This is my first summer in this house. It's no mansion,....just a house. It's about 1950 square feet with a full, unfinished basement.
It has radiant electric heat in the ceiling panels but I've never used it. I had a new propane furnace and a new central air unit installed as soon as we moved into it. It's also got an 80 gallon electric water heater that should have died years ago. It's a 1992 model and probably not particularly efficient.
I like to be comfortable so I don't scrimp on the air conditioning. I use it like I need to.
I was a bit concerned about what the electric bill was going to be when summer arrived,..especially since we're using electric to heat the water.
It's been a fairly hot summer. May set a record here. It felt like July.
But my highest electric bill has been $120 a month.
I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Every time the electricity bil arrives I expect there to be some type of correction on it. But it's always between $115 and $120.
It costs a bit to live out here in the winter. Maybe not all that bad. But it hits the wallet when you get a propane fillup,...about $850,...depending on the current price of propane and how low the tank has gotten. I burned a *lot* of wood in this big double sided fireplace to keep our propane cost for the winter below $2000. I think we ended up burning about 850 gallons.
But the summertime cost of being out here is cheap living. I can't believe I'm not paying twice as much for electricity considering how I've been working this air conditioner.
Im cooling about 3200 sqft, with 2 heat pumps on 2 zones. Keep t-stat on 76-78 with ceiling fans.
2- 40gal watr htrs
Gawd our bill averages about $400 a month
Our thing might be attributable to 2 separate outbuildings. Security lights, I also have 2 refrigerators, 4 deep freezers hot tub Swim pool
And 2 teenagers who still leave every dang light switch on. We do more laundry than Ensign Pulver ever had to.
I have two meter services because my 200 amp box is full, I'm back-feeding via underground 100service at my 3-car garage to serve some breakers 300ft away.
having good insulation is a key component. plenty in the ceilings, & walls. believe it or not, but having insulated floors help greatly. it's usually left out as new building budgets get impinged upon, but the floor insulation helps to maintain, and seal in cold air, and keeps the hot out, in the summer. vice versa in the winter.
we do propane, and if we had a bit more global warming maybe my bills might go down a tad?
Im cooling about 3200 sqft, with 2 heat pumps on 2 zones. Keep t-stat on 76-78 with ceiling fans.
2- 40gal watr htrs
Gawd our bill averages about $400 a month
Our thing might be attributable to 2 separate outbuildings. Security lights, I also have 2 refrigerators, 4 deep freezers hot tub Swim pool
And 2 teenagers who still leave every dang light switch on. We do more laundry than Ensign Pulver ever had to.
I have two meter services because my 200 amp box is full, I'm back-feeding via underground 100service at my 3-car garage to serve some breakers 300ft away.
It's like a mini branch davidian compound. lol
You might benefit from an old style washer wringer on the back porch, Slum. Youngsters arent so hip on perfectly clean rwhen they require intensive physical labor.
lol,...I don't feel like I'm trying to overly conserve on anything electric. There's only two of us here. I try to make it a point to turn the lights off when I leave a room, but that's about it. We've got an electric cook stove too,...but we don't get too worked up over cooking. We close a couple of the rooms off in the winter because we don't use them, anyway.
I don't know how to explain it. Maybe my meter is bad. I'm not going to see into fixing it, though.
This is my first summer in this house. It's no mansion,....just a house. It's about 1950 square feet with a full, unfinished basement.
It has radiant electric heat in the ceiling panels but I've never used it. I had a new propane furnace and a new central air unit installed as soon as we moved into it. It's also got an 80 gallon electric water heater that should have died years ago. It's a 1992 model and probably not particularly efficient.
I like to be comfortable so I don't scrimp on the air conditioning. I use it like I need to.
I was a bit concerned about what the electric bill was going to be when summer arrived,..especially since we're using electric to heat the water.
It's been a fairly hot summer. May set a record here. It felt like July.
But my highest electric bill has been $120 a month.
I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Every time the electricity bil arrives I expect there to be some type of correction on it. But it's always between $115 and $120.
It costs a bit to live out here in the winter. Maybe not all that bad. But it hits the wallet when you get a propane fillup,...about $850,...depending on the current price of propane and how low the tank has gotten. I burned a *lot* of wood in this big double sided fireplace to keep our propane cost for the winter below $2000. I think we ended up burning about 850 gallons.
But the summertime cost of being out here is cheap living. I can't believe I'm not paying twice as much for electricity considering how I've been working this air conditioner.
