June Electric Bill

[HFWR]

Originally Posted by Brat

Cooling?? Open the windows and enjoy the sea breeze!* God provided an efficeint, cost effective, heat pump that cools the air in the summer and moderates winter's chill.

If I could just bottle some of this 100+ hot air for winter use... :P

[ladelfina]

Our electric bill is regularly about $100 month, but we use much less electricity. Few lights, no A/C.

Our latest bill covers March 11 - May 10.
61 days and 857 kWH consumed.
(Wow! astromeria, that is 1/4 (sorry, 1/3) yours.. uhmmm... and you weren't even home for 2 weeks *)

total €172 ($217) of which about €32 seems to be taxes and fixed monthly fees.

kWH cost for March: 0,166 [$0.21/kWH]
kWH cost for April: 0,1756 [$0.22/kWH]
not counting taxes (extra 10%) and fixed costs

eridanus, where the heck do you live that you pay $.05?
Dubai?

[Andre1969]

When I lived in my condo, which had a heat pump, a few times I tried setting the temperature higher during the day when nobody was home and then lowering it when I got home. Unfortunately the heat pump wasn't strong enough to cool the place down quickly, and if it had been a hot day it would often be well into the night before it got down to a comfy temp! So I'd just set it and forget it.

The window units in my house seem to cool much more quickly though. During the day when nobody's home, I lock the dog in the kitchen and just leave the a/c in there running. Then when I get home, I crank that a/c a bit more and fire up the second one, and it gets the house cooled down pretty fast.

[astromeria]

Originally Posted by ladelfina

(Wow! astromeria, that is 1/4 (sorry, 1/3) yours.. uhmmm... and you weren't even home for 2 weeks )

Apparently we're evil electricity consumers . Hopefully balanced out somewhat by driving a Prius. There was a heat wave here, like in much of the US, while we were away--apparently 82 was a lot cooler than the outside temperature. Maybe Sarah has the right idea--87 when one is out. I hope my violin & furniture wouldn't crack at that temp, not to mention the refrigerator freaking out. I think I'll inch my way up and see what happens. We're going away for 3 days tomorrow--with hubby's agreement, I'll try 83.

[ESRBob]

Originally Posted by BarbaraAnne

In the Dallas area its 14.4 cents per kWh!! After deregulation we pay among the highest rates in the country! We personally use one of the lowest cost providers,as the largest provider, TXU, charges 15 cents per kWH!

Barbara Anne -- Con Ed in NY has Dallas beat: 15.9c per kwh, though there is another 1.67cents per kwh on top of that for an 'adjustment factor', for a total of 18.57cents/kwh. Not the kind of competition I wanted to win, frankly....

Astro -- do you ever consider just turning off the AC entirely when you go away? we do that -- the plants don't seem to mind much. and there is a bit of ventilation through some upper windows left open a crack. Could be the way to deal with future price increases?

[shiny]

In Seattle we pay .0406 per KWH.

We get billed every other month here and it averages around $25!

We have a window unit A/C but only run it for a few hours in the evening about 20 days per year.

Edit to add: We live in an apt that has a centralized boiler/hot water heater that we do not pay for directly (just through rent)

[REWahoo]

Here is a US govt. website that will tell you what the annual energy cost is for the average home in your zip code. Also has a handy calculator to determine how long it will take to recoup the costs of switching to energy efficient appliances.

It shows the average in my zip is $2,018 which looks to be pretty accurate. The last two years I averaged very close to that, somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,100.

[astromeria]

Originally Posted by ESRBob

Astro -- do you ever consider just turning off the AC entirely when you go away?

No--which is funny because I didn't live in an air-conditioned house till I was in my 40s. Of course, I live in South Carolina now, not up north or in SF, and my violin did split once during my pre-A/C years. My mother about flipped about my leaving the A/C at 82 while we were away for a month (she was looking after the place...maybe she turned it up!). The hubster is dubious about 87. But I'm gonna work my way up and see. Presumably the oil won't melt off my oil paintings

[astromeria]

Originally Posted by Andre1969

When I lived in my condo, which had a heat pump, a few times I tried setting the temperature higher during the day when nobody was home and then lowering it when I got home. Unfortunately the heat pump wasn't strong enough to cool the place down quickly, and if it had been a hot day it would often be well into the night before it got down to a comfy temp! So I'd just set it and forget it.

We also have heat pumps (2 of them and only 4 years old). You can tell when they;re in "overdrive"--a light comes on on the thermostat (IIRC it means an electric assist has kicked in). When I'm going out for an hour or two to walk, garden, run a couple of errands, I don't bother changing the thermostat. I've heard that you should never change the temp on a heat pump--also heard that it's OK. Don't know who's right, but I change the setting, and the heat pumps are fine--so far.

[lazygood4nothinbum]

i keep the house at about 74 degrees during the day and then i set it for (high 60s) hibernation at night. i'm in a pre-a/c era, circa 1942 dade-county pine cottage, raised above the ground by a few feet and with an airy attic space with good ventilation and insulation. above the house is a canopy of trees about 50 feet up which keeps a lot of the sun off. my last bill was $135. not bad for south florida.

ps thanx for posting rewahoo!. according to your site, seems i'm between average and efficient.

