Utilities Bill in Our Tiny House On Wheels
We get asked a lot about our utilities in the tiny home and the only utility we pay is electric and gas. The campground/RV park we live in includes water and sewage. Although Sam covered the huge benefit of living in an RV park, me being Mr. Frugal I enjoy this part of the park. The only utility in our tiny home that isn't running off electricity is the Premier 20" Gas Range with Four Burners and Precision temp RV-550 tankless hot water heater which is propane.
Propane Gas Utilities Bill In Our Tiny home
We have two 20lb propane tanks on the tongue of the trailer of the tiny house, which look like gas the size of normal grill propane tanks. Typically we fill up once a month so it ends up being $20 a month. We try not to let it get low because the shock of the cold water in the middle of a warm shower keeps us from letting it get empty. We have these gauges that come super handy to give us a rough estimate of the fuel levels and when its time to fill them up. We used to exchange the tanks down the street but decided to go to u-haul and get them filled there. It costs a little less if you average it out, but "every penny counts" is what my mom would tell me. Roughly it would be $35-40 to fill both tanks up.
Our Tiny House Electric Utilities Bill
For the last couple of months, our electric utility bill has been in the $35 range. Tiffany the tiny home is a low energy home that uses a 50amp plug. All the lights are LED, of course, and our tiny home refrigerator is an LG and cost an average of $52 a year according to the EnergyGuide for this unit. The Smart LG AC split unit works wonders. The Mini-split unit has this "AI" feature that will auto adjust the temp based on a variety of things and is smart control so I can adjust the mini-split settings from anywhere in the world if we are traveling and Oliver (our cat) is at home. Typically it keeps the house pretty normal if we have it around 76 before we crank it down at night to 69. I am sure the spray foam insulation helps tremendously with our home temperature.
As far as laundry goes in the tiny home, we do multiple loads a week and we thought that might cost a chunk of change. but we were surprised it didn't. Typically we do laundry every other day since the loads are smaller washer dryer combo. You can check out our review of our tiny house washer dryer combo here !
Lighting in our Tiny House
With lighting being a concern for energy, the house has been converted to all LED, even the fridge and hood lights are changed out now. It's crazy to think about what is next after LED since such low wattage is being drawn from our lighting. It's also helpful that the Lutron system notifies us when we left a light on when we leave, they keep adding software features like this to their system. I get asked a lot why don't we use solar and the reason we haven't is because I have not done the research to see if it will pay off in the long run. We plan on living in Tiffany the tiny home for a while and at $35 a month for electricity, it will have to make financial sense. We take notice of what uses energy and wanted to keep our home from using the least amount of energy possible until we dive into solar.
It is crazy to see the price difference in utility bills based on the physical size of our tiny house and appliances. I don't think our habits have changed much, we try our best to consume less with our utilities. The only thing that really has changed is the size of the home and in turn the things in our home. It takes less to cool and heat our home since we don't have unnecessary rooms in our house. Our smaller tiny home refrigerator has never had a problem fitting our food. According to the California Energy Commission, a gas stove will cost you less than half as much to operate (that is if you have an electronic ignition like ours and not a pilot light Precision temp RV-550 ). Our lights are closer to us so we don't need lights as bright even though they are made for larger rooms. Using less energy is a mindful factor in our life. Leaving a smaller carbon footprint is important to us. In a world where many consume/want more than they need, I feel we are taking steps towards doing our part to consume less. It feels good to know we are using less just by moving into a tiny house even if its not the "off-grid" style of living. $35 without even really trying. Can't beat that.
-Tim