Electric bills

[Ginevra]

Nothing like hearing some extremely off-the-wall outrageous electric bill to make one feel like one's own outrageous electric bill is not so horrid perhaps. Of course this will vary for a multitude of reasons, but how does your electric bill average out during the highest use months. (For us, it's January and February, then August). My bill ATM is quite possibly the highest it has ever been; it is >$400.

 

However, DH went to a customer's house today and he complained of winter bills in excess of $2,000/mth. (!) His house is not as big as ours, but his heat is heat pump, while ours is either oil-fired or wood-burning furnace, depending on how DH sets it. I'm thinking something is wrong in that guy's house. What are your bills like?

[Butter]

$2,000?!?!?!  WHAT?!?!?

 

I live in San Antonio and our electric costs are WAY lower than where I have lived in MD and VA.  We have a bit over 3,000 square foot house.  Our electric bill is usually right around $200 in August.  That's our highest use month.  It's slightly lower in July and December/January which are our next two highest use months.  The rest of the year it runs $125-$150 per month.  Our house is all electric.  I keep the temperature at 70 in the winter (set to 70... it's 71 right now and the heat hasn't run all day - it's 61 outside currently) and 80 in the summer.

[Arcadia]

My highest is $33 per month for my one bedroom 865sqft condo. My lowest is less than $20. We don't use the central heating or air-con. Weather is moderate year round, bundle up if cold, beach attire if warm.

 

ETA:

Gas water heater and gas fireplace. Bill for gas is less than $10 per month maximum.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Med. house, less than $200, temperate climate, gas furnace.  

 

Had to vote other on poll because there is no option for not having any of those special features.

[Guest]

Med. house, less than $200, temperate climate, gas furnace.

 

Had to vote other on poll because there is no option for not having any of those special features.

Oh! Oversight in poll creation! I fixed it. Thanks for pointing it out!

[Zinnia]

We average $250/month year round for heating and cooling.  The high point for electric is August, when it's about $350.  We have gas heat. 

 

1100 sq feet, original 1950s windows, the worst insulation ever, 6 people, keep it right at the edge of uncomfortable (62 in winter, 77 in summer). 

[ashfern]

Our electric in the winter is cheap because we have gas heat. In the summer I keep the AC set at 78-80 otherwise the bills would be crazy high.

[hornblower]

I average our payments over the year & it's ~150/month.

 

we heat with natural gas though

eta - water tank is natural gas too

 

but I have a small electric oil filled heater by our work table.

& in the summer we run a portable a/c only in the bedrooms.

we have an outdoor hot tub that's heated by electricity & that is a fair chunk of our bill

 

2600 sq ft house

 

lots of lights because I like it bright! But most are cfl except for a bank of halogens in the kitchen....

[Annie G]

Ours is $170 a month, year round billing. However, we use natural gas to heat the house and the hot water heater is also gas.   Our natural gas bill is not on budget billing, so it fluctuates between $20 in the summer to about $400 or a little more in the coldest months.  Adding up our natural gas for 2014, and dividing it by 12, our monthly average was $160. So electric and gas total was $330.  But 2014 was a really cold winter so that is a little higher than average. 

 

Our house is large, and it was built in 1880 and has the original windows. So definitely not energy efficient, especially considering the windows are 85 inches high and there are 30 of them. Also we live in Illinois, which has notoriously high electric rates. 

 

[Amira]

Electric heat is really expensive.  When we've had it we've kept the temperature in the house low.  I can do 60 in a dry climate, but I need it a little warmer than that in a damp one. One house we had with electric heat had a wood stove and that was wonderful.

 

I hate hot weather, but the environmentalist in me can't crank up the A/C so we try to use it as little as possible. I don't think we've ever paid more than $150/month (and the average would be under $100/month) for heating or cooling anywhere we've ever lived.  We've nearly always lived in smaller houses around 1000 sq ft and I've been line drying for 10 years which makes a huge difference since electric dryers use a lot of energy.

 

Right now we live in a place where the weather is pleasant almost all year and we can get by with ceiling fans in the afternoon during the few warm months we have.

[Melissa B]

I voted $300-$400.

 

 

ETA - that is the average in the high-use season (for us that would be summer.) If I averaged it out over the year it would probably be around $250.

 

Also, I just remembered that our electric bill is a joint electric/water bill. I don't know how much of that is water - probably a lot, as there are six of us and two of those six take long showers!

 

 

[Laura Corin]

£115 per month in highest month, so about USD170.  Our heat and hot water are gas, topped up with a wood stove and we have no air conditioning.  So the electricity is just appliances, including the oven but not the hob.

