Insane Electric Rate Increase $508.68/1522 kWh

What do you expect? Electric heat is expensive. There’s a reason why historically, colder environments didn’t use it. And those that did had major insulation.

You have an excessive rate, an excessive load (resistive heat, multiple dehumidifiers, multiple refrigerators and freezers, all running concurrently).

You want to save fuel/electric/cost, the more you turn off, the more you save. Simple as that. Keep the loads up at your peril.
 
This is a big concern of mine. as you know we are moving to a new home near the coast of NC.
Last house was electric and NG. When I lived in NY it was either NG or Oil.

The new house will have Propane. I cant believe they are building a whole community and this is supposed to be considered an upgrade?
Heat with be a heat pump. But to me I rather the rest just be electric. I dont get the LP thing. By the time you are done with the delivery ect from a retailer is is really less expensive having a propane stove, Propane Fireplace (which will be rarely used) and propane tankless hot water?

The only advantage I can think of is it because of coastal storms where you would still have a stove, hot water and fireplace?
Anyway, just not crazy as to what I think might be the cost vs if the house was just electric. Dont get me wrong, I would take NG any day.
BUt propane I think of small retailers charging high prices, unless it is the whole coastal thing.
We have a rural Chesapeake Bay home in SE VA. No NG option for us.
There are some upsides to having LP in areas that are subject to power loss caused by storms, my recommendations to consider are below:
- Buy your own 1000 gallon tank, this will let you refill it in the Summer when the price is lower and you can buy it from any retailer. If you rent the tank, you're stuck with that company's prices to fill it.
- Switch your aux heat to propane on your HVAC system, stove to propane, water heater to propane, backup gen to propane.
- The 1K tank will provide a lot of run hours on your now smaller and less thirsty backup gen in the event of an outage, would vary but maybe an 11-14K gen would run your whole house vs needing a 22K if you had electric strips as aux heat, electric stove and electric water heater.
 
This is a big concern of mine [energy costs]. a I dont get the LP thing. By the time you are done with the delivery ect from a retailer is is really less expensive having a propane stove, Propane Fireplace (which will be rarely used) and propane tankless hot water? Small retailers charging high prices.
LP is truly wonderful here in S. FL, as it works when the power is out and the NG is not flowing. I've been off grid due to storms more than real off gridders are (just a joke, it seems that way) with power being out for as much as 6 months!

The other really neat thing about LP, is that one can upgrade to, and fill a 30 pound tank, with double the 20 pound real world capacity, at the local hardware store. And use it anywhere. Patio heater, small outdoor fireplace, outdoor grill, etc. Double the burn time is wonderful.

It won't save you money, but it does change the generator dynamic markedly. And I love cooking with it. Plus the dryer gets HOT, like god intended.

Oh, and propane delivery is often a terrible rip off. Even before this latest price rise, I was paying between $5.50 and $7 per delivered gallon (all up)

I moved to 2 portable tanks that I fill. Much better, at about $3/gal.
 
I think I should look into propane tanks. I don’t believe it’s as cheap as NG, but might be feasible.
It's not maybe 50% more vs. NG but at your electricity rate,

.3342 x 27 = $9.02, that's the equivalent a gallon of propane would have to cost for electric to be better just based on BTU's.

Currently the average price in MA is $3.60 so you'd be making out for sure. This of course doesn't factor in the added rental fee for the tank which may be waived for being a new customer or the cost of a new tank or tankless water heater and installation cost however based on the annual cost you'd break even the first year and probably be saving at least $1000 a year after that.
 
We were warned last year that rates would be going up this month. We have all electric everything, including baseboard heat.

Last month: $0.2320/kWh overall (supply + delivery)

This month: $0.3342/kWh

Increase: 44% overall (supply rate $361.95, Delivery $146.73 = $508.68)

Use: 31% less than last January (1522kWh this Jan vs 1987kWh last Jan)
- Ave temp was higher this year: 39F this Jan vs 26F last Jan)

House: a little less than 2700 ft^2; however, half of that is the unheated basement

TL;DR: all-electric heat stays off to the entire house most of the time. Switched to a cheaper supplier, but won't take effect until next billing cycle, earliest. Home energy audit Feb. Looking for obvious things to save money
Wow I am in NH and use no more than 300 kWh/mo. House is kept to about 64 degrees F.
I know UNITIL reported and increase in the supply rate in Nov. 2022 from $0.07 to $0.26/kWh(!)
But since our bill has been under 75 bucks a month I haven't paid to much attention to it.
I have oil fired boiler hydronic heating and the #2 diesel price almost doubled. I use about 110 gallons per month so my heating oil cost is is now about $475 /mo.

So were are nearing $600/month adding in my electric costs to diesel oil usage.

The electric dryer is the biggest user, I have to get a clothsline installed in the back yard again. I can run it from a 2nd floor balcony to a big tree 25 feet away and have it on a pulley system


Remember, we just came of a near record warm month for January 2023.

