Trying to determine utilities costs for my business plan. If you are in retail/warehouse space and you have a custom cake shop, do you mind sharing your average monthly costs for electric/gas?

Thanks soooo much. If you don't want to post it here for all to see, feel free to message me.

2000 sqft bakery open 6 days a week: $449/mo electric and $315/mo gas

I think that you need to look at what you have. One of the most important issues would be are you using single phase or three phase items. All of our ovens, freezers and coolers, dish washers, mixers, lights, air conditioners, and anything else that we can, use three phase. Some things are just not made to use three phase, so they are single phase. Three phase power is much less expensive and more widely available in commercial buildings.

I personally tore our all the old electric in our building and installed all new. This, the plumbing and some construction ability and experience that I have, saved us a huge amount of money. Plus, I was able to know exactly what we need and what we have.

Your questions is very wide and will vary. It really depends on the equipment that you have, how you use it, and how long of a period that you run it. We leave our oven on all the time, 24 hours per day. We have them set to turn down to a very low temperature. We have roll in ovens that are very large, and it is easier to just keep them heated all the time.

If you want to get a close estimate, you can simply add up all the wattage of each object, and use the voltage to determine the amperage, and then estimate how much time you will be using said appliance. Then determine what the power company is charging per watt per day. The cost will change almost on a daily basis. But that will be a huge undertaking all on its own and not really worth the time. And if you use both three phase and single phase equipment and lighting, then you will have two lists. Gas is the same way. Except we use very little gas. The only equipment that we have that is gas powered, is our stove, hot water heater and furnace. the stove is used only to cook meals for the employees on special occasions.

In short, each and every shop will be totally different.

Beth & Andrew
Cake Artists

Another huge variable is climate control. This total will be affected by the weather and insulation.

Have you called your local electric company?

To start we will have one electric convection oven, a walk-in, and a freezer. Then the normal other stuff like mixers, etc.

The space is about 1,900 square feet. We tried calling the electric company to find out what our costs might be, but they weren't much help.

We will JUST do custom cakes and cupcakes and the bulk of our baking will be done on "baking day". Other than that... the unit has a new air conditioner.... I think it will be all electric as we don't plan on using gas for anything.

It's frustrating to try and pin down a budget when you could very easily be off by $400 or more! lol We just want to be "close" and understand that during summer months when running the AC, the cost will go up.