 

ETA: the gas is LPG (delivered to a tank under the back lawn) and costs us around £4,000 (USD6,000) a year.  The wood for the wood stove is free.

[redsquirrel]

Our bills go up and down according to the season. This is our high demand time of year. Out bill won't go over 200$ though. In the warm months it is almost nothing.

 

Ours is lower than most people that live around here, but that is because I keep the heat set low..  Currently it is 27 degees Fahrenheit outside, which is normal for this time of year, and 60 inside.  I own a lot of wool, lol.  I look like a wooly mammoth when I walk around the house. We don't have central a/c, but we do have some window units in the bedrooms. We turn those on for a few hours in the summer when it gets over 85 degrees.

 

We have natural gas and a boiler and our heat is hot water baseboard. Our hot water heater runs off the boiler, so it is also natural gas.

 

Our electricity, which is lights and anything we plug in is very low. We are in the process of converting our electric to solar and we were told by the company doing the work that our electricity usage is some of the lowest they have seen. They kept asking, "Are you sure you have four people living in this house?"  Lol, yes, I am quite sure there are four of us.  I don't think we do anything special to keep electricity costs down, so I am not sure why it is so low. I only use those super efficient light bulbs, but I doubt that is all of it.  DH thinks it is because we don't have a big television or  entertainment/game system that so many people seem to have. We do any watching of movies etc on our laptops and I guess that charging laptops doesn't take a huge amount of power? I don't know. That is really the only thing that seems 'different' about our house.

 

I said we have a medium sized house, it is 1,200 sq ft.

[happypamama]

$2000, and in this area (not the frozen northeast) is terrible!

 

We have a mediumish house, but it's old and maybe a bit drafty and not as efficient as it could be. We have all electric appliances and heat the upstairs (and the laundry room) with electric baseboards, while the downstairs (minus the laundry room) is heated by an exterior wood burning furnace (which uses a little electricity to run it, but not like heating would). We've done the math to see if it's worth converting the upstairs to wood, and the infrastructure needed would be expensive, so we stick with what we have. We have done a few things to make it more energy efficient, like a couple of storm doors and some stuff so that our basement isn't leaking so much air. Those have helped a lot.

 

We have a budget plan, where we pay the same thing, regardless of whether we use much electricity or not, and they adjust it every three months, and then once a year, they settle up with us, and either we have a small bill, or we owe more. I don't like to owe more, so I pay the same amount, even if the budget plan tells me to pay less. August is usually very high because we have window AC units (and in 2013, when I was pregnant and due in August, July and August were quite high!), but last year, it was a mild summer, so July and August were very low (which helped make up for March and April being cold). I rely on April and October to be very mild, not needing heat or AC, so they balance things out, letting me catch up and get ahead. So we were way ahead last year because the summer was mild, and we were able to pay ahead for this winter. Our bills settle up in January, so we ended up with a small bill this month, and then next month, which is usually a very high one, I will pay the usual amount (just under $300). I won't pay enough to pay January and February completely, but I'll get a little closer in March, and it should be paid up by April, and then I'll start paying ahead for the summer,

[LucyStoner]

$70 a month for a 900ish sf apartment. Electric is everything- hot water, heat, lights.

 

The advantage of apartment living is that we benefit from our neighbors heat.

 

We do wear sweaters indoors in the winter though.

[MomtoCandJ]

Ours in the summer runs a little over $100. We have a gas furnace and live in a mobile home. We have trees all around to provide shade so the window A/C is mainly used when it's humid out. We live in Michigan about 11 miles from Lake Huron so it's cold in winter.

[Amira]

$70 a month for a 900ish sf apartment. Electric is everything- hot water, heat, lights.

 

The advantage of apartment living is that we benefit from our neighbors heat.

 

We do wear sweaters indoors in the winter though.

 

We lived in a multi-story building one winter in a cold climate and never had to turn the heat. The apartment was much warmer than we were used to.

 

And that reminds me of apartments in Bishkek.  We had to keep the windows open almost all winter because we couldn't control the temperature and it was so hot.  The only time we needed to close them was when it was well below zero (Fareinheit) for several days.

[Loowit]

Ours runs around $175 to $250 a month in the cold weather.  It is down from when we bought the house years ago because we have done some things to lower our electric usage.  We have all LED light bulbs which surprised me that it made noticeable difference in our bills.  We also keep the temp a bit lower than we used to.  And about a year or two ago a company cleaned out and sealed our forced air heating ducts for "free".  It was paid for by a grant though our local public utilities department.  I would like to get new windows but we can't afford it right now.  I am sure that would help also.  We have a heat pump and it has to work hard in the cold.  It has been a fairly mild winter right now, so our bills are lower than in colder years.  Our house is around 1,500 square feet.  I also know that the cost is expected to go up this year as is our water/sewer bill.

