propane fridge will use about 1.5 gal in a 7 day period thats roughly 23$ a month.I'm not sure what an electric fridge costs to run.I will find out and let you know....

Dave..........

We used to spend a lot of time on islands in the Caribbean and Bahamas that don't have electricity. The houses invariably had propane refrigerators and they did not do a very good job keeping food cool. With a propane fridge you'd likely need to shop for perishables every day or two to avoid a fridge full of spoiled food.

We have been told , although I don't know it to be fact, that your insurance is more with Propane.

I' personally wouldn't bother. A/C is what drives up the WAPA bills. There are two of us working full and part time. We don't have A/C or washer/dryer. We aren't particularly careful with our electrical use and we average about $110 per month. We live in a 2 BR 2 BA home, about 1400 sf.

Don't forget the water heater is another big source of electric usage. Turn yours off next time you go on vacation and your bill will probably shrink dramatically. Why so solar water heaters are so popular.

Linda,
We are trying to decide whether to even include the a/c in the plans of our 2 bdr/2 bth home. Do you run your ceiling fans? Thanks for the info.

Hello All,

We didn't find that the ceiling fans did much and seemed to just use electricity. We bought cheap $20 box fans from K-mart and put them in a few windows and created quite a nice breeze. We only ran them when we were home and used a timer for our hot water heater. The timer worked great and we did notice a difference in our bill. Making sure your water pump is primed (I think that is the word) is good as the pump won't run as often. A friend had solar for his water heater and said the water would get very hot and worked great for them. I was reading on a Yahoo board and the experts say that 5% of your electric bill is just having things plugged in that you are not using. Chargers, computers, etc. can save you some money by just turning them off and unplugging when not in use. On island it is a good idea anyway as the surges can ruin your electronics. They said that microwaves, even coffee makers, use electricity just by being plugged in. Just my two cents.

Teresa

I just installed a hot water heater in one of the homes I have built,It's made by Boch.It is a on demand hot water heater.The cool thing about this one is that when you are not running the hot water there is no cost.It has a hydro ignition fetcher,the flow of water creates milliamp that ignite the flame.They claim it's 50% more efficient than an ordinary hot water heater.They are available in eclectic as well..If you don't have solar this could really help the WAPA bill......

Dave...

Tankless water heaters are great, but your electrical service must be able to handle the load. Since they heat water instantly they draw a massive load. Typically they require 2- 4 30amp 240 volt circuits depending on the unit's size.

Water heater timers are over rated as to their energy savings. Water heating, using a standard heater accounts for 30% of your electrical bill in an average home. Only 10% of this energy is lost when the unit is in standby. (Keeping hot water hot when the water is being run.) If you turned your tank off for twelve hours you would expect that you might reduce the standby loss to 5%. Then do the math 5% x 30% = 1.5% reduction you your electrical bill. If a timer costs $60 and an electrician charges you $100 for installing it, your payback is going to be many months.

Check my figures out on line if you don't believe them. I did the research and the math and that is why I installed a tankless water heater. They cost $200 - $500 depending on brand and size. In addition to really saving energy they also are supposed to last longer (10 years ) than a standard water heater. My experience in the VI is a standard water heater will only last three to four years.

If you don't have the money for a tankless heater change all your light bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs. That is where you will get the biggest bang for your bucks.

Jim

Jim,

I don't know what kind of fancy timer you purchased or know of, but my timer was like 10 dollars at the hardware store that I set myself and plugged into the outlet and plugged in the hot water heater into it. We watched our bill carefully and checked the meter ourself. Combined with other efforts we saved 100 dollars a month and kept our bill steady while our neighbors bill doubled and tripled.

Teresa

We live on the top of a hill and have good breezes. We run 3 ceiing fans 24/7 - to circulate the air and prevent dampness. We stay very comfortable.

