# TIVO Premiere XL won't turn off.



## dan6681 (Apr 1, 2010)

I just got it, but the FIOS folks have yet to come out to install the Mcard so I have not yet used it to watch/record TV. I went through the setup process, did the software update and now it won't turn off.

Any ideas would be appreciated.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

If you mean turn off as in power down TiVos don't do that. They run 24/7 unless you pull the plug.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

None of the DVRs above "turn off." Verizon uses the QIP6416 and QIP7216.

If you put the Premiere in standby it will use 2 less watts.


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## dan6681 (Apr 1, 2010)

OK I figured out how to put it in standby. Thanks for the info regarding the reduced power consumption. I assume being in standby mode doesn't stop the TIVO from recording programs.


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## SoBayJake (Feb 6, 2002)

dan6681 said:


> OK I figured out how to put it in standby. Thanks for the info regarding the reduced power consumption. I assume being in standby mode doesn't stop the TIVO from recording programs.


Correct. Standby just means the LEDs on the front are turned off, and the video/audio outputs are disabled.


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## jmX (May 7, 2004)

Wow, 16w less than a Series 3? That is huge savings. One of the things that bugged me about the Series 3 was the power usage. 41w * 24h * 31days = 30KWH a month, and for most of my power I'm paying nearly 40 cents a KWH. Do the math...the electricity was costing me more than the Tivo subscription!

16w reduction saves me a good $4 or $5 a month.


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## sdzc (Sep 4, 2005)

Where do the Series 2's, including the DT fit into this chart?


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## matguy (Jul 20, 2004)

jmX said:


> Wow, 16w less than a Series 3? That is huge savings. One of the things that bugged me about the Series 3 was the power usage. 41w * 24h * 31days = 30KWH a month, and for most of my power I'm paying nearly 40 cents a KWH. Do the math...the electricity was costing me more than the Tivo subscription!
> 
> 16w reduction saves me a good $4 or $5 a month.


Be carefull assuming that it actually -saves- you $4 to $5 a month. During the Winter (or any time you heat your home) that 16w of power it turned in to heat and would offset your heating costs, if it's electric heat in your house it could very well be a $0 difference. On the other hand, if you have and use Air Conditioning at any time, that 16w screws you over a whole bunch.


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

jmX said:


> Wow, 16w less than a Series 3? That is huge savings. One of the things that bugged me about the Series 3 was the power usage. 41w * 24h * 31days = 30KWH a month, and for most of my power I'm paying nearly 40 cents a KWH. Do the math...the electricity was costing me more than the Tivo subscription!
> 
> 16w reduction saves me a good $4 or $5 a month.


 Now I know why I get those notices from ComEd that I use 73% more power than my neighbors.

3 Tivos and 4 computers on 24x7 might do that, in spite of my Compact Fluorescent Light collection, huh? 

My electric bill runs a little over $100 a month, even during A/C season and I'm fine with it.


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## falcon26 (Mar 17, 2010)

How do you put it into standby mode?


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## eaayoung (Feb 5, 2008)

$100 a month in summer? Try Florida where your lucky if you only use $300/month.


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## Dreamin (Sep 14, 2006)

falcon26 said:


> How do you put it into standby mode?


TiVo Central -> Messages & settings -> Standyby

Reboot / Restart is now in:
TiVo Central -> Messages & settings -> Help


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## scottvf (Jul 4, 2010)

Wish they would put a standby button on remote to it would be easy to turn it off.

My dishnetwork has an on/off on the remote to turn it off when not in use. I would turn off the hard drive (as to not put wear and tear on it when not in use) and only turn it on to record shows.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Spin up and spin down on a hard drive is worse on it than spinning 24/7.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> Spin up and spin down on a hard drive is worse on it than spinning 24/7.


You are correct if you did that every 5 minutes but a few times a day will increase the life of the drive, for the last 3 years years I have a timer that shuts off my TiVo at 4am and turns it back on at 4PM, I will most likely get almost twice the life on the drive. I don't want to record anything in that time period. I put my computer to sleep when I am not using it, my last computer never had a drive go bad in 5 years and i turn it on and off about 6 times a day. I do the same with my new computer but I had it only 7 months. This also saves power.
I know that if you run a drive for say 4 years 24/7 and than power cycle the drive it may fail as the heads have not gone into the park mode for the last 4 years and so some crud could have built up in that part of the head arm.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

lessd said:


> You are correct if you did that every 5 minutes but a few times a day will increase the life of the drive, for the last 3 years years I have a timer that shuts off my TiVo at 4am and turns it back on at 4PM, I will most likely get almost twice the life on the drive. I don't want to record anything in that time period. I put my computer to sleep when I am not using it, my last computer never had a drive go bad in 5 years and i turn it on and off about 6 times a day. I do the same with my new computer but I had it only 7 months. This also saves power.
> I know that if you run a drive for say 4 years 24/7 and than power cycle the drive it may fail as the heads have not gone into the park mode for the last 4 years and so some crud could have built up in that part of the head arm.


