Let's talk about electrical usage...

[Valerie in WA]

Over in another thread, we got OT & onto electric.

Originally posted by Valerie in WA
Okay, here's the info from my bill for August 26 through October 26th. I used a total of 1,356KWH (kilowatt hours). This bill was unusual because half was billed at the summer rate of 7.7060 cents per KWH and half at the winter rate of 8.0070cents per KWH. Compare that to both your rates per KWH and your usage. You'll also need to consider that I'm only heating 1000 sq feet (although there's only a few areas that are insulated), I hang most of my laundry, but someone's ALWAYS home. Oh, and my climate is mild. It was 32F last night, but we get up close to 40F during the day. BTW, when I'm reaveraged in March, I expect my bill to go down to $75 or $80. You know, as a matter of fact, that $88 was calculated when I WAS using the dryer 100% of the time, so I don't know quite what to tell you. Sorry.

Originally posted by pammyboat
Alright durnit! hehe... Hadda go get my latest bill. From 10/25 to 11/28 meter usuage is 2983 KWH's. That's up from 1974 KWH's from last month. YIKES! I just looked at last years December usuage (how nice, they put it all on there for me, lol) and the usage was 4082!! *falls over* Okay... MUST get to work on getting that number down, by golly!! Curent rate is 6.5 cents per KWH.
I'm here all day, every day... day in... day out... and keep most stuff off when I'm here alone. The house is just under 1500 sqft and keep most doors closed, but will try to get better about turning down heat in rooms until closer to nightfall. Will try to be diligent, to the point of being a nag, about lights. Will light the fireplace more often. Will check the seals around the door this time, instead of just talking about it.

New Goal: See if I can see a reduction in KWH's next month!

Pammy, your usage for ONE month is DOUBLE my usage for TWO months - that means you're using FOUR times the power that I use. Are you sure that's correct?

Do you live in an old house? My friend did and we seriously think that she was somehow 'losing' electricity in the old (scary) wiring. That house was electric, except the heat was oil. She moved to a new house that is electric, except the heat is natural gas. Her bill is lower AND the new house is twice the size AND they've added two members to their family (foster children). Puzzle that one!

As far as my usage. I already told you my size and climate. I use lights all day because it's dark here. My computer is on 8-12 hours a day. That budget dollar amount was based on back when I did use the dryer. The KWH I typed above are from now - withOUT the dryer, and looking at "this same period last year" my usage (for 2 months) was about 1787 - that's WITH the dryer.

What kind of heat do you have? We have a heat pump which is more effecient than than a regular forced air furnace. When we had electric baseboard heat, our bill was higher, even though the house was colder.

We have 11 windows, three of which are new in the last 5 years. Two are maybe 15-20 years old and the other 6 are orignal (60 years old) - there are no storm windows. And my doors are just stupid - I describe them here: Is this too weird?

My understanding is that heat and the dryer are your biggest users of electricity.

[pammy]

The house isn't very old, it was built in 1982. There are a total of 4 windows in this house and they are original. I suppose light is a big issue in my house, lol. All 3 of us is pretty good at turning off lights as we leave a room. Except the kitchen and I'm determined to get better about that. We have 2 french patio doors that lead to the backyard, one is sealed the other one opens. These doors are located in what I call 'the big room' (the kitchen, dining area and living room is all open with a breakfast bar dividing it), and I noticed last weekend the weather stripping is gone at the bottom of the one that opens leaving a draft, and have already nagged dh about it. The big room is also the hardest to heat, durnit.

Speaking of heat: It's a major problem. We live in Oklahoma, which sees weather extremes; 100 degree summers and freezing winters. Yay us. When we moved into this house we had gas heat. Unfortunately, when dh went to build his monster shop he hit the gas line. The bad news was the gas company wouldn't let us run gas under his shop anyways. They told us we would have to re-route the gas lines into our house, which meant tearing up our big back patio, cement and all, and having it re-routed through our ceiling. Then they would come and lay new lines ending with the meter sticking out like a sore thumb on the side of our house, and we're on a corner lot. We didn't like that idea, installed an electric water heater (there's some kw's right there) and decided to use electric heat. And since our central heat and air used gas for the heat, we've been stuck with using electric portable heaters to heat the house. OMG there is major kw's there!! It's me, dh and dd, so in those two bedrooms we have the oil filled electric radiators. I absolutely love them. Non-drying nice even heat. Ours is kept pretty low as we like it kinda cooler for sleeping. Dd keeps hers a bit warmer. I've read they are energy efficient, though I can't say for sure. For the two bathrooms... dd's bathroom is the exact center of the house and never cold. Our bathroom is off by itself and is on a north wall, it gets chilly, so there is a small ceramic electric heater for when we are using it. The spare bedroom is where this 'puter sits, so I have a small ceramic heater for only when I'm in here, and only when it's chilly.

