Give Yourself a $200 Pay Raise

By Bertie Brouhard

It may be more. Might be less. But it’s monthly and this is a raise of after income tax dollars. Most living dwellers, bill payers, are eligible. Those incredibly wealthy, not even slightly cost conscious, a few living off the grid or your neighbor perhaps who has recently invested a large sum in solar panels, lithium battery banks and highly efficient mechanical systems might not be. My  target audience for this article is the rest of you.

We live in a meteorological wonderland; this huge valley with its high desert, dry heat climate. Thankful every summer evening for our refreshing delta breeze. And our frost, snow free winters. As I type this about 9 AM it’s bright and still on this late August morning. Outside air temp is 68F and it’s 66F in my living room. Last night’s low was 58F and today’s high is 93F. My predicted indoor high is 78F. Only my laptop, my fridge and the trickle charges (TV and smart speakers) are consuming any electrical energy.

Your pay raise is generated by the cost saving measures you implement to drastically lower your P, G & E monthly devotional, offering, bequest, and irksome payment.

Most mornings (summertime) and late afternoons (winter)  I’m  “Out For A Walk.” Cruising by houses, apartment complexes and offices in the spring, summer and fall I hear the condenser fan motors and compressors of outdoor hvac units. In the winter I see the steam (water vapor) rising from heating system flues. I wonder if the homeowners, renters, building owners, tenants; those responsible for paying their P,G&E bills understand the cost of operating these energy sucking appliances?

Stay with me as we do a little investigating and some simple math before getting to your pay raise. It is generated by saving your hard earned, sweat and toil required, after tax dollars. Currently, too much of which is sent to P,G&E.

Founded in 1905 by 1984 it became the country’s largest electric utility and today has the highest electric rates (81% above the national average.) It’s an investor owned public utility with a share price of $17.53 if you’d like to be one of its owners. It’s a business with 28,400 employees (2024), serves two-thirds of the households in our state and in 2019 filed for bankruptcy. It’s a public utility; a monopoly in the energy business, with a guaranteed rate of return on equity of 10.4%. Having no competition, our public interest is supposedly protected, guarded by the California Public Utilities Commission.  When a forest fire erupts we quickly blame it. The Camp Fire and others gave it a $30 billion liability problem.

A review or critique of public utilities as monopolies, their oversight and effectiveness is for another day and author. Is P,G&E a good value for you? Let’s consider your last statement and then a strategy to cut it by a third or maybe a half. They offer only two products – natural gas and electricity. The unit amounts you receive and the efficiency of their usage is up to you. The unit of natural gas is termed a “therm” (100,000 British Thermal Units; BTUs.) Electricity is sent to you in “ kilowatts” or “kWhs (1000 watt hours.) Your gas appliances might be a clothes dryer, water heater, gas stove or furnace. (I doubt a natural gas automobile but it is Davis.) Electric appliances range (pun intended ) from 110 “volt” refrigerators, fans, dishwashers, stoves to your numerous wall outlets feeding lamps, computers, rice cookers, televisions and to 220 “volt” clothes dryers, maybe a plug-in hybrid car charger and your hvac system air conditioner or heat pump.

Rather than a deep, boring dive into tier allowances, our climate zones and appliance efficiencies, let’s consider normal, expected, “therm” and “kilowatt” hour prices;  nominally $2.50 per therm and $.40 per kWh. 

For the natural gas bill portion of your statement each hour you operate your gas dryer might cost $1, each hour of gas water heater use is probably $2, your gas stove cooktop and oven use for an hour is about $1.50 and your gas furnace is about $2.50 per hour.  However your wintertime furnace will probably be heating air in your house for not one but maybe 8 hours and those teenager showers might be two hours daily. It’s $10 – 20 daily average consumption; $300 – 600 during those winter months.

