June Electric Bill

[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]

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]

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]

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]

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/v247/jgandrew/Other Junk/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.

 

[laurence]

We've never cracked $100, but we don't run the air conditioner more than 20 times a year.

REW, that website was quite accurate for me, too.

 

[IHateCNBC]

The last time I had an increase like that I checked my meter and discovered the company had misread it. 

Good idea, I called.  I am on a "budget plan".  Normally the plan has a yearly adjustment in September but since I owed them so much they moved it up to June.   

Believe you me I had my fingers crossed for the misread meter.   

 

[SteveR]

Live in the desert.

Two AC central units

Electric clothes dryer

Two refrigerators; one in the garage

One upright freezer in the basement.

Two PCs that are on but hybernate most of the day.

Outdoor security lighting on all night.

220 v. water pump for backyard waterfall (only used a few hours a weekend)

House AC set to 78 all the time.

Mountain cabin is also on the same power bill but very little on except the refrigerator and security lights.

Bill was 10% higher than last year and the number of therms was about the same.

Per the US Gov site, we are a about 25% less efficient but I am not too surprised considering the lousy windows and the unknown efficiency AC units that are now 18 years old.

 

[REWahoo]

Per the US Gov site, we are a about 25% less efficient but I am not too surprised considering the lousy windows and the unknown efficiency AC units that are now 18 years old.

Wow, 18 years old. On a first name basis with your repairman?

Have you considered you can probably recover the cost of replacing them reasonably quickly due to the big improvement in efficiency of newer systems? I replaced a 15 year old unit and was amazed at the drop in our electric bill.

 

[SteveR]

Wow, 18 years old.  On a first name basis with your repairman?  

Have you considered you can probably recover the cost of replacing them reasonably quickly due to the big improvement in efficiency of newer systems?  I replaced a 15 year old unit and was amazed at the drop in our electric bill. 

We have been lucky.....knocking on wood (not cracks on that line are needed) with repairs so far. The units work fine just don't cool as well as we would like. It seems the original builder undersized the ducts. No easy way to fix that one.

Any suggestions on replacement units? Brands or models?

 

[Andre1969]

When I first bought my condo in late 1994, it still had the original circa 1973 electric heat and central air. There was nothing heat pump about it. When that electric furnace kicked on, it cooked your wallet immediately! Worst electric bill ever was around $350. And in the summertime, I could count on at least two months of $200+.

I forget which year that system crapped out, but I think it was the summer of '97. I had the heat pump put in for about $1800. After that, I'd say the worst it ever got in the winter was $200, and that was rare. In the summer, it might have gotten up to about $150.

Have they improved heat pump technology since around 1997? Would a new one save much over one that's about 9-10 years old?

What about oil furnaces? I think the furnace in my house dates back to 1995.

 

[sailor]

Any suggestions on replacement units? Brands or models?

How long are you planning to stay in this house?
How much is your electricity?
Do you know the efficiency of you current AC? (If I were to guess just from the age, I would put it maybe at 8-9 SEER)
Carrier has a line of very efficient (19 SEER) heat pumps called "Infinity", but it might not make financial sense for you to install "top of the line model, to cut your AC bill in half.
Have you checked local rebates for efficient ACs? Some electric companies offer them here.
They also do blower door tests relatively inexpensively to check how "leaky" is your house.

 

[sailor]

Have they improved heat pump technology since around 1997? Would a new one save much over one that's about 9-10 years old?
What about oil furnaces? I think the furnace in my house dates back to 1995.

Yes to the first question (more efficient compressors, new refrigerants) and no, not really to the second.
My heat pump (manufactured in 99) has SEER of 12. New ones get up to SEER 19.

 

[Scrooge]

Wow, 18 years old.  On a first name basis with your repairman?

Hey, mine was 22 years old when it said "Sorry, can't take it any more!" and died. But until then I never had any problems with it.

 

[REWahoo]

I've always had an aversion to buying the highest efficiency ac unit since they are not only very pricey but also often on the bleeding edge of technology which makes their reliability suspect. I understand the feds have mandated a new minimum SEER rating (12?) and if it were me and the most efficient unit was a 19, I'd split the difference and go with a with a 14 or 16.

I've owned Carrier, York, American Standard and Trane, and none have been notably good or bad. I once replaced a 12+ year old York unit with American Standard, and the compressor blew within the first year. When we built our house 7 years ago we went with Trane (12 SEER). It came with a 10 year warranty, including parts and labor. Turns out it was great that it did as I just had to have the coil replaced and the bill would have run me somewhere in the neighborhood of $2k. The repair guy told me Trane had lots of problems with leaking coils in the units they manufactured in the late 90's. As a result, I'm not sure I would recommend that particular brand...although they did honor the warranty without a problem.

 

[REWahoo]

Hey, mine was 22 years old when it said "Sorry, can't take it any more!" and died. But until then I never had any problems with it.

Scrooge, I don't know where you are located, but in this part of the world our ac units run from April to November. It is unusual to go 10-12 years without some serious repair work. Or maybe I'm just unlucky.