Trojan Boat Forum

just want to tell you guys,, something that pisses me off ,,,,
as most of you know , I keep my boat in the water all winter, well I have a heater going in the boat , its one of those oil filled safe jobs, and go up there at least twice a week to check on things. Well last month I got a bill of 165.00 bucks, and I thought that was high, but I paid it and figured, well maybe between having it up high and a few other things it ws justified, but I still couldnt believe how high the bill was,

well this month I got my new bill of 260.00 bucks, and all I had running was this econonic oil filled heater on the lowest setting, I mean I know things are expensive, but ya gotta be kidding me,, my house which is 2500 square feet, all month uses 150.00 in electircity and thats high, so I just dont get why one oil filled heater will use that much juice, and Im guessing the marina is hosing me,,,,
what do you guys think?

sounds like a hose job to be....metered?

yeah ,,,,, theres a meter, but what can I do??? like Im suppose to know how much there charging me,,
well Im gonna have a chat with the manager,, at least they have to show me how thats possible

i live in western ny and thought meters were illegal in nys, at least here they are. one local marina put them in and either the state or maybe the county made them remove them.

It cost me up to 220 bucks for 3 months , but its not as cold down here
meters are used , I can't see meters being ilegal . ask them to check the meter . boats are very drafty and can be hard to heat

you might consider this. if you know which meter is yours it would be simple to read it yourself, note what day the meter is read from the power company and take a reading yourself every few days and see how much you are using figure the rate per kilowatt from one of your bills. if you read it once a week x 4 weeks you would at least know what to expect from your next bill. if the reading at the end of the month doesnt match yours then you have something to discuss with someone.

morning guys, i'm not sure what my electric bill for my slip will be yet but i would do almost anything to have a house bill as low..... for the last two months, our gas/electric bill from baltimore gas and electric (will, you know how BGE is stuffing us here in md) was 403.79 and 415.20. it's an old house, we have new windows that we put in 10 years ago and a new boiler, but the exterior is concrete, block and plaster. i cant wait to put up insulated siding..... yeah, i would check your meter and double check on it.
is this the same marina that has the bubbler system? the one's that let the slips freeze over a bit? if so, they might be charging slip holders a portion of the electric for running that.
aaron

guglielmo6160 wrote:just want to tell you guys,, something that pisses me off ,,,,
I have a heater going in the boat , its one of those oil filled safe jobs, and go up there at least twice a week to check on things. Well last month I got a bill of 165.00 bucks, and I thought that was high, but I paid it and figured, well maybe between having it up high and a few other things it ws justified, but I still couldnt believe how high the bill was,

well this month I got my new bill of 260.00 bucks, and all I had running was this econonic oil filled heater on the lowest setting, I mean I know things are expensive, but ya gotta be kidding me,, my house which is 2500 square feet, all month uses 150.00 in electircity and thats high, so I just dont get why one oil filled heater will use that much juice, and Im guessing the marina is hosing me,,,,
what do you guys think?

prowlersfish Wrote:
boats are very drafty and can be hard to heat

I would think that the heater running on the lowest setting (750 watts) and at the lowest temperture setting would still run continously. (That being the case, you would use 18kWh per day.) It certainly would in Chicago. ( I'm looking at my January Electric bill and according to it our average daily temperture was 14 degrees.) (My January bill was based on 32 days, so I assume your's is also.)

We pay $0.14/kWh. Check your rate, it may be higher. If the heater ran 24 hours per day for 32 days. You would use 576 kWh of power. At $0.14/kWh you heater would use $80.64 of electric. That's a far cry from what you were charged.

Now it's time to checkwhat else might be pluged into your electric. How about the bubblers. It could be the motor driven prop type or compressed air type. In either case they take power to run. Where is that power comming from?

trepka2001 wrote:i live in western ny and thought meters were illegal in nys, at least here they are. one local marina put them in and either the state or maybe the county made them remove them.

In Chicago we have metered electric. It's not illegal to meter the useage, but it is illegal to charge more then what they paid. They get around this by charging a meter reading fee. Any way to squeeze money out of us.

Do you winterize your boat? because antifreeze is a lot cheaper!

gjrylands wrote:

trepka2001 wrote:i live in western ny and thought meters were illegal in nys, at least here they are. one local marina put them in and either the state or maybe the county made them remove them.

In Chicago we have metered electric. It's not illegal to meter the useage, but it is illegal to charge more then what they paid. They get around this by charging a meter reading fee. Any way to squeeze money out of us.

Same in Virginia...

Ouch.

No heaters here - 48deg F water is the coldest it gets.

No dock fees (dock at home) either.

As Willie points out - why do you need to heat the boat, unless the (fresh) water around the boat freezes? Can't you just put RV anti-freeze in the tanks/lines?

Seems to me several people leave their boats in the water over the winter even though they don't intend to use them.
I have been wondering whether that is in fact a cheaper way to go vs putting them on the hard for that time.
Is it really cheaper to heat them, bubble, travel regularly to look at them. Also what about condensation by heating the inside while the outside air and water is colder and contacting a non insulated surface like hull & decks. Just wondering.....

I buy lottery tickets so consider that the chance of something going wrong in between visits is more likely than getting there in time to save it. My marina checks the boats daily during the in water season.... makes me happy for the 5 day absences.

I take mine out in the fall and never look at it again till pre spring launch work.... done this for years and have not had any negatives that I have to deal with.

I blow air through my waterlines, drain the water heater and run antifreeze through my engines, head and A/C, cost less than $50. It takes about three hours and I'm done, no worries and I don't have to be concerned about the power going out, as well as power bills.

I was at Marina QW one night this month and got a brain freeze walking 100 yards