My TiVos(DirecTV) from eight or nine years ago are still going strong. I gave them to some friends and they have been running 24/7 for a very, very long time. Although this has also been my experience with all the 150+ hard drives I've used this century.

For my TiVos that I use, I have no idea when it's recording things, since I have so many reordings set. Even if I wanted to I couldn't arbitrarily turn it off every day without missing recordings.
Most things that rae recorded, I have no idea when they come on.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> My TiVos(DirecTV) from eight or nine years ago are still going strong. I gave them to some friends and they have been running 24/7 for a very, very long time. Although this has also been my experience with all the 150+ hard drives I've used this century.
> 
> For my TiVos that I use, I have no idea when it's recording things, since I have so many reordings set. Even if I wanted to I couldn't arbitrarily turn it off every day without missing recordings.
> Most things that rae recorded, I have no idea when they come on.


That a correct reason to leave your TiVo(s) running 24/7, I wish i had to time to watch that amount of recordings.
From my friends who have TiVo(s) running 24/7 most (if not all) hard drives fail in 4 to 7 years, maybe many on this form have TiVos that are running more than 7 years at 24/7 without any hard drive problems, I can't answer that question without taking a poll.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

jmX said:


> Wow, 16w less than a Series 3? That is huge savings. One of the things that bugged me about the Series 3 was the power usage. 41w * 24h * 31days = 30KWH a month, and for most of my power I'm paying nearly 40 cents a KWH. Do the math...the electricity was costing me more than the Tivo subscription!
> 
> 16w reduction saves me a good $4 or $5 a month.


For me the 16W difference would be only $1.31/mo. Why are your rates so high? Could it be that due to NIMBY you end up buying all your power from out of state?.... oops, sorry, getting into politics here.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

Standby doesn't spin down the hard drive.
Standby doesn't keep the TiVo from recording programs.
Standy doesn't really save much if any power.
That's why they didn't make it a one-button operation.


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## scottvf (Jul 4, 2010)

For the next Tivo:

1. Button for standby

Make standby also stop recording to the hard drives.

No need to write to the hard drives if your sleeping.

Also:
Why are so many people think if you put it on standby it won't record? (not very smart people. common sense tells you it won't record only if you unplug it. Even vcr's will record when it's off and the timer is set.)

My old dishnetwork unit will turn off lights, av, and stop the hard drive from recording live tv when you hit the power button, BUT !!! It will still record scheduled shows. This way you don't wear the hard drive by recording on it when you don't need it. The only time I would need to rewind live tv is if I have my unit on and watching it, so it makes no since why tivo records live tv when I'm not using it.

2. Have at 4 tuners (or at least 3 like moxi does). 
There is so many shows I have to download from my pc because 3 or 4 shows are on at the same time and I can't record them all.

3. Have a bigger Hard Drive (2TB) 
Why are all companies so cheap on hard drives? (had to buy and install bigger hard drives in all my products. ps3 , xbox 360, Tivo)

4. Make adding an external hard drive like other dvr's. 
Where you can swap different hard drives when you run out of room. Both Dishnetwork and moxi you can use more then 1 external hard drive and swap them any time you want. When my 1tb external hard drive gets full I can plug in another 1 or 2tb hard drive without loosing anything.

5. Stream Movies, Photo's and Music like the Popcorn Hour device.
I use popcorn hour to stream all my xvid, Divx, dvd's , Bluray, Movies and TV Shows from my computer to my tv.
It handles any file I throw at it. I would love tivo to be able to do this so I can have 1 device to do it all.

Come on Tivo get with the times. You could be the best dvr if you add these better features.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

lessd said:


> That a correct reason to leave your TiVo(s) running 24/7, I wish i had to time to watch that amount of recordings.
> From my friends who have TiVo(s) running 24/7 most (if not all) hard drives fail in 4 to 7 years, maybe many on this form have TiVos that are running more than 7 years at 24/7 without any hard drive problems, I can't answer that question without taking a poll.