[REWahoo]

Originally Posted by astromeria

I've heard that you should never change the temp on a heat pump--also heard that it's OK. Don't know who's right, but I change the setting, and the heat pumps are fine--so far.

No problem adjusting the thermostat setting on a heat pump when you are cooling, but when you are in the heating mode it is better to keep hands off. If you tell the system to warm the air by a couple of degrees or so, it will kick in the auxilliary heat (the little light goes on) and a heating element similar to the one in your toaster oven fires up. That's when your electric meter really starts to spin.

[fluffy]

May '05: $88 --> May '06:$150
June '05: $154 --> June '06: $202

2150 sq. ft. house in Dallas

We keep it around 79 degrees which is a degree or two warmer than last year. But the summer is hotter this year and the rates are higher (locked into low rate end of '04 which expired end '05 and been floating since).

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Ours was $250 last month. Cant wait to see this months. Too hot to use the whole house fan.

Folks with ceiling fans should note that many fans, and most older ones, are not energy star and can use a whole lot of energy and throw off quite a bit of heat. In fact, most ceiling fans currently in service use only about 10-15% of the electricity consumed to turn the fan and the rest is given off as heat.

True energy star versions can run with under 10-15 watts of power on the low setting, vs 80-120 watts for a non-energy star fan. Dirty little secret of the ceiling fan business, who fought labeling high efficiency fans out of concern that most people wouldnt buy their non-ES fans and they'd sit in stores forever. So some brands dont label, and the ones that do usually dont make a big deal out of it.

A friend who does air conditioning told me once that someone running 2-3 non-ES ceiling fans to make a couple of rooms feel cooler might be better off turning them off and lowering the thermostat a degree or two.

[REWahoo]

June electric bill (2,400 sf house):

1999 - $142.27
2000 - $125.72
2001 - $162.31
2002 - $177.12
2003 - $181.63
2004 - $194.74 (300 sf room addition)
2005 - $204.58
2006 - $177.61

[Sarah in SC]

I have something like 13 ceiling fans in my house but I only keep running the ones in the room we are in. *Ours are mostly older salvage fans from demolitions on Kiawah Island and I am sure they are not ES. *House is 1500 sq ft heated/cooled.
Ceilings are all 10 feet and I really agonized over the ducts in ceiling v/s ducts in floor before settling on the ceiling installation. *
I would turn a/c off completely instead of 87, but the fish tank started to get too warm (had to put bags of ice in there in the evenings to cool it down). *
Astro, nothing has melted in my house yet, LOL! *
Sarah

[eridanus]

Originally Posted by ladelfina

eridanus, where the heck do you live that you pay $.05?
Dubai?

Texas. It's a (profitable) city owned utility and the co-op utilities in Texas are similarly priced. Seattle also has a city-owned utility and has a low KWH rate.

The larger Texas cities have a deregulated electricity market and much higher rates.


Edit: I didn't realize that about ceiling fans. I wonder if it's worth it to replace my old fans with Energy Star ones.

[Andre1969]

I forget the size of my heat pump, but I think part of the problem might have been that it was undersized for the condo. Also, my condo was horrible when it came to insulation. Here's and old picture of it: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...Condo_1995.jpg

Basically, that whole side overlooking the parking lot faced West. Once the afternoon sun cleared the roof and started beating down on the parking lot, and the side of the condo, it would really heat up. Plus, those windows were just cheap, leaky, single-insulated trailer-park quality sliders. Ditto the sliding glass door. The livingroom, where that sliding glass door is, overlooked the two story entry foyer, which was actually a pretty dramatic feature at this price point. But there was no climate control down in that entry foyer, and it just heated up too. I usually just hung a big curtain to block off the entry foyer. Oh, and you can't see it in the pic, but there's another sliding glass door off the dining room, a big 8' job, which is on the other side of that 2-story entry foyer.

I'm sure having those garages underneath didn't help my energy bills either! In the wintertime my garage never did seem to get that cold, and in the summer it never got TOO hot, so I was probably inadvertently climate controlling my garage, along with the other three!

The heating/cooling was kinda lopsided in that place, too. Usually the bedrooms would stay pretty comfy, but the livingroom/dining room area was always noticeably colder in the wintertime. And a bit warmer in the summertime. Oh, and while it never got below freezing in the garage (I kept a bottle of water out there to test it), there was a few times where I tracked snow into the entry foyer in the evening, and it would still be down there the next morning! How's that for whacked?

[Momtwo]

We just got our bill which was for 29 days. It was $215.63 and that is having TOU metering and keeping a/c at
81 degrees from 1pm-8pm which are ON PEAK hours.

[TromboneAl]

Sorry to gloat, but ours was $30.25 (11.5 cents per KWH). We're down 35% from last year, mostly due to turning off the computer more.