I truly believe it's the big room that is killing us. It's just too hard to heat. There's another radiator in there, but feel like I'd need 4 of them to do the job. Honestly, there's no place that is good to put them. I have a much bigger ceramic heater that oscillates and you can set the temp with, but I'm sure it's costing us a pretty penny. We installed one of those Reiker ceiling fans in there, the kind that has heaters built in, and you can set the temp with. Their theory is that the heat rises, the heaters heat that even more and push it upwards and out, delivering heat in an outward circle, supposed to be more even. It's not in this house. It just makes all the cooler air by the walls spread around more, imo. (Okay, just went to test it... It said actual room temp was 68 (feels much cooler) and I turned it's heater on up to 75. Gonna give it 30 minutes and test it out. Will report later.)

Hmm... what else we got using it up round here. Dh built his monster shop, it's 30x60. Inside there's like 12 flourescent lights, but they are never on unless he's in there, and he works lots of hours. I'd say he's in there maybe 4 hours a week total. He built his own little room in there (I call it his 'manly room', lol) and has a small dorm size fridge in there that we keep running. He also has a small ceramic electric heater out there, as well, but only turns it on if he's in that room, which is maybe 30 minutes a week. There's a deep freeze in the garage that is 2/3rds full. And there is one of those security lights in my backyard (previous owner installed) that only comes on at night. I don't mind this one, actually, as it's fairly dark in our neighborhood.

Phew! Dang, I'm talkative this morning. lol. Just from reading my own typings I think it'd be wise to look into getting a heat pump installed. Our central air system is probably original with the house, what, 24 years old now, and I'm sure not efficient. Alas... the roof needs new shingles first. Maybe that should be next on my house list, eh?

[Darlene]

Electric heat, oh my. Hope you can figure a way to get rid of that and get a diff heating source. In a house where you have freezing temps thats just the worst. Maybe in a house that needs the heat occasionally but not one full time.

[pammy]

*Reiker Ceiling Fan Update*

Nope, ran it on full heat over 30 minutes. It started at 68 degrees and only went up to 69 degrees. And since more air was moving around it felt chillier to me. So, lit a fire instead.

[Darlene]

We have a ceiling fan too and our livingroom has a cathedrial ceiling so we need it. Ours has a switch so you can have the air circulating upwards or down wards, depending on the season.
Does yours have a switch too?

[YankeeMom]

Interesting thread. I never really paid a whole lot of attention to KWH or Therms (natural gas heat/stove/hot water heater) other than comparing to the same month the year before.

Here are my stats:
~house built 1882
~3000 sq ft living space, plus at least another 500 sq ft in the unheated, walk up attic (we have an insulated panel over the floor opening at the top of the stairs...it really does work)
~Over 50 windows, all original 7 ft tall, all have storm windows. The upstairs have interior storms, which are nice...no one wants to climb a 60ft ladder to reach the second story to put on exterior ones.
~natural gas forced air heat, plus woodstove and the use of an electric space heater in the living room during the day and in the basement (towards the water pipes) in subzero temps. Only had to do that once this year, so far.
~we have 6 people = lots of laundry, almost all done in cold water
~2 refridgerators, 1 chest medium freezer
~We live in a relatively cold climate, highs in the 90s in the summer (and no A/C) and lows in the double digit negatives (like earlier this week -22*). Our winter bills are always more than our summer bills.

For last month (Oct 27-Nov 30)
KWH 1046 @ 8.4240 cents per KWH
Therms 109 @133.04434 cents per therm
Total bill (with taxes, deliveries, & surcharges )
$330.43

Just the cost of usage (before taxes, deliveries, & surcharges)was only $230.96

[Valerie in WA]

Pammyboat, so am I correct that you are ONLY using portable space heaters for heat? Your central system was completely disabled when dh hit the gas line? If so, I'll bet that's most of your high bill. Ouch! You might put your extra $400/month into home improvement for a year. The heatpump we're getting today is about $2000 installed, but that is just for the outside unit. We already have the part that sits in the attic (or crawl space) and we already have the duct work. Just the pump is going out.

I've tried the ceiling fans too (we have regular height ceilings) - particularly because our heat vents are in the ceilings (basically because that was the only way we could add them without jacking up the house and rebuilding the foundation). I too found that the moving air made me feel colder - a bit of indoor wind chill.

Heather, as cold as your climate is, and as old as your house is, it sounds like you're doing pretty well. Those taxes are obscene! Crazy! Could you post a picture of your house? I love old New England homes. The oldest houses in my area were built in the 1940's; then there was a surge in the 70's and again now a lot of brand new homes are being built. They are packed so closely together (5200 sq foot LOTS) that they will soon outnumber the old houses. But my old house does not have the charm that your old house does, I'm sure.

[YankeeMom]

Here you go Valerie


This is from when we first moved here (2004) the only difference is those bushes in front of the house on both sides are cut waaaay back.