I don't have time to watch it all either. I only watch maybe 30% to 40% of what is recorded, maybe less. But I want a lot of choices when I sit down to watch TV. I don't think I know anyone who watches everything they record with their DVRs.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

scottvf said:


> For the next Tivo:
> 
> 1. Button for standby
> 
> ...


There will never be one device that does everything well. At some point there might be a device that does everything, but there will always be a device that is better at certain things. That's why I figure three boxes is the least amount I can have. Some devices are always better at certain things


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## caddyroger (Mar 15, 2005)

scottvf said:


> For the next Tivo:
> 
> 1. Button for standby
> 
> ...


You can not exchange the hard drives on a Moxi. They are tied to the original Moxi and can not be used with a computer or other Moxi. The programs are used on the internal and external drive like the tivo does.
I found out that last week. I was thinking about getting a Moxi and the using an external drive to edit out ads.


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## lujan (May 24, 2010)

aaronwt said:


> I don't have time to watch it all either. I only watch maybe 30% to 40% of what is recorded, maybe less. But I want a lot of choices when I sit down to watch TV. I don't think I know anyone who watches everything they record with their DVRs.


I watch everything I record but then again I don't record a lot.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

lessd said:


> You are correct if you did that every 5 minutes but a few times a day will increase the life of the drive, for the last 3 years years I have a timer that shuts off my TiVo at 4am and turns it back on at 4PM, I will most likely get almost twice the life on the drive.


Google's study of hard drives proves this to be wrong. Hard Drives in use 24/7 had the same overall MTBF as other drives. You can, err, well Google the study for details and no need for a poll. 

PS - I have had 1 TiVo hard drive go bad but that was a chip issue - EG the Hard drive went totally dead, not even an attempt at spin up. I have had a couple of hard drives in PCs go bad - bad sectors in those cases. All of my experience fits in with the Google data. So turn off the TiVo to save power but otherwise efforts to extend hard drive life have little effect, hard drives fail due to bad manufacturing.

I wtach maybe 2/3rds of what I record but then I also record the same thing of certain shows on 2 TiVo DVrs to avoid conflict issues and to have a back up if needed.

PPS - you can park the hard drive heads by setting the 2 tuners to record a channel with no signal. That is an easy overnight solution to getting the drive to spin down if you want that.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

caddyroger said:


> You can not exchange the hard drives on a Moxi. They are tied to the original Moxi and can not be used with a computer or other Moxi. The programs are used on the internal and external drive like the tivo does.
> I found out that last week. I was thinking about getting a Moxi and the using an external drive to edit out ads.


I think he was saying that you can use external hard drives as temporary storage on the originating unit. When one external hard drive gets full, you can swap it for an empty one. Repeat ad nausium. Swap externals as needed to access recorded shows. If true, this would be an advantage over Tivo.
Of course they wouldn't work on other Moxi units or a PC as the external drive would be tied to the DVR that recorded the programs on it.
Apparently, if scottvf is correct, this is something that TiVo needs to do. They would probably sell more external hard drives as a result.
I would be less inclined to transfer shows to my PC for archiving, as that is a slow process.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Google's study of hard drives proves this to be wrong. Hard Drives in use 24/7 had the same overall MTBF as other drives. You can, err, well Google the study for details and no need for a poll.
> 
> PS - I have had 1 TiVo hard drive go bad but that was a chip issue - EG the Hard drive went totally dead, not even an attempt at spin up. I have had a couple of hard drives in PCs go bad - bad sectors in those cases. All of my experience fits in with the Google data. So turn off the TiVo to save power but otherwise efforts to extend hard drive life have little effect, hard drives fail due to bad manufacturing.
> 
> ...


I don't know the details of the Google study on Hard Drives BUT I would bet an lot of money that a group Hard Drives run for 1 hour every other month would last longer than a group running 24/7, and a group started and stopped every 2 minutes would not last as long and the 24/7 group.


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## ltxi (Feb 14, 2010)

40 cents/kwh...I was totally stunned, then realized that was CA/LA. Had been kinda pissed when our rates recently climbed to 11 cents/kwh, but much happier with my $100 something monthly electric bill now.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

steve614 said:


> I think he was saying that you can use external hard drives as temporary storage on the originating unit. When one external hard drive gets full, you can swap it for an empty one. Repeat ad nausium. Swap externals as needed to access recorded shows. If true, this would be an advantage over Tivo.
> Of course they wouldn't work on other Moxi units or a PC as the external drive would be tied to the DVR that recorded the programs on it.
> Apparently, if scottvf is correct, this is something that TiVo needs to do. They would probably sell more external hard drives as a result.
> I would be less inclined to transfer shows to my PC for archiving, as that is a slow process.