I would shut off those dehumidifiers. They are typically each 5000btu window AC unit equivalents, 400-500watts each. What does the UL label say?

Stay warm enough! We expect to be 40 degrees F. below freezing (not windchill) up here with an Arctic dip for a couple days and high winds,

Good thing I have 5% fuel diluted 5W20 in my D.I. car - I knew that D.I would be good for something ! :)
- Ken
 
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Interesting thread... I'd say that's a lot of energy use for minimal use of the electric heat, and what sounds like pretty painstaking care to reduce the bill.

Based on a quick rough calculation, it looks like you're using an average of over 2 kWh per hour (2.1 or so), around the clock, which seems pretty high for light use of the resistive heating. Put another way, you've essentially got the equivalent of a 1500 watt heater running nonstop, plus some other more minor energy use. Perhaps thinking of it that way might provide some insight.

How much would you say the dehumidifiers are running (I saw the 12 hour figure, but how much of the time do the compressors run)? And what size/wattage are they? I wonder if those aren't a good chunk of your energy usage.

I'd guess that there's no way small things like turning down the TV brightness or swapping out a freezer bulb with an LED would have much of an impact at all compared to running three dehumidifiers, particularly if they're large/inefficient, or if they run a lot of the time (for example, if all three ran continuously, at 500 watts a piece, that'd be the lion's share of your energy use right there).
I just did a lookup of the current weather in Boston The outside temperature is 26F, the relative humidity is reported as 57% but the only important figure is the DEWPOINT which is currently 13F. What this means to an engineer is that in order for a condenser (the public calls it a dehumidifier) to condense moisture from the air it requires a surface temperature on the condenser coil to be less than 13F. That’s possible, but costly to run but then the condenser surface gets covered with ice and doesn’t work. So then the dehumidifier has to cycle on a heater to melt the accumulated ice from the coil and start the cool/heat process over again.

My advice is turn off the dehumidifiers when the dew point is below say 50F and also ignore relative humidity readings when the dew point is below 50F.
 
I'm surprised that there has been no mention of pellet stoves that I'm aware of in this thread.

My wife and I retired to our vacation cabin in Vermont three years ago and have a pellet stove as our main source of heat in the winter but we also have an oil furnace for backup. We downsized when we retired and our cabin is only about 1500sf so that obviously helps. This is our third winter here and we average two and a half tons of pellets per winter and a ton of pellets cost us $275 last year so our annual heating cost is about $700-$800 a year.
IMG_2464-X4.jpg
 
I'm surprised that there has been no mention of pellet stoves that I'm aware of in this thread.

My wife and I retired to our vacation cabin in Vermont three years ago and have a pellet stove as our main source of heat in the winter but we also have an oil furnace for backup. We downsized when we retired and our cabin is only about 1500sf so that obviously helps. This is our third winter here and we average two and a half tons of pellets per winter and a ton of pellets cost us $275 last year so our annual heating cost is about $700-$800 a year.
IMG_2464-X4.jpg
Is that Vermont castings stove? Love ’em. The OP has mentioned a few times that he has turned the heat in his home completely off because of the electrical cost and is still getting enormous bills. So the cost to heat the house is not a factor in the bill. But I’m sure that installing a pellet or wood stove would help the comfort level and maybe prolong his married life. :)
 
Just curious ...by any chance does you house have a sump/well in the basement?
 
As unfortunate as it sounds, in light of inflation everywhere, the solutions are to earn more money and pay for, or invest in, what you have to. The options for cheap energy are dwindling. Especially in the NY area, with fracking bans locally and now in PA.
Along with the shuttering of Indian Point 🤬
 
What do you expect? Electric heat is expensive. There’s a reason why historically, colder environments didn’t use it. And those that did had major insulation.

You have an excessive rate, an excessive load (resistive heat, multiple dehumidifiers, multiple refrigerators and freezers, all running concurrently).

The only exception to this Ive seen is in places where the baseload comes from hydro.

Quebec is filled with electric baseboards and electric water heaters.

They dont even call it a power bill or electricity bill they refer to it as " the hydro"


One winter my area had a major rework on the local grid so Hydro Quebec parked a semi sized genset at the corner and you could hear it labor at night under the electrical heating load.
 
The only exception to this Ive seen is in places where the baseload comes from hydro.

Quebec is filled with electric baseboards and electric water heaters.

They dont even call it a power bill or electricity bill they refer to it as " the hydro"


One winter my area had a major rework on the local grid so Hydro Quebec parked a semi sized genset at the corner and you could hear it labor at night under the electrical heating load.
That's a Canadian thing, we call it hydro here in Ontario too. In fact our former vertically integrated utility was called Ontario Hydro.
 
Propane appliances and boilers are easily converted to natural gas if and when NG becomes available to an area. Getting a gas line installed is a chicken and egg situation. No customers mean no gas line, and no gas line means no customers. So, often developers start a development with propane appliances, and when enough houses are built, a gas line becomes economically feasible.