Jim,
An on demand Bosch electric water heater requires a 240 volt circuit and one 30 amp, dedicated breaker. For one bath the unit is $500, to run 2 baths simultaneously, it is $850. Also it is only a 2 year warranty.
Teresa,
I do not know what kind of house or water heater you have but VI code requires a 30 amp, 240 volt dedicated circuit, hardwired and the heater earthquake strapped. That makes it impossible for you to purchase a ten dollar light timer and plug it in. Maybe you are refering to your circulation pump.
Josh

Jim
The gas unit you have is very good I love not needing the 110 ignition But only the gas has a 5 year warranty

I laugh at this. We lived in 5 different 'apartments' on island on STT. What you all are saying now makes sense. The reason so many electric bills are so high and so crazy different is probably because nothing is to code that I have seen at any of the homes we stayed. It was the hot water heater we plugged into our timer into the outlet. We did this at three of the homes we lived. The hot water heater was freestanding beside the house and plugged into the wall into a 'regular' outlet. I know what the pump is and we never put that on a timer since it basically by design only runs when you run water. I am sure if we looked at a new home that is up to code or a hotel, etc than what you are talking about would be true. I am talking about many of the homes on island that locals built themselves or somehow built without any inspection or up to code. Sorry, but we are talking about two completely different things. Pleez, I have seen people who power their home by running a couple of extension cords from a neighbor or to a buried cable across the street. We are not talking about homes that anyone has inspected in a long time. (just to be clear, I never stole electricity, but I have seen it many times).

Teresa

Teresa:

If a water heater timer saved you $100 then you may have some other problems with you water heater and/or a leak in a hot water line causing you to heat much more water than you are using.

Assuming that you paid $0.30 per kwh then a $100 savings represents saving 333 kwh. If your water heater consumes 7.2 kwh ( fairly typical for a 30 amp 240 volt heater) for each hour the heating element is on. This translates into approximately 46 hours that your heater's element was not heating water per month as a result of installing a timer. This breaks down to approximately 1.5 hours per day.

Water heaters of current vintage are well insulated. There is no reason that a heater would need to be heating water for that long during the night to keep the waters temperature in the range of 125 - 135. That is why I say there is either something seriously wrong with your water heater or you have a leak where hot water is trickling away and your water heater is almost constantly running to heat the cold water flowing into the tank.

As for your timer, $10 sounds what you would pay for a 110 volt lamp timer. If this is the case check that the timer will handle the load of a water heater. Also if you have a 110 volt water heater, which is possible for a very small tank then you would have have to save 92 hours ( 3 hours per day) of heating cycles. This is even more reason to check your water heater for defects and plumbing problems.

Jim

Jim,

Interesting. You are probably right about the water heater constantly taking on cold water or leaking or something. It literally would run all the time unless we unplugged it. We got tired of unplugging it and put the timer on and took our showers when we knew it was running. We had it set for an hour in the morning and an hour at night for hot water. I don't think the person who built the house nor the persons who installed the pipes and electricity knew much more than I do about the subjects. We plugged in our microwave to an regular outlet in our kitchen and would get a nice shock if we touched the microwave in the wrong place. Five electricians later we got that fixed. The whole kitchen wasn't wired in any way correctly. I found that the washing machine was fed hot water into the cold water intake. After shrinking two loads of clothes, I switched it out and was finally washing with cold water. These are just a few wonderful things we put up with. 🙂 We don't live on island now. We moved back stateside last August.

They built a new eco friendly home here in Atlanta where we live and went on a long speech about an underground water holding cement structure to capture rain water for gardening use as Atlanta has dry spells and using water for outdoors is limited. They felt this 'newer' technology was perfect for cutting back on water usage and went on and on forever about it. I wanted to just say, yes it is a cistern, next subject please. The only difference is they have to empty it in the fall before the first freeze as the concrete would crack every year and eventually be useless. We appreciate so many things that we have stateside after living on island. I was happy when my brother in law installed some GFCI (?) outlets on our home that we just purchased. (These things I would have never even cared about before island living)

I know the islands are behind in many ways technically and in other ways better, but the whole housing situation on island is challenging at best and I hope they continue to move forward and even though I am more tolerant than most girls I know, I couldn't deal with a lot of it. I do hope they find a good way to fix the WAPA issues and take it this time.

Okay, I am totally off subject. TFLTMR(Thanks for listening to my rant)

Teresa

Teresa's posts should be read by everyone. Go back in the archives and follow her progress here (and her departure) as a newbie, an employee, a wife and a mother. She has much to say and does so most eloquently.