Forgot to mention the 11ft ceilings downstairs & the 9ft ceilings upstairs. But the nice thing is with all the windows we don't use m any lights. Even at night we are usually all in the same room and only that room has lights on. The kids are really good at turning off the lights behind them. Plus this house has ALOT of interior doors (19 not including closet doors) so we can close off rooms and even whole portions of the house (which we often do).

[Valerie in WA]

Oh Heather! I'm drooling! (...comparison is the death of contentment...my house is adequate to my needs...)

Your house is lovely! Thanks for sharing!

[YankeeMom]

Thank you
I do love it. But I won't be too sad when we move next summer. If it's not one thing it's another with these old houses.

And after looking at your signature, I won't tell you what it cost us Then you really would faint!

[owiebrain]

I'm also in Oklahoma and our electric bill is ridiculous! During the winter, it's actually pretty low but, come summer, it's insane.

I pulled out this month's bill, covering 10/24 through 11/23. Total KWH usage is 1130 and the bill is $117.

That's running only a fridge, a (completely packed full chest freezer), a computer, a television, and 3-4 lights. Heat, laundry, stove, etc are not on there. We do occasionally use a crockpot, roaster oven, and microwave but not really that much. During summer, we run a window air conditioner and the bill bumps up to around $250 to $300 per month.

Very scary.

[pammy]

Darlene,
This fan has two settings, fan or heat. On fan the air is forced down to cool. On heat it goes in the opposite direction, and has 4 heaters (it uses 1-4 depending on how much it must heat to desired temp) to help warm the room. Supposedly. Other people that have them say it works very well, but I don't feel it. Here's a link http://www.buyreiker.com/ The concept is great. I found a big draft yesterday that was near the fan and temporarily plugged it up, will report later if this helped or not.

Valerie,
Yup, all portable heat. It did totally disable the gas when dh hit the line (you shoulda heard him cussing! lol), thank goodness he had it turned off at the time, yikes. The central heat system ran on gas. We still have the inside and outside system and all the duct work and still use the central airconditioning and they work fine, so I'm hoping all I would need to buy is the outside heat pump unit. That wouldn't be so bad and would probably pay for itself in no time, a new one being more efficient than my present one. Here's a question: heat pumps are totally electric, correct? It doesn't need any other type of fuel to heat the coils when the temps fall too low, right? And you're getting one today, is that $2000 including labor? Not too unreasonable. Will want to call around and get pricing on one soon, hopefully can get one round that price range myself.

Heather,
You house is gorgeous! So very charming! Trying to gage how you put that "I won't tell you what it cost us Then you really would faint!" Is that good or bad? Seems housing is cheaper where I'm from, other places are outrageous. No matter, I love a house with character and yours rocks!

Hi Owiebrain!
A fellow Oklahoma, cool. Have to agree with ya, the electric has gone outrageous. I think part of the reason my bill is high right now is I'm still trying to pay off the average from the summer. I think the companies take turns gouging us. It's summer so let the electric company raise their rates while the gas company lowers theirs. When winter hits then they switch. So they can gouge us both ways. grrrr........

[Valerie in WA]

Heather I wouldn't faint. The 'average' home sales price in my area is currently about $350,000. My house is old (yucky old, not antique-y old like yours), and we got into it 6.5yrs ago. With values going up 9-10% EACH year. We paid $150,000 (yes, my mortgage is more - we rolled in a cc about 4 years ago when we re-fi'd) and it's now worth $250,000. I'm guessing your house was probably more than double mine (do I hear triple?) That home in a nice Seattle neighborhood would probably easily fetch $500,000. That's why I don't live in Seattle.

Diane, ouch!

Pammy, my heat pump (outside unit only) was about $2000 installed (including labor). I didn't actually get a bill yet; it will be mailed. We got two other estimates from local companies that were $2500 and $2800. The guy that did ours is an associate of my dh's, so he gave us the best price that he could and still earn a profit. I'm not sure he'll be claiming the income for tax purposes. If he's not, that explains some of the difference.

It was so nice to be toasty last evening. With the old unit always frosting up, we were having trouble maintaining our usual temperature.

[YankeeMom]

Originally posted by Valerie in WA
Heather I wouldn't faint. The 'average' home sales price in my area is currently about $350,000. My house is old (yucky old, not antique-y old like yours), and we got into it 6.5yrs ago. With values going up 9-10% EACH year. We paid $150,000 (yes, my mortgage is more - we rolled in a cc about 4 years ago when we re-fi'd) and it's now worth $250,000. I'm guessing your house was probably more than double mine (do I hear triple?) That home in a nice Seattle neighborhood would probably easily fetch $500,000. That's why I don't live in Seattle.

I think you'd faint for the opposite reason.
We mortgaged for 108k. That included the closing costs.

[Valerie in WA]