San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

Sounds about right... if you're running a grow farm.

That's disgusting! When I send in my power bill I write SCAM on the check, useless I know, but it makes me feel better :)

Isn't deregulation nice? On top of crazy high rates and non-sensical base lines, if you go to build in a rural area you get another nasty surprise. It used to be that in exchange for being able to have a monopoloy electric companies were required to bring power to pretty much anyone that wanted it, sans-charge. Thats why you see old ranches and such all alone way out in the boonies with miles of power poles to feed just one residence. Today to get power costs $8k-$16k per pole!

Below is a post from the blog "housing-kaboom" :
http://housing-kaboom.blogspot.com/
Has anyone else seen water bills shoot up?

Monday, April 27, 2009
Now I can't afford to buy a house
'I just got my friggin water bill! HOLY $#!T There's gonna be a lot of dead lawns around the IE if my bill is any indication. Last month $50, this month $260!!! I used the exact same amount of water as last year (give or take a cup or two). They must have my baseline amount set the same as a 500 s/f apartment.
Posted by golfer_X at 9:05 PM 6 comments

Our gas & electric bills are nowhere near $1000. Even though we have six people in the house, which basically means that our washer/dryer is used every day, our water heater is old and not very efficient, and my wife insists on setting the heater to 76-78 F during the night.

But I don't have any pumping fees. I have no idea what that is.

What month was that $1000 for?

Sounds like he's getting what he deserves. He needs to learn how insulate his house, shade windows, and turn off the damn AC more often. Add solar for a 30% tax write off won't hurt either.

My electric was 11.47 last month. RB area.

You do have the option, if you really are disgusted with SDGE, simply to not subscribe to power and electricity. Find your own way to get electricity and gas..

San Diego has one of the highest utility costs in CA. This is a known fact. You could move up to L.A. where Edison charges a lot less, but then you will deal with the higher cost of homes up there. You can move to the east coast, but then you would need to deal with buying heating oil which is considerably expensive too.

Yes, I know, the world is out to get you.

Dunno much more than mentioned. He has a propane tank on site so that might be added to the equation. I think he said it is about $800 to fill. Can't remember.

He did show me this heating system that ran hot water through pipes in the slab. The house was on a few acres with some fruit trees but not, what I would call, groves.

He mostly mentioned all the tacked on pumping fees and other miscellaneous fees.

btw-he was the MOST malcontent guy I've met. I guess he took a beating on that house. He was the contractor and was just hating life, so cal, family, dry weather,... it got to be funny after a while.

ox
...adventures in house hunting

11.47 ... that's 3 kwh/day. Let me guess. You live alone, you don't have a PC (maybe just a laptop that you use 2 hours a day), your AC is always off, you either don't have a refrigerator or it's one of those 3 foot tall mini-fridges, you don't have W/D in unit, and you don't spend much time at home.

Either that or you have big solar panels that cost you 5-10 grand to install.

My home PC alone eats 5-6 kwh/day. But it's on 24/7.

Maybe his heating system is inefficient. Maybe the house does not have proper insulation. Maybe propane is much more expensive when you have a tank.

I googled those pumping fees and the only thing I find is a reference to fees charged by the water district to pump water to the house ...

I doubt that $1000 is typical in the area. But I don't see why he would be lying. If you're thinking to make an offer, ask for copies of recent utility bills.

I think there's some truth to the fees adding up.

We had $46 for electrical use on our last bill - but only $28 of that was for electricity - the rest was bond charges, transmission, and the $24.92 "distribution" charge. Electricity was only 61% of the "total electrical costs" on the bill.

Does anyone know if those fees go away if you DO put on panels. Lets say your electrical use is 10% because you've got solar panels.. Do all the fees get reduced by 10%.
(You don't want to put on more panels than you consumption because then you're just subsidizing SDG&E... so you size slightly less than your usage.)

I just noticed it's $1000 for gas, electric and WATER.

If he's irrigating a lot of land, that will definitely add up. And restrictions are coming - they start in San Diego in June and the rest of the county in July. (Different water districts, different restrictions.)

That's probably the pumping charges he's complaining about.

There is a lot you can do to reduce water consumption - usually with changing the landscaping to more appropriate species for your climate/zone. Grass lawns are not very practical for San Diego County. Yet we're obsessed with them.

You are charged by the kilowatt-hour. SDG&E gives you the breakdown of your charges in two different ways to confuse you, but the bottom line is, each additional kilowatt-hour adds X to your bill. Kilowatt-hours up to baseline (around 11 kwh/day) cost 13 cents. These 13 cents consist of usage charge, bond charge, distribution charge, etc. etc. but that's not really important to you. Kilowatt-hours between 100-130% of baseline cost 15 cents. Kilowatt-hours above 130% of baseline cost 30+ cents.

Energy generated by your solar panels offsets energy you spend. If you spend 10 kwh/day and panels generate 3 kwh/day, you pay for 7 kwh.

Your usage seems to be barely above baseline, solar panels would take a very long time to pay for themselves, even if you install them by yourself.