If you are worried about your next bill you can go read the meter. Most utilities include the last reading and the current reading on the bill and the dates. The reading that you take should be more than the reading on your bill.
Here in central Florida, I pay around $124 a month in the summer and $89 in the winter. a/c set at 78 and heat at 72. 1600 sq.ft. double wide. Ceiling fans in all the rooms.
I have had houses that in the 1500-1700 sq ft size, with heat pumps. For years I have been using $150 a month as a milestone for electric. My smaller house didn't have a wood stove, but that was 20 Years ago. I burn wood now in winter, the HP kicks in once in a while. But cooling, we have never gone over the 150 mark. We did once or twice in winter, when it goes below 20, I turn on the emergency heat, a HP is wasting life running below 20.
Have an elderly neighbor couple who just moved from Colo to Arizona.....said his first (July) utility bill was $700.....they have 2 air conditioners running 24/7. Bet he starts deciding that he's OK being a bit warmer.
I'm on a budget plan where I pay the same amount every month. I'm not sure of my square footage but everyone in the house has a computer thats on all the time, 2 fridge, 2 freezers. I run about $300 a month and have been for the last 10 years.
They send me a bill on how I'm doing compared to my neighbors and I'm always using about 1100 kilowatts more per year than everyone else on my street,
$1400+ for 2017. We have some of the highest damn KWhr and Therm rates in the country. Thank goodness it mostly a Mediterranean type climate. About $600 of that comes in June thru Sept.
I will take $120.00 any day, summer, winter whatever. Highest bill in the winter I ever had before I got my outdoor wood boiler going was $345.10 in Jan. I was running a heat pump for the house and a split unit for my garage. The following January I was running my wood boiler and my electric bill was $167.33.
House is 2656 SQ. ft. Garage is 1560 SQ. FT. Basement is unheated, its 2656 SQ. FT. stays between 60 and 70 degrees year round no matter the temp.
Summer time electric bill runs about $130.00 if I am still using the outdoor wood boiler to heat my domestic hot water. If I am using an electric hot water heater in summer, its probably about 176.00.
lol,...I don't feel like I'm trying to overly conserve on anything electric. There's only two of us here. I try to make it a point to turn the lights off when I leave a room, but that's about it. We've got an electric cook stove too,...but we don't get too worked up over cooking. We close a couple of the rooms off in the winter because we don't use them, anyway.
I don't know how to explain it. Maybe my meter is bad. I'm not going to see into fixing it, though.
Could it be that your electric company does not come out and physically read rural and semi rural customer's meters every month but maybe quarterly or only twice a year and just 'estimates' usage based on past averages in between physical on site readings?
Local rural co-op power company used to allow and even preferred customers read their own electric meters each month. Customers would write down the reading on supplied cards on or close to the same date each month and mail them in. Every once in a while though they would physically have their own meter readers come and check out customer's meters and confirm customer readings.
Could it be that your electric company does not come out and physically read rural and semi rural customer's meters every month but maybe quarterly or only twice a year and just 'estimates' usage based on past averages in between physical on site readings?
Maybe,...but the people here before us heated with electric. They mentioned that they payed a budget plan of $375 a month year around for electricity. That's why I put a propane furnace in.
I live in Texas. We just had about ten days where the daily high varied from the low 100s to about 110. Money spent on air conditioning is money well spent. I remember when we didn't have AC; they weren't the good ol' days.
We go $120-150. Usually have a high and a low each year for some reason. (Not back to back)
Bristoe, our Rural Electric Co-op sells Marathon plastic water heaters for around $130. They retail for $1k+. 80 gallon, very well insulated, they save money. To qualify you agree to allow installation of a required box. During highest demand, they can turn off the heater for a little while every hour, reducing overall demand. Even with our old 50gal tank, we have never noticed cold water.
Something like that may be available from your electric company.
My boat in Kodiak, with only a 1500watt heater on low and a trickle charger on the battery switched on twice a day for an hour or two runs about 140 per month, more than the slip fee until they raised those the last several years...
I sure feel bad for all you folks. I just paid the monthly bill.............$59.60
1200+/- sq ft home, 2x6 construction with good insulation in walls, roof and crawl space. Hit 101 here on my thermometer, now 93 or so. House is 74. Only 1 small window A/C going since house reached 70 this afternoon. Fortunately, by around 9:30 or 10:00 tonight outside temps will be below the inside temp and we open all windows in the "old school" way and turn on a box fan, sometimes run the fart fans in the bathrooms for a bit to help suck out some heat. House was 60F this morning, as the sun comes up we close the windows on the east, let the blinds down, and close the thermal curtains. Then the west side windows get closed when air temps exceed house temps. And the blinds and curtains are closed when the sun gets around to the other side of the house.