Your electricity is dependent on the early 1800s basic equation of James Prescott Joule; namely, to operate an electrical device the number of volts (electric potential difference) multiplied by the number of amps (electrons per second passing through) equals the number of watts (amount of work done; current driving through a circuit.) You are billed 1000 watts per hour  (“kWhs.)”  Most of your devices are plugged into a wall outlet (110 volt). But a few such as your electric clothes dryer, maybe an oven, electric car charger maybe and certainly your outdoor air conditioning unit or heat pump require 220 volts. I have chosen as “typical” an electric rate of $.40 per kWh for your residence. All your 110v devices are not significant  electricity consumers. Those with big appetites are the 220v appliances; namely your clothes dryer, maybe your plug-in hybrid car and your typical 3 ton air conditioner or heat pump. Charging your car will consume 9+ kWh per hour for at least two hours, an hour load of clothes drying is roughly 5 kWh and oh my … each hour of your twenty year old air conditioner or heat pump will require 5 kWs. Car charging and cooling your domicile during “hot” summer months might well be 50 kWh daily; at $.40 per kWh that’s $20 daily and $600 monthly – or more!

Depending on your lifestyle you do the math. But I suspect a family of four; two adults and two teenagers will have average monthly P,G&E bills of about $400.; some months more and some less. Your operation of your heating and your cooling appliances is the major factor, the largest portion of your yearly $4000 to 5000 or so after tax household expense. What can be done to get you that pay raise?

I smile at each piece of mailed P,G&E correspondence . Frequently I get a glowing report card on how I’m doing compared to similar residential dwellings. And someone is coming soon to inspect my ageing meters. I suspect they want to charge more per unit to offset their stated desire that I need to conserve; consume less of their products.

To fully appreciate your pending P,G&E financed pay raise may I remind you of some income tax realities. If you’re in the lowest income tax bracket (10% fed & 1% CA) you need to get paid $113 to pay $100 of your P,G&E bill. If you’re in the highest (37% fed & 13% CA) tax bracket your P,G& E bill of $500 needs $1000 of your income(s). I suspect you are somewhere between the 11 and 50% brackets.

Your creditor payee (P,G&E) wants you to use less of their product. Let’s please them. And get you that pay raise! My last three monthly bills for both of their products and delivery have been $62, $51 and $63. My three (Jan., Febr. & Mar.) winter bills are about $120 each. There are two of us living in my fifty year old, 1300 sq. ft. single family house.

If cutting your bill by $200 (and getting a $200 after tax dollar pay raise)  interests you may I suggest the following. Consider daily the outside “ambient” air temperature. Keep your windows open in the summer all night and until about 11 AM the next day. Then after 11 close all your windows; sealing in that cooler delta breeze air. I have a temperature activated whole house fan, have sealed my windows and door frames, added insulation to my attic and have awnings for shade. My house reaches 78F when the outside air temperature is 100+. Maybe 78 indoors is too hot for you. (Not in the winter I suspect.) Invest in a whole house fan and a clothes line and clothes pins. Open up your windows and doors about 7 PM to enjoy that incoming delta breeze. I do not run my air conditioner. Approach your thermostat like it was your ATM or the dentist’s chair for a root canal. It’s a switch and not an accelerator pedal. Don’t touch it. Drink cool water, take a bath or shower for some evaporative cooling.

For those upcoming winter months get out your electric blanket, close off the register/diffuser dampers in the rooms you don’t often frequent, zone your house with some plastic curtains and for the room where you plug in space heater rather than turning on your old, inefficient furnace. (It gives you maybe 70 cents of heat for every dollar you send P,G&E). Good fuzzy slippers and a comfy wool sweater will serve you well.

Send some of your newly acquired savings to your favorite charity (for an added tax benefit)

And early in the morning during the summer and late afternoon in the winter get “Out For A Walk.”

— Long a Davis resident and retired from a successful HVAC sales career, I enjoy travel, reading and now finding my writing voice. I value your input so please email me (bertieb1970@gmail.com). Thank you. Bertie.