Any way to save power? Bulbs/heaters constantly on

[Talka]

My electric bill almost doubled since I got Sheldon. Any way to cut down on that?
I keep a 100W bulb on during the day (12 hours, gets to 95 degrees) along with a 50W heater over his favorite spot, to keep that area around 75 degrees. The 50W is on 24/7. My thermostat is SET to 72-74 during the day, but that temp only ever happens in the hallway. In all the rooms it's more like 68.

 

[Madkins007]

It may be cost-effective to invest in a space heater for the room so you can turn the house thermostat down a bit. Covering and insulating the habitat will help, as will using bigger heaters that can do the job without running all the time.

 

[yagyujubei]

Sheldon is barely using any power.

 

[TylerStewart]

Not that 50W is very much, but if you lowered the heat light closer to where you want the warm area to be, you could probably drop down a few watts on that bulb.... In our baby tort room where we have multiple bins lined up, I keep the spot lights very low (6" off the substrate), so I can use 40-50 watts for the spot light, where if it was held higher up, I'd need 100W to give the same heat. I'm more worried about burning my house down by overloading my plugs than I am about the power bill, but it also keeps the overall room temperature down if I'm using smaller wattage bulbs for the hot spots. I still run A/C in there in the winter because of all the lights and heat bulbs. I heat the room at night with a radiant heater set at 72 on a thermostat (doesn't come on much, but will if it needs to).

You could also switch over to a heat pad instead of the 50W heater; many of the pads are 10-30 watts and put out nice heat against a side wall or underneath (we use them underneath hide boxes indoors, 24/7, and those hides are plenty warm).

On a side note, it probably wouldn't hurt the tortoise if the 100W bulb was on a few less hours per day in the winter. If you can create another ambient light source (strip light), you could get away with just a few hours of 100W mercury vapor.

 

[SulcataSquirt]

Yeah, sounds like you may have some power drawing from somewhere else.. maybe switch to some cfl light bulbs in some of your other household lights to compensate for his lights, if that is whats causing it.

 

[Terry Allan Hall]

To expand on SulcataSquirt's excellent suggestion, why not replace all the lights not used for heat (your ceiling and lamp lights, for instance) w/ CFLs...when we changed over, our electric bill dropped approx. $200 per month, and our ACs run much more efficiently in the summer.

 

[ekm5015]

Your electric bill did not double from the lighting for your tortoise. Doing the math the 100 watt bulb for 12 hours uses 1200 watts per day. The 50 watt heater uses 1200 watts per day as well. That is 2.4 kw hours per day. At 15 cents per kilowatt hour you are paying about $10 a month for Sheldon's lighting/heat. I think your electric bill doubled because of the cold weather and having to heat your house.

 

[Talka]

Your electric bill did not double from the lighting for your tortoise. Doing the math the 100 watt bulb for 12 hours uses 1200 watts per day. The 50 watt heater uses 1200 watts per day as well. That is 2.4 kw hours per day. At 15 cents per kilowatt hour you are paying about $10 a month for Sheldon's lighting/heat. I think your electric bill doubled because of the cold weather and having to heat your house.

Ohhhh.

ok nevermind hehe

 

[Shelly]

 

[jaizei]

Ed Begley, Jr. would be proud.

 

[GBtortoises]

If the temperatures at night within the enclosure are above 60 degrees, there is no reason whatsoever to provide additional night time heat for a Russian tortoise or Northern Mediterranean subspecies. In fact, they do better with a 15-20 degree day to night temperature differential. If the ambient daytime temperature within the enclosure is around 70-82 degrees at the cooler end and 95-105 degrees directly under the basking light that is absolutely adequate for normal activity. Even if the ambient room temperature is 68 degrees, the temperatures within the enclosure will be warmer overall with the basking light on. Maintaing these temperature ranges and not attempting to make it hotter than necessary may enable you to reduce the amount of equipment and electricity being used.

 

[Sammy]

I use a oil radiator, 2 x 250w, humidifier all hours, didn't think about the electric bill

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Sorry hit the 'sent' by accident. Wanted to say, I didn't think about the electric bill after footing the vet's bill cause my tortoise got RI. Rather pay for electric than the vet + risk tortoise's health.