A $50,000 electric bill? The cost of cooling L.A.’s biggest houses in a heat wave is more than $400,000 a month.
The average cost of cooling the homes of L.A.’s highest-paid executives would be more than $1 million a year, if the heat wave from this summer is a regular occurrence, according to a new study. But the study only begins to account for the cost of cooling the homes of the wealthy.
And it’s the rich who have the biggest problem. During the last heat wave, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power reached an agreement with one of the two high-priced power-company executives who own the homes. He agreed to pay $12 million to repair and maintain the homes.
According to a new study, the average $50,000 cost of cooling these homes would be nearly three times the average per-capita water and power bill in the city. But that doesn’t include the cost of treating water with chlorine.
The average cost of treating water with chlorine would be about $150,000 a month, according to the study.
The study, by the Southern California Water Quality Control Division, compares the utility bills for cooling the homes of Los Angeles’ highest paid executives, to the bill for cooling the homes of the average Los Angeles resident.
The analysis finds that the executives’ utility bills would be about 1,300 times higher than the average billing for an average resident in L.A.
The cost to cool these homes is much higher than the $18 million figure the public body said it would cost to cool all the homes and offices of the people earning more than $1 million a year.
The L.A. Department of Water and Power agreed to pay for most of the repairs, as part of a settlement with William F. Lally, president of HNTB Enterprises Inc., one of the L.A. power companies that have suffered from the heat wave. The settlement covers the cost of repairs of the seven homes that will be subject to the new heating and cooling costs.
Lally has refused to pay any of the cost of the repairs of his own homes, which are on a separate list of properties, as they are subject to separate city contracts.
Lally was not in