I used to work in utility regulation. In New Jersey, there were situations where the natural gas utility started customers on propane, charging them natural gas equivalent prices, with the intention of ultimately installing a gas line when there were enough customers to justify the line extension.
 
That's a Canadian thing, we call it hydro here in Ontario too. In fact our former vertically integrated utility was called Ontario Hydro.
Canadians do power right.
I'm surprised that there has been no mention of pellet stoves that I'm aware of in this thread.

My wife and I retired to our vacation cabin in Vermont three years ago and have a pellet stove as our main source of heat in the winter but we also have an oil furnace for backup. We downsized when we retired and our cabin is only about 1500sf so that obviously helps. This is our third winter here and we average two and a half tons of pellets per winter and a ton of pellets cost us $275 last year so our annual heating cost is about $700-$800 a year.
IMG_2464-X4.jpg

These are great, pretty cheap, and definitely throw out the BTU - but you become beholdened to processed fuel.

To me one of the big upsides to wood is the ability to offset cost with muscle.
Many peeps can find and process their heating wood for a few gallons of gas and a few afternoons.

A pile of well stacked wood is just like a stack of money sitting there.
 
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Is that Vermont castings stove? Love ’em. The OP has mentioned a few times that he has turned the heat in his home completely off because of the electrical cost and is still getting enormous bills. So the cost to heat the house is not a factor in the bill. But I’m sure that installing a pellet or wood stove would help the comfort level and maybe prolong his married life. :)
It's actually a Harman P43 pellet stove and we love it. It is not perfect since it is centrally located in the living room and our bedroom gets cold at night and that's not really a problem until Mrs. fahrt (she hates it when I do that:D) gets up in the morning and the bathroom is too cold for her liking.

I bought an electric ceramic space heater for her to use in the bathroom and she likes it but is not completely happy with it. Women.
 
Another thing you can look at is a catalytic furnace.

These have long been super popular with RV'er because they sip fuel.

Like any fuel they do put some moisture in the air so they probably work best upstairs for you, but one of these run a long time on a 5er of propane.
 
Wow, those are high rates indeed! In Texas we a deregulated environment in which you choose your electric utility provider. Currently I'm paying about 16 cents per kWh, including the delivery fee. My current contract expires this month, but it looks like I can sign up for a new contract at about the same price.
 
LP is truly wonderful here in S. FL, as it works when the power is out and the NG is not flowing. I've been off grid due to storms more than real off gridders are (just a joke, it seems that way) with power being out for as much as 6 months!

The other really neat thing about LP, is that one can upgrade to, and fill a 30 pound tank, with double the 20 pound real world capacity, at the local hardware store. And use it anywhere. Patio heater, small outdoor fireplace, outdoor grill, etc. Double the burn time is wonderful.

It won't save you money, but it does change the generator dynamic markedly. And I love cooking with it. Plus the dryer gets HOT, like god intended.

Oh, and propane delivery is often a terrible rip off. Even before this latest price rise, I was paying between $5.50 and $7 per delivered gallon (all up)

I moved to 2 portable tanks that I fill. Much better, at about $3/gal.
I'm assuming you're talking dual 40Lb tanks? Like RVs have on the tongue? You can also buy 100lb tanks at tractor supply/lowes etc. If you can muscle the full ones around can have a way to transport them vertically oriented.
 
Couple things Propane is about 4.5-8x more expensive than natural gas (at my rates) that was back before propane was 4$/gal too.

Why do you need 3 dehumidifiers in winter.. the outside air has very low moisture below 32f.
Relative humidity is very relative. 60% at 40f is the same amount of moisture in the air as 30% at 60f or 15% at 80f

You would be better off heating the space to 55-60f and not worrying about the humidity.. typically its rare one needs dehumidification when its below freezing outside.

OTOH if you got a heat pump water heater you would save 20-30$ or more on hot water and provide dehumidification when needed (ie spring-summer-fall)

you could then get a couple mini splits to keep your whole house warmer for cheaper.

They have 1ton mini splits for under $1000 or SUPER efficient ones for slightly more.

Your dehumidifiers for all intents and purposes might as well be electric heaters for all the good they do (in the winter)

Fact of the day: some of the minisplits can produce(move) 11btus of heat for 1 watt. resistive heating is 3.4btu per watt.

You could also go with one of the fancy heat pump european dryers(ventless) but the ROI isnt quite there yet.
 
What do you expect? Electric heat is expensive. There’s a reason why historically, colder environments didn’t use it. And those that did had major insulation.

You have an excessive rate, an excessive load (resistive heat, multiple dehumidifiers, multiple refrigerators and freezers, all running concurrently).

You want to save fuel/electric/cost, the more you turn off, the more you save. Simple as that. Keep the loads up at your peril.
Pretty darn straightforward response! I'd simply add that people are going to suffer due to excessive energy costs. And, yes they are excessive. Energy is abundant and in the aggregate, really cheap. But as we all know, there are many other factors in play now. Income is lagging, and falling in some areas.
 
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