[Laura Corin]

Nothing like hearing some extremely off-the-wall outrageous electric bill to make one feel like one's own outrageous electric bill is not so horrid perhaps. Of course this will vary for a multitude of reasons, but how does your electric bill average out during the highest use months. (For us, it's January and February, then August). My bill ATM is quite possibly the highest it has ever been; it is >$400.

 

However, DH went to a customer's house today and he complained of winter bills in excess of $2,000/mth. (!) His house is not as big as ours, but his heat is heat pump, while ours is either oil-fired or wood-burning furnace, depending on how DH sets it. I'm thinking something is wrong in that guy's house. What are your bills like?

 

Is it air source heat pump or ground source heat pump?  If it's air source, there can be a problem in the winter when the weather gets too cold, the system no longer works and you are basically just using electricity for heat.

[Guest]

Our bills go up and down according to the season. This is our high demand time of year. Out bill won't go over 200$ though. In the warm months it is almost nothing.

 

Ours is lower than most people that live around here, but that is because I keep the heat set low.. Currently it is 27 degees Fahrenheit outside, which is normal for this time of year, and 60 inside. I own a lot of wool, lol. I look like a wooly mammoth when I walk around the house. We don't have central a/c, but we do have some window units in the bedrooms. We turn those on for a few hours in the summer when it gets over 85 degrees.

 

We have natural gas and a boiler and our heat is hot water baseboard. Our hot water heater runs off the boiler, so it is also natural gas.

 

Our electricity, which is lights and anything we plug in is very low. We are in the process of converting our electric to solar and we were told by the company doing the work that our electricity usage is some of the lowest they have seen. They kept asking, "Are you sure you have four people living in this house?" Lol, yes, I am quite sure there are four of us. I don't think we do anything special to keep electricity costs down, so I am not sure why it is so low. I only use those super efficient light bulbs, but I doubt that is all of it. DH thinks it is because we don't have a big television or entertainment/game system that so many people seem to have. We do any watching of movies etc on our laptops and I guess that charging laptops doesn't take a huge amount of power? I don't know. That is really the only thing that seems 'different' about our house.

 

I said we have a medium sized house, it is 1,200 sq ft.

Yea, large TV/entertainment systems hog electricity, according to Consumer Reports. Clothes dryers and large refrigerators are higher-use, too.

 

I dream of having solar units. That would be amazing.

[ScoutTN]

We have a 1400 sq. ft ranch in TN and our electric runs highest in late summer. It would be about $200, but we have balanced billing so we pay $140 all year. Very helpful with budgeting!

We have gas heat but an electric water heater, dryer and stove.

[Guest]

Is it air source heat pump or ground source heat pump? If it's air source, there can be a problem in the winter when the weather gets too cold, the system no longer works and you are basically just using electricity for heat.

I don't know. dH talked to the guy and urged him to consider a high-efficiency heat pump. Apparently, the guy said putting in a new unit would be too expensive, but gee...at that rate, it would be paid for in one winter.

[Guest]

My highest is $33 per month for my one bedroom 865sqft condo. My lowest is less than $20. We don't use the central heating or air-con. Weather is moderate year round, bundle up if cold, beach attire if warm.

That would be dreamy!

[Sarah CB]

We have electric baseboard heating and we also have a propane fireplace that we sometimes put on in the evenings.  Our house is about 3000 sq. feet and it's brand new - so good windows and doors and everything is sealed.  I just paid December's bill - $550.  :(  

 

I've been running around reminding everyone to turn off their lights and put on a sweater.  Oh, we also have programmable thermostats in all of the main rooms and bedrooms so we don't heat rooms that aren't in use.

 

[Tess in the Burbs]

utility bills vary based on where you live.  We have lived in many different states and while the COL is high where we are now, the utility bills are WAY lower than we had in VA and NC.  In fact, water in VA was super expensive. I am paying the lowest water bill in over a decade now.  Same with our elec/gas bill.  I do have trash though :|

 

And I know our house here has no insulation.  I can't imagine what it would be if they would actually put insulation under the siding or in the garage ceiling.  Rates vary from region to region.  

[redsquirrel]

Yea, large TV/entertainment systems hog electricity, according to Consumer Reports. Clothes dryers and large refrigerators are higher-use, too.

