Electric Bill $500!!!

[69GTX]

Originally Posted by gathermewool
In our master bedroom we typically keep a ceramic heater running, along with a filter running while we sleep, to keep the air moving.


How many square feet is your house? Having a cement wall basement is a big help.

A 1500-2500 watt portable heater can be quite the drain. Last year I thought I'd try keeping the garage above 40 deg F all winter with a 1500 watt space heater. It doubled our electric bill from around $100 to $200/mo. For our 1960 1000 ft2 house with original siding, insulation and windows, we run around 1000 gallons of fuel oil per year plus $1200 in electricity...about $300/mo for everything with base board heat. What's the difference if the base board heats near the walls/windows? You're still heating the same air that will come into your house. And if you don't heat close to the walls, you will sweat your keister off if you hang out near the walls with the heat on. Shooting for 62-64 deg F in winter and 78 - 80 deg F in peak summer AC. Other than Jan-March and July-Sept New England is pretty temperate.

 

[StevieC]

My brother is in Boston and has gas heating, gas dryer, gas stove, gas water heater and his bill is about $150 / month for electricity. So you having electric everything I could see it being $500/month. It's the heat that is killing you and/or hot water if that is electric. Those are huge users of electricity no matter what you have them set to, in comparison to things like a washing machine or a fridge.

 

[Dan55]

Your electric rates are high .17 kWh, that's your biggest problem!

 

[ecotourist]

You need a heat pump. We had much the same situation - only heating part of the house using a wood stove and baseboard heaters yet large electricity bills. We put in a heat pump and now heat the whole house and our electricity bills are lower. I don't really know how much we saved as we keep the whole house comfortable now. I'd never go back.

You might also look at your insulation and the sealing around windows and doors. That can make a big difference as well.

 

[Skippy722]

I no longer feel that upset about paying $83 for 100 therms of natural gas and $123 for 811kwh of electricity!

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted by Dan55
Your electric rates are high .17 kWh, that's your biggest problem!


17 is not bad, we are around 20-22 here on the tier 1 (about 300kwh) & 2. People frequently hitting tier 3 or higher would definitely add at least some solar to bring that number down to at least tier 2.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted by Skippy722
I no longer feel that upset about paying $83 for 100 therms of natural gas and $123 for 811kwh of electricity!


How did you end up using that much electricity? heating?

 

[Bjornviken]

Invest in geothermal and save$$$

 

[Skippy722]

Originally Posted by PandaBear
Originally Posted by Skippy722
I no longer feel that upset about paying $83 for 100 therms of natural gas and $123 for 811kwh of electricity!


How did you end up using that much electricity? heating?


No idea, other than someone is always home pretty much 24/7. My wife likes to leave lights, the TV, and all the box fans in the bedrooms on. All the lights and both TV's are LED... just replaced the old Roper side by side fridge with a brand new Whirlpool, so we'll see if that helps.

Furnace is gas, but it is almost 17 years old, as is the AC unit. Every month I get an email comparing me to my neighbors, so I guess it's not that bad.

 

[edwardh1]

dryers also suck in cold air from outside

 

[Donald]

Originally Posted by Wolf359
Originally Posted by Donald
Originally Posted by Wolf359
Electric heat is the most expensive way to heat a home. Either think about getting oil or a pellet stove. Just look at your electric rates, how many kilowatts did you use and what's the price per kilowatt and compare that to previous bills. Dryers, stoves, hot water heaters can use a lot of juice. If you have a fault in one of them, that could also cause a high bill.


I do not agree. A fault in one of your appliances that would significantly effect the electric bill has got to produce a lot of heat and would be noticed. The result of using electricity in a heater or light or TV is heat.


The wires would run a little hot. Not always noticed. Depends on how bad the fault is.


Whatever consumers electricity creates heat. A 100 W light generates the same amount of heat as a TV or vacuum drawing 100 W. Electricity is 100 % efficient every watt consumed generates heat no matter the appliance or whatever. If you use enough extra electricity to notice it in the power bill, then you will notice the heat.

 

[Donald]

Originally Posted by Rand
Natural gas here is about 30$ a month to heat.. I keep the heat set between 66-69f depending on time of day.

The "hookup fee" is around 28. December was 65$ all in total Probably be around $80 (or 50-55$ for gas part of bill) for the polar vortex this month.
my electric runs from $65 to $115 seasonally at aprox 15c/kwh including distribution.

I wish I had a gas hot water tank.. but the heat pump based hot water tank is ok.

I'd suggest a heat pump based hot water tank. It will add A/C in the summer and the hot water cost is usually 1/4 an electric unit if you put it on heat pump only mode.
in the winter your basement stove providing heat will offset it sucking the heat out of the air to heat your water.
It will also for free dehumidify your basement.(which is nice for me)

if you have baseboard heat its terrible.. you end up heating the walls and windows but not the air.. a bunch of it goes directly to waste.
Might try a couple of those oil filled radiators to directly heat the air vs heating the walls.

A ductless mini split heat pump would also help a ton in more moderate temps..

If you have a few $$$$ to spend I think you could reduce your electric bill by 1/3 conservatively.

Originally Posted by gathermewool
Maybe my wife is turning all of the heats on to 90F while I'm at work...



if you install a smart thermostat they will have a history menu.


Electric baseboard heat typically has line voltage thermostats. Few if any smart thermostats are line voltage.

 

[Donald]

Or you can get a propane heater that vents through the wall so no flue to run or ductwork. Propane is better than electric. If you own a tank you can shop around for propane like you can for oil.

 

[JLTD]

Sounds like your house would benefit from some i sulation, especially in light of heating only the MBr at night.

How are your windows? I had one house where replacing the original 70s windows resulted in a heating bill 40% of what it had been....paid for themselves in about 2 1/2 years.

 

[Audios]

Id definitely get that wood stove going jut to get a large heat source going and it will naturaly radiate up to the higher floors. It might make a big difference just to split some logs and give it a shot. Maybe compare next month and try running the wood stove more? My wife would absolutely melt down at 55 in the house!

 

[mcrn]

Are you sure your payment from December went through?

 

[WyrTwister]

Originally Posted by 92saturnsl2
Yikes, maybe consider an electric heat pump? Suppose the cost is not surprising; anything is better than electric baseboard heat (assuming resistive elements). My house is ~1900 sq ft (inc. basement) and my highest electric bill was around $275 in dead of winter, everything is electric.



Heat pump is / was what I was going to suggest . Do not forget about mini splits . They are available with extremely high energy ratings , if you can afford the higher priced units .

 

[thastinger]

Buy yourself a "Kill-a-Watt" meter, they are less than 20 bucks. You plug it into an outlet then plug the load into it. It will tell you power consumption of the device

 

[StevieC]

Originally Posted by thastinger
Buy yourself a "Kill-a-Watt" meter, they are less than 20 bucks. You plug it into an outlet then plug the load into it. It will tell you power consumption of the device

This won't work for his big consumers of power like electric heat, electric hot water and anything else that gobbles up the current that is hard wired or doesn't have a conventional 110v plug.

 

[Spector]

I guess you need to do some research, what was usage a year ago, last month etc and look at the degree days as well. Call the electric company and ask them to look at the meter if everything else seems okay.