Electric provider in Elk Co?

[03SVTCobra]

so i inherited the family house/camp in Ridgway recently and when i took over the place my grandfather had United Electric Coop. so i just continued their service in my name to keep it simple. the latest bill however has me looking for alternatives. they just increased their "service provider" fees (i think that's what they called it) so now the bill is more fees than actual electricity that i'm paying for.... so i was looking to hear who has what provider and if the rates are any better??? what sucks though is my credit took a hit after my divorce and they made me fork over a $600 deposit because of it. which i won't get back until 12 months of on-time payments. i'm about half way there but i'd like to get some options together for when the time comes. thanks

[gghbi]

As I understand it, you can choose your electricity generation supplier, but the delivery will always be the local distribution company, so short of generating your own, not much you can do. With that in mind you can ask if you qualify for a different rate schedule that might be better.

[Walleye Hunter]

Generally, every electric hookup has a monthly fee regardless of amount of electricity used, even if it's none. Here in PA and at my camp in NY that fee is less than $20/month but it is there and there is nothing I can do about it. Is that the fee you are talking about?

[Parrisk]

Camp was out behind Pottersdale.. belonged to my wife and her father.. with advanced age he wanted it sold :-( we didn't have the cash to buy out his half
We used marine batteries hooked to solar charger.. replaced all bulbs with LED.. we had enough elect to run lights and radio for about 1 week.
Normally someone also brought a small Honda generator we ran to keep the fridge cold
Heat was wood
water was off the stream behind camp
No power, no water, no sewer system, no cell service, just fun

[03SVTCobra]

Generally, every electric hookup has a monthly fee regardless of amount of electricity used, even if it's none. Here in PA and at my camp in NY that fee is less than $20/month but it is there and there is nothing I can do about it. Is that the fee you are talking about?

there are several line items, the minimum is one of them but iirc not the same as their service provider fee. i don't have the bill in front of me i'll have to look at it again when i go home. i also pay for an outdoor light that the old guy had them install on the phone pole on the edge of the property. one of those sodium lights. it was about $10/month. it's nice as it lights up the whole yard but that went up too i think it's $12/month now. they just seem to nickel and dime you to death. i had the same issue with the phone company, the fees were more than the actual phone bill so i cancelled it...

Camp was out behind Pottersdale.. belonged to my wife and her father.. with advanced age he wanted it sold :-( we didn't have the cash to buy out his half
We used marine batteries hooked to solar charger.. replaced all bulbs with LED.. we had enough elect to run lights and radio for about 1 week.
Normally someone also brought a small Honda generator we ran to keep the fridge cold
Heat was wood
water was off the stream behind camp
No power, no water, no sewer system, no cell service, just fun

yeah this place has everything, he lived there full time for 20+ years so it's more of a regular house than a camp even though it's out in the woods. the main heat is the wood staove but we have electric baseboard as secondary. he splurged and got the expensive oil filled ones. i changed all the bulbs to LED. i shut off all 90% of the panel when i leave, shut the well down and drain the lines etc...

[God's Country]

I presume United is the local provider, which means you probably don't have much of an alternative. I suppose you can purchase your electricity from anyone, but i don't think you same much if anything, and as stated United will still be the people providing and servicing the camp. Penelec/First Energy is the large provider in this part of the state, FWIW. I think you will find that Ridgway (the city) is likely Penelec, and the outlying areas are United.

[God's Country]

You may want to pm member/mod Noah_Zark

I think he lives in that general area. He may be able to offer alternatives.

[Noah_Zark]

You may want to pm member/mod Noah_Zark

I think he lives in that general area. He may be able to offer alternatives.

Unfortunately, there are no alternatives. Where ever this camp/dwelling is located, UEC owns the poles, lines, and transformers. The OP can't switch to Penelec or West Penn Power for the service provider segment of the bill because they don't own the infrastructure; UEC does. Picture it this way -- You're buying stuff from Amazon, but the only carrier that services where you live is USPS. There is no UPS or FedEx. USPS owns the trucks that bring your Amazon stuff, and you can't switch to some other package service.

The OP can switch energy providers for the electricity itself, but in these parts there is hardly any difference in the cost of the actual energy between the available energy providers.

The OP can also convert the sodium vapor light to an LED lamp or fixture in order to save more electricity cost $$$ monthly, which would likely more than offset the increase in UEC's service charge. But he's stuck with UEC.

Noah

[God's Country]

It was worth a shout out.

[03SVTCobra]

I presume United is the local provider, which means you probably don't have much of an alternative. I suppose you can purchase your electricity from anyone, but i don't think you same much if anything, and as stated United will still be the people providing and servicing the camp. Penelec/First Energy is the large provider in this part of the state, FWIW. I think you will find that Ridgway (the city) is likely Penelec, and the outlying areas are United.

Yeah it's just outside of Ridgway twp, technically in Spring Creek twp but the mailing address is still Ridgway. That's what i kinda figured I was just hoping there'd be a slim chance of an alternative lol. The bills now are pretty high because i leave the baseboard heat on 52ish even though I winterized all the traps and drained the system down in the basement. i've been mulling the idea of just shutting the whole panel off when i leave after deer season but i just dunno... i'd like to hear if anyone does shut their whole place down for the winter if you have plumbing? the only thing i keep on on the panle is a outlet for a light on a timer, the electric baseboard and i have a dehumidifier in the basement.

Unfortunately, there are no alternatives. Where ever this camp/dwelling is located, UEC owns the poles, lines, and transformers. The OP can't switch to Penelec or West Penn Power for the service provider segment of the bill because they don't own the infrastructure; UEC does. Picture it this way -- You're buying stuff from Amazon, but the only carrier that services where you live is USPS. There is no UPS or FedEx. USPS owns the trucks that bring your Amazon stuff, and you can't switch to some other package service.

The OP can switch energy providers for the electricity itself, but in these parts there is hardly any difference in the cost of the actual energy between the available energy providers.

The OP can also convert the sodium vapor light to an LED lamp or fixture in order to save more electricity cost $$$ monthly, which would likely more than offset the increase in UEC's service charge. But he's stuck with UEC.

Noah

Yep once the weather breaks that's one of the first things i'm going to do is have them shut that sodium light down and change to LED. Thanks for the info. I had a feeling i was SOL but figured i'd ask anyways lol. Just trying to cut some costs, i'm getting raked over the coals with homeowner's too i had to do some serious shopping for that as no one wanted to touch it with a 10ft pole due to the wood stove and there's no fire hydrant on the road lol. well duh, it's in the ANF... oh and because no one lives there full time... the company i finally found that would take it sent me this ridiculous form i had to take to the fire company in Ridgway for the chief to fill out. they wanted to know how long there response time is, how many trucks they have and what class they were, what tankers they have how much water they hold and GPM etc etc etc... lol. it was nuts.