 

I dream of having solar units. That would be amazing.

 

Our clothes drier is gas, so that also saves us money. My fridge is 10 years old, so it would be good to replace with a more efficient model, but I think it is on the small side. Everyone's fridge seems bigger than mine, lol. I am always complaining that we don't have enough space.

 

I have a programmable thermostat, one upstairs and one down. I think that saves us quite a bit.  I have the heat bump up to 68 degrees from 5am-8am and then it goes down to 60 until 6pm-9pm when it goes back to 68.  My house is well insulated so in general it holds the heat pretty well until the next time.  Today it was well below freezing this morning and cold all day. It is cold in the house but the heat hasn't come on yet. Sometimes it is so cold that it comes on at 4pm. That is when I know it is really cold, lol

[heartosunshine]

This past summer, we bought a new HVAC system that literally cut our electric & gas payments in half! Huge savings and the house is so much more comfortable.

[kewb]

Now I feel like my equal billing plan for gas and electric going up to $256 per month is not so bad. During high use time June-August our bill is in the $400 range. The coldest months put us near that range, too. I would say our house is medium sized. It definitely helped our heating and cooling costs when we replaced all the original windows that were from 1938.

 

I am always walking around unplugging chargers and unused appliances and turning off lights.

[Guest]

Our last bill was $201, but it's normally from about $180-just under $200 per month.  2,700 square foot house.  I keep the heat at 71, air conditioner at 74.

[melmichigan]

We are on a budget plan so I actually had to go look this up!  I voted $200-$300 because we just tip over that during high use months.  The max in the last 6 months being $217 for December while running all the Christmas lights outside.  It's just under that in the hottest months of summer to run the air conditioning.  We have a 2,200 sq. ft. house.  We have a programable thermostat and natural gas furnace.

[DawnM]

Right around $200.  

 

I don't know what the house size should be, what do you consider large and very large?

[greenvneck]

Ours is averaged throughout the year; it's usually around $320-350. But before we switched to averaged billing our electric bills July-Sept were at least $600, usually closer to $700 or even $750. We have a gas heater, so not as much use in winter. 3000sf house and a/c set at 74 in summer in Texas.

[foxbridgeacademy]

Ours is somewhere between 250-350 at it's highest (thermostat is set at 69-70 in winter and 73-74 in Summer).  We live in S. Indiana and it's not unusual to have Winter lows in the NEGATIVE single digits and sometimes teens.  Summers can be in the low 100's but usually only for a couple days otherwise 85-95 with some rare cooler days.  My house is about 1600 sq. ft. older with old windows and we have a heat pump.  

 

My mom has a wood burning furnace and they pay maybe $50 per month for electricity, less now that they hooked up the furnace to be the water heater too.  They also use the furnace to heat the pole barn garage and greenhouse.  Her plan is to be entirely off grid in about 5 years, I'm jealous. 

[Guest]

Now I feel like my equal billing plan for gas and electric going up to $256 per month is not so bad. During high use time June-August our bill is in the $400 range. The coldest months put us near that range, too. I would say our house is medium sized. It definitely helped our heating and cooling costs when we replaced all the original windows that were from 1938.

 

I am always walking around unplugging chargers and unused appliances and turning off lights.

Ha! One day, I found TEN chargers draining energy, charging nothing. I went on a rampage!

[Guest]

Right around $200.

 

I don't know what the house size should be, what do you consider large and very large?

Meh. I was trying to go with one's gut because perception of house size also varies by region. I call our house "large," but I am sure some would call it "very large." My house is about 4200 sq. ft., but now that our basement is finished space, it is more. However, I already thought 4200 was embarrassingly large, so I don't even want to do the math to give a new sq. footage. ;)

[Barb_]

Meh. I was trying to go with one's gut because perception of house size also varies by region. I call our house "large," but I am sure some would call it "very large." My house is about 4200 sq. ft., but now that our basement is finished space, it is more. However, I already thought 4200 was embarrassingly large, so I don't even want to do the math to give a new sq. footage. ;)

Then if I were you, I'd be thankful, lol I voted that our house was large at about 3100sqft and no basement. Our high season here in Phoenix is obviously summer rather winter. In the winter with five kids in the house, our energy bills run about $130. In the summer they are closer to $550.

[Stratford]

Our bill is $100 or so in the low seasons, $200 or just above in the high season (summer and very cold winter.)  We have a 2600 sq ft house in PA with central air and natural gas forced-air heat.  

[Ewe Mama]

2600 sf, gas heating. Our electric bill is usually $40 in the summer and $85-$100 in the winter.