Transferring shows to a PC is much quicker with the Premieres. For Season pass shows I don't need to do anything because it is automatic. For non season pass shows, I just check everything I want to transfer and in the morning it's done. It couldn't be any simpler except for being able to push it to the PC.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

scottvf said:


> For the next Tivo:
> 
> 1. Button for standby
> 
> ...


For what it's worth the old DirecTV-TiVos did stop buffering when put in standby.* 
Although they did it oddly, because they didn't flush the buffer. So when you woke it up after a, say 4 hour standby, for the next 30 minutes you'd have a buffer with 4 hour old material abruptly changing to new material.

*But of course they'd still record scheduled shows


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## Tony Chick (Jun 20, 2002)

I too want a single-button stand-by even if all it does is turn off the LEDs. I have 2 Directv HR2x and the Premiere and as I switch between them with my Harmony remote, I can tell which one I'm watching by the panel lights - except for the Premiere which stays lit all the time.


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## scottvf (Jul 4, 2010)

caddyroger said:


> You can not exchange the hard drives on a Moxi. They are tied to the original Moxi and can not be used with a computer or other Moxi. The programs are used on the internal and external drive like the tivo does.
> I found out that last week. I was thinking about getting a Moxi and the using an external drive to edit out ads.


If you mean the internal drive, your right.
That's one of the reasons I got a tivo instead of moxi. the other reason is I can copy .tivo files to my computer and convert them to any file I want and stream them to my popcorn hour.
I was going to get 2 tivo's (as to have 4 tuners) but they won't work if you have 2. If you use the remote it will control both instead of just the one you want. Called tivo and they removed the 1-2 button on the remote to control 2 tivos in the same room (how STUPID!!).


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## scottvf (Jul 4, 2010)

steve614 said:


> I think he was saying that you can use external hard drives as temporary storage on the originating unit. When one external hard drive gets full, you can swap it for an empty one. Repeat ad nausium. Swap externals as needed to access recorded shows. If true, this would be an advantage over Tivo.
> Of course they wouldn't work on other Moxi units or a PC as the external drive would be tied to the DVR that recorded the programs on it.
> Apparently, if scottvf is correct, this is something that TiVo needs to do. They would probably sell more external hard drives as a result.
> I would be less inclined to transfer shows to my PC for archiving, as that is a slow process.


Yes, that is correct.  My dishnetwork dvr can also swap external hard drives to archive shows. I have 2 external hard drives filled up. 1 maxtor 1 touch 320gb and 1 western digital 1TB drive that's in a Thermaltake BlacX eSATA USB Docking Station, that I can swap drives in.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

scottvf said:


> If you mean the internal drive, your right.
> That's one of the reasons I got a tivo instead of moxi. the other reason is I can copy .tivo files to my computer and convert them to any file I want and stream them to my popcorn hour.
> I was going to get 2 tivo's (as to have 4 tuners) but they won't work if you have 2. If you use the remote it will control both instead of just the one you want. Called tivo and they removed the 1-2 button on the remote to control 2 tivos in the same room (how STUPID!!).


You can still set a different remote code for each box. I have several Premieres in one room right now, all with different remote codes. I use a HArmony remote with them.
But worst case you can always change to the remote code for each box with the TiVo remote. It only takes a few seconds. You just hold the TiVo button and the pause button down, and when the light turns red, you enter the number of the remote code you want. Then you can control the other TiVo. Although without a Harmony remote control, it would just be easier to have a separate remote for each box instead of changing the code every time.


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## scottvf (Jul 4, 2010)

aaronwt said:


> You can still set a different remote code for each box. I have several Premieres in one room right now, all with different remote codes. I use a HArmony remote with them.
> But worst case you can always change to the remote code for each box with the TiVo remote. It only takes a few seconds. You just hold the TiVo button and the pause button down, and when the light turns red, you enter the number of the remote code you want. Then you can control the other TiVo. Although without a Harmony remote control, it would just be easier to have a separate remote for each box instead of changing the code every time.


Where do I get this info from?
When I talked to a tivo tech he said the new tivo premiere's don't have this feature anymore. (because there wasn't enough people wanting it)
The tech said if I wanted 2 tivos in the same room I would have to cover one up with a towel as to not get the remote signal.
I hope your right because I want to add another tivo as to record 4 shows at once.

Is there a link you can show me to get the info?


