This weather is awful!! 2008-2021

[Moemg]

I noticed a difference in my electric when I retired . Since I'm home most of the day I keep the house at an even temp plus I run the dishwasher more since We are eating most meals at home .

 

[Ronstar]

I'm taking a trip from here:

to go here:

At least it wont be raining.

 

[Telly]

Just looked at my bill online. I used 2060 KWH. The funny thing is, my neighbor's bill is usually $150 more than mine; her house is about the same size as mine and she's at w*rk all day.

Yeah, I've got six ceiling fans that help out a lot. I've got five skylights that are nice, but they can make it a little toasty at times...

I have one more fan, one less skylight

The worst houses I have seen for A/C in TX are the two-stories with the big tall open area in the middle, with the second-floor having a balcony into the big area. The upper level is hot. If there is only one A/C unit, with the thermostat downstairs, the A/C runs forever. If there are two A/C units, one for downstairs with thermostat downstairs, then the downstairs will be OK. But the upstairs unit probably has the thermostat out in some common area, like the upstairs hallway. The hallway gets heat rising up from downstairs, and the cool air from the upstairs unit when it is running falls downstairs.
The more restrictive the opening is from downstairs to upstairs, the less air exchange between two A/C units, the more likely it will work out reasonably economically.

We have a sprawling single-story, with doors dividing the two separate areas into essentially day use vs. night use. Works well.

A taller stepladder is needed for some areas of our house. I finally got one a few years ago. It's long ago paid for itself by avoiding injuries from falling off a too-short ladder, or from antics like "shimming up" a 6 foot ladder by sitting it on a piece of plywood with stuff underneath it...

If your MB ceiling needs a new electrical box to take the weight of a fan, or running wire or anything else that needs extended attic work, I would put it on the list for this winter.

For non-Texans - Not angry, but here's the temperature in a Texas attic this time of year:

 

[bbbamI]

Yeah, I know a few folks with the two story houses and the tall open area in the middle. Their bills are more than twice the amount of mine with not much more square footage. I live in a single-story house as well.

If push came to shove, I could close off some rooms.

Regarding attic work in the summer.........

 

[ziggy29]

Regarding attic work in the summer.........

A friend of ours in Houston is a carpenter and handyman type, and he's done some work both on our previous home in Houston and in our current house before we moved into it. He also did our kitchen remodel here.

Some of the work in Houston was work in the attic, and it was late April a few years back. He said we were getting the work done "just in time" because he doubles his hourly rate for attic work from May through September.

 

[bbbamI]

I don't blame him a bit......

When we first moved here, I put some Christmas decorations...including candles in the attic. Well when Christmas time came.........

 

[Nords]

Yeah, I know a few folks with the two story houses and the tall open area in the middle. Their bills are more than twice the amount of mine with not much more square footage. I live in a single-story house as well.

We have a cathedral ceiling in the livingroom which used to heat large quantities of air for delivery to the second-story bedroom.

We finally cut a hole in the ceiling at the top of the steps and ducted it through the attic to a rooftop solar-powered exhaust fan. We pulled the siding off the south wall, stuffed it with reflective foil insulation, and closed it up again. We also have an EnergyStar 60" ceiling fan in the livingroom for those days when the chimney effect isn't moving fast enough for us.

Most of the LR roof is covered with photovoltaic panels and won't need re-roofing for a long time. But if [-]the hurricane[/-] we ever re-roof then we'd add reflective foil insulation over the sheathing and the latest in reflective composition-shingle technology.

 

[Meadbh]

bbamI, I want to know where you get all those neat animations!

 

[lets-retire]

It's also a function of home size, of course -- one reason I'm liking our small, spartan digs. We used about 1200 kWh last month despite almost every day being over 100 and the A/C (3-ton, 14 SEER) being on almost constantly. We had the ceiling fans whirring and the thermostat at 78-80 most of the time.

Looking forward to a week of getting away from this in about three weeks' time.

Small, spartan digs with a 3 ton A/C? In my last house I bought a 2.5 ton air handeler, because we were planning to expand and the new square footage would require one that size.

 

[Walt34]

The weather last week has been perfect. Daytime highs in the low to mid 80's, nighttime lows in the 60's. Very little rain. Put 200 miles on the motorcycle day before yesterday.