[Mommy22alyns]

Our high use season is summer, and the house is tiny, so just over $100 a month. Winter is gas furnace, but we keep the temp low, maybe 65 or so for daytime.

[DawnM]

Meh. I was trying to go with one's gut because perception of house size also varies by region. I call our house "large," but I am sure some would call it "very large." My house is about 4200 sq. ft., but now that our basement is finished space, it is more. However, I already thought 4200 was embarrassingly large, so I don't even want to do the math to give a new sq. footage. ;)

 

 

Ok, our house is around 4200 with the basement.  3300 in the main part of the house, and 900+ sq. ft. of finished basement.

[Joker]

Ours is $100 year round (budget billing). We're in Florida and our home is only 1000 sq. ft.

 

ETA: I looked ours up since we use our electric company's budget billing option. August is our only big month and it looks like it would normally be $160. January is the lowest at $60. The rest are mostly around that $100 mark which is why that is what we pay year round.

[edelweiss]

Our heating bill was the highest it has ever been this past month due to the Christmas lights.  It was about $1,150.  I think it is typically more like $850 in December and $650 a month during the other winter months.  

 

We have a very large house and no special heating features. 

[MicheleinMN]

Our electric bill runs between $100 and $200 per month, but we heat with propane, and I just wrote out a $700 check to them.  

[Guest]

Our heating bill was the highest it has ever been this past month due to the Christmas lights. It was about $1,150. I think it is typically more like $850 in December and $650 a month during the other winter months.

 

We have a very large house and no special heating features.

Yikes! I do think Christmas decorations make our first bill of the year higher than heat burden alone would. However, we don't have any exterior lights, so it's just window candles, Trees, and a mantle swag.

[AmandaVT]

We do the monthly budget with out electric company and are paying $250/month. Winter is our most expensive by far - we have radiant heat, our water heater is propane, but it has an electric starter. We also have a well pump and septic system, which isn't cheap. Our electric company just announced a rate decrease, so I'm expecting our bill to go down a notch when that kicks in.

[Mom22ns]

My bill peaks at just over $200 in August. Our house is 3500 sq ft. I'm not really sure how that rates on your size chart. 

[rebbyribs]

Our highest electric bill in the past year was $33.  We have gas heat, a gas hot water heater, and a gas clothes dryer.  Our natural gas bill ranges from $20 to $65 per month.  Our house is about 1300 sq ft in the San Francisco Bay Area.  The climate is pretty mild, so we hardly ever have nighttime temperatures below freezing, and while there are a few hot weeks each year where temperatures get into the 80s and 90s, it cools off in the evening and most people don't have air conditioning. 

 

Our electric company keeps sending us letters showing that we use more electricity than "efficient similar homes".  They don't take into account how many people live in those homes though, and I think we're outliers in having 7 people in 1300 square feet.

 

[KungFuPanda]

Our bill is $300-$400, but that's electric and gas. It breaks down to about half and half. My house is medium-sized (just under $2000 sq feet. We keep it cold year-round, so we probably use more energy in the summer :-/ I'd like to replace the fireplace with a wood-burning insert, but that's about 5k. We are gradually replacing our huge, 40-year-old windows. Most of the downstairs windows are 4X6. That's nuts!

 

Recently I'm working this scheme where I leave the basement door open so the heat can rise. It always seems warm down there, but my family members keep being 'helpful' and closing it for me.

[Dory]

I wasn't sure how to vote.

 

Our last bill was $375 and that was through -40 temperatures with a waterer for the horses. BUUUT, our house isn't heated with electricity, but by in floor heating with a natural gas heater. Our stove is also natural gas. Our last gas bill was about the same as our power bill. We don't have anything extra to help the house out and we have a shop/barn we heat with the natural gas too.

 

So are you wanting energy bill (both together) or are you wanting electricity bill only?

[Guest]

I wasn't sure how to vote.

 

Our last bill was $375 and that was through -40 temperatures with a waterer for the horses. BUUUT, our house isn't heated with electricity, but by in floor heating with a natural gas heater. Our stove is also natural gas. Our last gas bill was about the same as our power bill. We don't have anything extra to help the house out and we have a shop/barn we heat with the natural gas too.

 

So are you wanting energy bill (both together) or are you wanting electricity bill only?

Yeah, I knew this would be one difference that would come up. I don't have natural gas, so I don't know how thw bills look, but I am assuming you can see that the elec. was $X and the gas was $Y. So, I guess in that case, I'm asking what the elec. portion is only.

 

I did expect the thread would be where people could point out explanations.