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## scottvf (Jul 4, 2010)

Found 2 links. They say - 
This procedure is for a TiVo remote control that has a 1-2 switch. Premiere and Premiere XL remotes do not have this switch, so they can only control one device at a time. You can use a TiVo remote that has a 1-2 switch to control a Premiere or Premiere XL, but these remotes do not have the A, B, C, and D button shortcuts for the Premiere HD menus.

Links below:

*Controlling two TiVo DVRs with one remote *

http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/284/kw/remote control/r_id/100041

*Controlling two TiVo boxes with separate remotes *

http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/285/kw/remote control/r_id/100041

I think they need to fire that tivo tech I talk to. If not for my looking on the web and finding info myself I would of got a moxi for my 2nd dvr and tivo would of lost a sale...where do they hire these techs from? Mcdonalds??


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

If TiVo only had one remote code available for all boxes, like many of the cable company DVRs, I would have needed a combination Moxi and TiVos.

Replacing the 1/2 switch was a bad idea. If anything I wish they would have added a 1/2/3 switch(but realistically the 1/2 switch made the most sense). But companies are always looking for ways to save money on a product, even if it's a 50 cent item(I have no idea how much this switch costs)

But I do understand them removing it, especially if it's a feature that only tiny percentage of the people use.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> If TiVo only had one remote code available for all boxes, like many of the cable company DVRs, I would have needed a combination Moxi and TiVos.
> 
> Replacing the 1/2 switch was a bad idea. If anything I wish they would have added a 1/2/3 switch(but realistically the 1/2 switch made the most sense). But companies are always looking for ways to save money on a product, even if it's a 50 cent item(I have no idea how much this switch costs)
> 
> But I do understand them removing it, especially if it's a feature that only tiny percentage of the people use.


With a programmable remote like the* Harmony *you can control up to 9 TiVos of any model (inc the Series 4) in the same room.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

lessd said:


> With a programmable remote like the* Harmony *you can control up to 9 TiVos of any model (inc the Series 4) in the same room.


Yes. I've been using the Harmony remotes for many years with my TiVos.


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## jmX (May 7, 2004)

ltxi said:


> 40 cents/kwh...I was totally stunned, then realized that was CA/LA. Had been kinda pissed when our rates recently climbed to 11 cents/kwh, but much happier with my $100 something monthly electric bill now.


Just to be clear, 40cents/kwh is what I pay once I've used my ~500kwh allowance for the month, which they sell us at a tiered rate between $0.15 and $0.28. That pretty much accounts for the base load of my house...a fridge, water heater fan, some alarm clocks, and maybe 20-30 minutes of AC use a day...pretty much the bare essentials.

Any extra power usage is 'gravy' to the power company, and is charged in the highest tier, and costs about $0.40/kwh once you look at all the fees involved. I therefore consider watching a tv, running a tivo, turning on my PC these 'gravy' activities and figure their cost at the highest tier pricing.

Socal is a wonderful place in some ways, and the worst place to live in others. Maybe i'll just unplug all my stuff and ride a bike down to the beach.


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## SoBayJake (Feb 6, 2002)

jmX said:


> Just to be clear, 40cents/kwh is what I pay once I've used my ~500kwh allowance for the month, which they sell us at a tiered rate between $0.15 and $0.28. That pretty much accounts for the base load of my house...a fridge, water heater fan, some alarm clocks, and maybe 20-30 minutes of AC use a day...pretty much the bare essentials.
> 
> Any extra power usage is 'gravy' to the power company, and is charged in the highest tier, and costs about $0.40/kwh once you look at all the fees involved. I therefore consider watching a tv, running a tivo, turning on my PC these 'gravy' activities and figure their cost at the highest tier pricing.
> 
> Socal is a wonderful place in some ways, and the worst place to live in others. Maybe i'll just unplug all my stuff and ride a bike down to the beach.


That's odd, where in LA? Are you in SCE (Southern California Edison) territory? I am in Long Beach (not near the water), and this is my breakdown of tiers for WINTER rates (summer prices are the same, but the ranges are larger to account for more A/C).
Tier 1: 000-267 kWh = $0.13
Tier 2: 268-348 kWh = $0.15
Tier 3: 349-534 kWh = $0.24
Tier 4: 535-??? kWh = $0.27
Tier 5: ???-??? kWh = $0.31

I usually fall in tier 2 or 3, depending on A/C, so I don't know what the tier 4 cutoff is. Electric dryer, a couple TiVos, Mac Mini, etc. I do tend to use the A/C more in the summer, b/c the apartment doesn't have much insulation, and all the windows are on one side, so I can't get a breeze thru here to save my life!


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