Winters are about the same size bill. We'll use the electric furnace to take the chill off during the fall and spring sometimes, but the majority of heat comes from our wood heater/stove. Last year we burned maybe 2.5 cords, call it 3? At $140 a cord $420 for the 8 cold months (last frost day this year was June 10 ) that averages out to $52.50, so maybe close to a C note for "utilities" in the winter.
Oh, part of our electric bill is the well, which I use much more frequently in summer watering the lawn and garden.
Probably the best thing is being in a member owned rural electric co-op. The best thing ever for providing electricity to the consumer. "Profits" are not driven by investors in NYC or Shanghai. This is the third co-op I've been a member of and I'd have it no other way if I could.........forever. (Same goes for banking....Credit Unions are the only way for this peon to go)
We go $120-150. Usually have a high and a low each year for some reason. (Not back to back)
Bristoe, our Rural Electric Co-op sells Marathon plastic water heaters for around $130. They retail for $1k+. 80 gallon, very well insulated, they save money. To qualify you agree to allow installation of a required box. During highest demand, they can turn off the heater for a little while every hour, reducing overall demand. Even with our old 50gal tank, we have never noticed cold water.
Something like that may be available from your electric company.
I'm hesitant to change anything right now. I'll take everything just like it is. That old water heater might drop dead any minute. I'll replace it with the most efficient 50 gallon unit I can locate.
Our electric bill averages about 80.00 per month in summer and 50.00 in winter. Costs us about 1200.00 to heat for the winter. Course we don't live in a lavishly big house like some of you folks. 800 square feet feels kinda cramped sometimes but it is efficient and theres only just the two of us plus a couple dogs.
Saw on news today. MS Power/ Southern company has a 9% rate hike. No chit. They blew $7 billion on a coal power plant that will never run. Shoulda went with gas.
My wife pays the bills so I really have no idea. Here in Idaho we use little gas (stove/oven) and little electric (washer/drier/H2O heater) during the summer. When we are up in the fall/winter it is wood for heat and the balance being the same as summer though we do cook with our wood cook stove so likely less gas consumed. The costs I have no clue.
I live alone and a huge part of the house is not used for anything but storage. Big advantage.
When looking at homes for retirement I saw this one with 4 acres and noticed it had all the water usage areas centered in about 1/3 the house so thats all I heat in the winter and pretty much all I cool during the DAY in the summer but open things at night to take humidity out of the rest. Kids come visitand their wives bring jackets lol. One wifey just don't because she can't handle the temps I keep it in the summer.
I'll break 100 for a month once in the summer. About 80 for at least 6 months a year. Maybe 8.
Breaking 200 in the winter is rare. 160-180 is high most winter months. Less of course during mild winters.
My oldest son I know pays over 500 for gas and electric..........and has a water and sewer bill too being in town. Arrrrrrghhh. Not this old cat. His W and S bill is more than my total electric.
I get my wood burner bought...........I'll put an end to that 200 dollars stuff. I had three large dead trees dropped and cut up 2 years ago and have two others needing the same. If I can get some of my physical ability back I can get firewood for only sweat and effort (and chain saw gas and oil). Preacher friend had the power companies go through with a high tower system and dropped about 5 acres of hardwood.
Probably do me good to do that but wood burners arent cheap and I keep buying hunting and loading stuff.
I do well it will lower my "meat bill" a hunk though.......year round. I spend more a month on meat than I do electricity without venison. lol Three deer might do it...........if I choose only big fat ones. Better shoot four, huh?
Thanks for this thread. I gave myself a smack in the head realizing I spend twice the amount on groceries than I do on utilities!! What the......!!!
Gonna put an end to THAT too.......starting mid November. I do my own aging and butchering too. (BETTER than store bought meat! lol)
Note to self. Bigger garden dummy. You HAVE a canner. Priorities.......
God Bless Signed........A frugal ol fart in Indiana PS.... The "frugal" thing is part joke.......part not. I figured out with the bargains I hunted down this year I can load rounds of 7x57mm hunting loads........for 34 cents each .Depends on bullet used. A couple raise that 5 cents, lol Goes up dramatically with Noslers and RL17 (arghhh.......I paid full price!), but still not horrible. New loading equipment don't count. That's "entertainment". HAHAHA!
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Better shoot four, huh?