Usually this time of year we're "dying from the heat" and scurry from one air-conditioned place to another.

 

[ziggy29]

Small, spartan digs with a 3 ton A/C? In my last house I bought a 2.5 ton air handeler, because we were planning to expand and the new square footage would require one that size.

Well, when we were sizing it up, I had two different HVAC guys say we could go with a 2.5 or 3 ton unit based on size, which was consistent with what I had seen based on our home size and climate. Since we may want to add a master suite in the future, we decided to go with 3.

 

[HFWR]

My 3-ton unit struggles when the temps are 100+... (1650sf)

I'm about to spend $7k on a new roof, with lighter-colored shingles (instead of black...) and a new, hopefully improved ridge vent system. Next up is add even more attic insulation...

 

[W2R]

Mine is 3 ton, 13 SEER, for my 1558 square foot house, and it struggles a lot when the outside temperature is 90-105+. My A/C guy says that I need to have the fan in the attic repaired, because it is extremely hot up there and therefore the A/C is working against a strong gradient.

When it is below 90, no problems getting nice and chilly.

 

[bbbamI]

99.8 degrees at 10:37 a.m.

 

[REWahoo]

It's so hot...

- The chickens are laying poached eggs.
- Birds are using potholders to get worms out of the ground.
- My electric meter looks like a fan.

 

[bbbamI]

A couple of my favorites...

It's so hot...

You've experienced condensation on your butt from the hot water in the toilet bowl.

You learn a seat belt makes a pretty good branding iron.

 

[ziggy29]

99.8 degrees at 10:37 a.m.

Wow. "Only" 88º here now just 10 minutes later.

We're in a bit of a cooling trend: we're expected to top out at 101º today instead of 104-106 of the past few days.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

The best solar collectors are car seats.

 

[Nords]

We spent 13 days of this month's electrical billing period on the Mainland, and our kid's been away for the entire time.

When our electric bill came today, our power consumption was -12 KWHrs. That's a minus sign, meaning that our photovoltaic array produced more energy than we consumed.

The cost of staying connected to HECO's grid? $14.13. That's about $15-$20 lower than our usual electrical bill, so spouse and I are going to treat ourselves to a celebratory lunch at Thai Kitchen...

 

[Zathras]

Nice Nords.
While summer is our lowest electric bills, we didn't quite hit 0. Got down to about 10% of our bill.
Winter is nasty as our electric bill goes through the roof (heating mainly).
So while I love summer weather, I won't gloat, as MN winters are pretty chilly

 

[bbbamI]

We have a cathedral ceiling in the livingroom which used to heat large quantities of air for delivery to the second-story bedroom.

We finally cut a hole in the ceiling at the top of the steps and ducted it through the attic to a rooftop solar-powered exhaust fan. We pulled the siding off the south wall, stuffed it with reflective foil insulation, and closed it up again. We also have an EnergyStar 60" ceiling fan in the livingroom for those days when the chimney effect isn't moving fast enough for us.

Most of the LR roof is covered with photovoltaic panels and won't need re-roofing for a long time. But if [-]the hurricane[/-] we ever re-roof then we'd add reflective foil insulation over the sheathing and the latest in reflective composition-shingle technology.

I think I should print this and send a copy to my cathedral friends. Then if [-]the hail[/-] they need to re-roof again, they can follow your example.

 

[Meadbh]

Spectacular thunder, lightning and sheets of rain today. Wheeee!!

 

[bbbamI]

Just in case anybody gives a fritter...it's 97 degrees now. There are a few clouds moving in....might squeeze out a drop or two of rain.

 

[W2R]

Looks like you Texans are STILL under drought conditions:

Drought turning Texas as dry as toast - Weather- msnbc.com

It rains so much in south Louisiana that I don't even own a sprinkler. The down side to our 60"/year average rainfall is that gardening becomes an exercise in hacking back bushes and vegetation. Since I used to live in Texas, I have an idea of how rotten it is to live in drought conditions during a hot Texas summer.

(Not to mention the fire ants and brown recluse spiders - - REWahoo, I'm doing my best).

 

[REWahoo]

W2R, thanks for your efforts but it looks like the national news is carrying the load at the moment. We average is less than 10 days per year of temps 100 and above at we're currently sitting at 34 days and counting...