Long story short, my electric bill is out of control. It had been running about $300 a month during the summer (we live in Texas...and, no, I'm not going to go without a/c when it's 90+, even if it means working a few more years...) and about $100 in the cooler months.
Then last year, we installed new energy efficient windows, redid our siding, and installed a radiant barrier in the attic. It should be going down, right? It's not. It's going up. We hit $450 at our highest month this past summer, and even for November, when we didn't even use the a/c at all (nor the heater, except for a couple nights) it still was nearly $300 (for a 1,600 sq foot house). What's going on?
We've replaced about 1/2 of our lightbulbs with LED, and are slowly replacing the others as they burn out. We got a wattage meter and tested most of our plug-in appliances, and nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary.
So that leaves me with the things that weren't easy to energy test - our major appliances (which we just replaced off Craigslist about six months ago, but the new appliances are all energy-star rated), our ac/heater on the fritz somehow, or perhaps one of our pets building a nuclear reactor in the attic...
Thoughts? Advice? People who have been through it?