Nice house and property... he did a good job. Must be very disappointing. I saw several similar cases of this in Jamul.

Here are a few things I see on water/energy consumption:

The new vegetation on all those slopes takes a lot more water to get started then to keep going. Even Ice plant has to be watered plenty to get started. He had no choice but to put this vegetation in as a condition of his permits. The lawn since it is on a flat area was optional. If he has wierd pumping fees this can get expensive.

The attics appear to be minimally ventilated(people don't like the looks of vents). There may be a power ventilator in the regular attic sections,if there are any. With vaulted cielings like the house has,there isn't much air circulation above and below the cieling. It has relatively tall exterior walls and minimal eve overhang. This is all a combination for lots for heating and AC. I like the eve detail but it doesn't knock down any sun.It is fire resistive though.

That's why we haven't done it. On average, over the past 24 months, we've used 412kWHs/month. You pretty much need to average around 500kWHs/month or higher to get a decent payback. Even with the current tax incentives/rebates.

Now if we were able to buy an affordable (sub $30k) plug in hybrid - we would be able to justify the cost a bit since that would up our use and we'd be able to drive with a minimal carbon footprint. But plug-in cars aren't out yet in any real way. I can't afford a Tesla. LOL.

UCGal, you are right, the break even point on solar is about at the 400-500kWh a month low end. If you use less than 400kWh forget it and stay on the grid 100%.

BUT, if your bill is over 500kWh a month, Obama's 30% tax credit makes solar a no brainer.

Oxford, sounds like a heat pump. I have some family members (in Europe) who are fanatical about lowering fossil fuel usage. Extremely well insulated house, cooled and heated by a deep heat pump, pumping cooled or heated water into flooring all through the house. Solar panels on top. I don't think they use more than 50 euro a month in fossil fuels, through cold winters and warm summers.

But poor design or execution can lose most of the efficiency. I have to assume this person did a sloppy/cheap job of installation.

Just spoke with GF. She reminded me that he said he watered the avocado trees and landscape alot so that might be it. Re-doing the landscape should fix that.

We saw signs in the area for 25 avocados for $5 so screw the trees and let nature reclaim the yard.

ox
...or pay $50 each for homegrown avocados

Those avocados from "25 avocados for $5" are really small.

A mature 5-7 year old avocado tree with a canopy 20 feet in diameter requires, on average, $2 to $3 worth of water per month, using Valley Center MWD rates and depending on the elevation.

Each tree will produce 100-400 avocados per year, depending on age and conditions (proper fertilization can double the yield). Full yield may be inaccessible, because avocado trees easily grow 50-60 feet tall - good luck getting them from that height.

How many trees were there?

It's probably the water, there is nothing screwier than water law. I took an entire class in college on riparian water rights and while i never quite understood it, it's completely unique from other utilities. Some areas have very high water rates, sometimes multiples of other places nearby. Sometimes it's about being at the end of the line so to speak, or far from a supply that they do not own. Intermediate water districts that buy their water also sell it to the next town and the proceeds lower their town's bill because of the laws that regulate profit, but the guy at the end gets screwed. His district isn't profitting more, they just pay more because they are subsidizing everyone along the way from the source, as the water becomes more scarce, his price will rise even higher in comparison. If he had enough trees to become an actual farm, their rates are entirely different, in some districts, ag users can pay a fraction of residential rates. With gas and electric, there aren't as severe of swings in rates. Places that are elevated and far from water get to pay all the middle men and then the delivery charge. Electric price per kw is fairly stable from town to town as is gas or propane but water can have much more variance by area.

This is why in places with insane water rates, many people have wells. Unfortunately, from parcel to parcel, the ability to have a well can also vary and it is used as a selling point if it has a good well, if it doesn't, it is worth far less.

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/weather/stori...

I recall this guy saying his water was the most expensive in all of Escondido.

thanks for your insight

ox

seems like this is far worse than any mello roos or HOA fee. at least the guy was honest about the hidden cost of water.

the home looks nice, but it isn't that out of the way from civilization, it is right next to those meadow glen or meadow creek homes and near by are those rim rock estate homes.

If I remember right you need to have 5 acres to be considered ag and pay ag water rates. Otherwise he is watering those trees with city water, and you can imagine how expensive that gets. But you are right TG, water law is one of the most bizare and contradicting things you will ever try to study. I took a similar class in college, crazy stuff.

I use to live on a small avacado orchard when I was really little. It was fun to have all the trees and stuff to play with and all. Though my dad didnt make much money from selling the produce. He said he always got invites to good parties though, all the guac you could eat.

Let's not forget that SDGE employees are very well compensated, with great retirement and health benefits, discounted energy, etc...

It's just as bad with SDGE as it is with the Prison Guard Union.

Sale is pending on this property although high utility bill. The property is on top of a small hill. I think it is a special service that pumps the water to this specific property. Note that there is no other property around it and the pump is only installed for that house. It is not considered a regular utility charge.