birdman

Hi soaker, I was wondering where you got those statistics? What country do you live in? All the sites I've found dealing with hot tubs and their energy efficiency quote this statistic: An average sized energy efficient hot tub consumes 5-7 kWh per day, while a poorly insulated, inefficient hot tub may use 12-18 kWh per day. If you take the high end 7 kwh per day for an energy efficient tub for 31 days, that would be 217 kwh per month, which is quite a bit less than your "standard" estimate of 575. If you take the high end of the poorly insulated, inefficent tub of 18 kwh per day for 31 days, that is 558 which is much closer to your "standard". Either way, your "standard" seems too high. In addition, there is clearly not a "standard", since the energy efficient and inefficient spas consume very different amounts of power. These numbers seem right on the money from my personal experience. Here, our price per kwh is 2 cents. Use their figure of 217 kwh per month and this is only $4.34. It explains why I've seen little or no increase on my powerbill since installing my tub. This month, my power bill was up $6.00 compared to this month last year, but I've added the tub, did a refill during this time and we've had record breaking low temperatures. You just can't argue with those numbers. In addition, you can look at smilin's post which states an increase of only 345 kwh per month. It might be that your spa uses 575 kwh per month, but that doesn't make that a standard. Tiny, where do you live - 2 cents a kwh? I live in KY, we're a little over 6 cents (I think we are the 4th cheapest state). 2 cents is unreal though.

TinyBubbles - 5-7 kwh a day may be possible in the summer, but NO way possible in a cold climate. My rates are low, and I wish I could get by for $11 a month cost in winter. I would say more like 10-14 kwh per day in winter in northern climates.

I didn't mention it, but I didn't have a hot tub last year so the comparison in electical usage to last year should be pretty good. Also it's been 3 degrees cooler this billing period compared to last years, so furnace fan would have run more this year.

Mike - I live in northern KY and my gas & electric bill jumped a similar amount as yours. We've has some nights get down to 20 or so this billing period, I would guess your temps have been a little milder, but definately considerlably cooler than prior month. I also drained & refilled earlier this month so I figured my electric would be increased a little more due to reheating - I think it took around 7 hours to bring tub up to the 102 set point (375 gallons). Anyway, compared to this same period last year I used 11.5 KWH more per day. So for 30 days that would be an increase of 345 KWH to run my tub. At 6.3 cents per KWH that's $21.74 for tub usage - not bad considering I did a refill.