Author Topic: Just spent 14k insulating the house and my electric bill is the same - what?!  (Read 3960 times)

MrsSpendyPants

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 138
I've had two energy audits and both pointed to our attic as being extremely inefficient.  The insulation was old and on the floor of the attic while our HVAC trunk was above that and there was no insulation at the roof.  Both energy audits said we should see about a 30-40% reduction in electricity bills if we fixed our attic insulation. 

We met with a bunch of vendors - cellulose, fiberglass, and finally went with the commercial blown spray foam insulation that basically capped the roof.  They even spent two days removing all of the old insulation on the floor of the attic so as to keep the attic and the house the same temperature and thus cause the hvac to be more efficient.  2800 square foot ranch on a slab that was built in parts so lots of trusses going in different directions so they could only send small guys to do it and it took about a week to finish.  13.7k in insulation and labor.  This was in September.

All of our lights are LED and we have a supplemental wood stove that we use from wood we harvest on our property.  We have no natural gas available so our heat is a heat pump and baseboards which we have not turned on this year yet.  We live in the midatlantic so our temps at night have been in the 30s and our daytime temps in the 50s.

I just logged into my online electricity account and it's telling me we used the same amount of electricity as we did last year - 1805 kWh from end of October to now in November.

How is that possible?  What am I doing wrong?  What am I missing?  To say I am tearing my hair out over this is an understatement as we made this a huge priority and spent a fortune trying to get our monthly spending down in this category and it doesn't seem to have made a difference.

Help!

PMG

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1608
  • Location: USA
Did they skip reading the meter and just do an estimate this month?

MrsSpendyPants

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 138
Nope we have one of those smart readers that sends an actual read every month now instead of having someone come out.

Paper Chaser

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1851
Insulation doesn't pay off in mild weather. It pays off when you'd be using your HVAC a lot to condition the space. You'll notice the most difference in the coldest and hottest months.

habanero

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1145
Has the climate been roughly similar as last year so you are comparing apples to apples? Have you kept indoor temp around the same? To the latter its a fairly common thing that when improving energy efficiency of a home via better insulation, adding a mini-split or whatever part of the reduction in energy use is offset by higher indoor temperature (comfort vs money, if you like).

Our home is naturally a bit cool as our central heating system is a little under-dimensioned. I could easily see if we improved something we might end up raising indoor temp by a degree or two - as a ballpark you can save 5% energy for every degree (celcius) you reduce indoor temp.

Ans as pp said, you should notice the biggest diff when the temp delta between indoor and outdoor is at its highest.

uniwelder

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1697
  • Age: 44
  • Location: Appalachian Virginia
If you look at your month by month electricity usage, see when its at its lowest and highest.  You can try parsing out how much electricity gets used for everything else vs heating/cooling over the course of a year.  Late spring and early fall should be the bottom.  What was your total usage at these times and what was it mid-summer and mid-winter?

When the energy auditors said you'd save 30-40% on your electricity bill, I don't think that meant your total electricity.  I'm hoping they were referring to heating/cooling portion of the bill. 

By the way, how many sq ft is your house and how many people live there?  My wife and I are in a similar climate with a 1,700 sq ft ranch and all electric appliances/hvac and used about half of yours in this past month. 

edited to add--- when I log into my electric account, I can actually see a daily breakdown of usage.  If you're able to do the same, there might be a few days you can look at specifically when the hvac should be generally inactive.  For example, this past October 4-15th had average temperatures around 65 degrees where I am.  You can try using something like this as your base point of comparison for non-hvac related usage vs hvac.

edited to add-- I just realized you said in the original post that your house is a 2,800 sq ft ranch on slab.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2021, 05:59:19 AM by uniwelder »

Omy

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1726
If you haven't turned on your heat or ac since the insulation was installed, you should notice no difference in your bill.

uniwelder

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1697
  • Age: 44
  • Location: Appalachian Virginia
If you haven't turned on your heat or ac since the insulation was installed, you should notice no difference in your bill.

When that was mentioned, I took it to mean the baseboard heaters specifically.

Paper Chaser

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1851
I guess if we want to dig deeper for other potential causes (besides mild weather and little HVAC use) it would help to know what the R value of your attic insulation was before (type of insulation and thickness). It would help to know what the R value is now (closed cell or open cell foam, and it's thickness). And it would hep to know if the insulation people did anything to close venting in your attic space. Spray foaming the roof deck is only beneficial if there is no way for the newly warmed air to escape. If they didn't close up any vents in the gables, soffits, roof, or ridge then you're just conditioning the outdoors now.

Papa bear

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1838
  • Location: Ohio
Just spent 14k insulating the house and my electric bill is the same - what?!
« Reply #9 on: November 23, 2021, 06:08:47 AM »
Well, you’re also now conditioning a much bigger space, as your attic is included in your building envelope.  And for overall efficiency in cold weather climates, insulating the rafters is less effective than insulating the ceiling of your top floor.

Do you know if your contractor used closed cell or open cell foam? How many inches of foam was installed? Do they have baffles to let your roof deck stay vented?  Do you have insulation over your rafters to prevent the thermal bridging of the wood?  Without more info, you still may not even have enough insulation!

As others have also mentioned, you haven’t been in the bulk of heating season either. You may see changes in the middle of January, as well as the peak of heat of summer, though not as drastic as the salesman mislead you to believe.  14k is a shit ton of money for insulation, and you were unlikely to see a material monetary return on it anyway.  You would have been much better off air sealing your ceiling and blowing in cellulose or fiberglass to R-60, while also taping the seams of your HVAC system and wrapping them in fiberglass duct insulation.  It would have been much cheaper (or easily DIY) and given you similar, if not better results based on how your spray foam was installed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

MrsSpendyPants

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 138
Well, you’re also now conditioning a much bigger space, as your attic is included in your building envelope.  And for overall efficiency in cold weather climates, insulating the rafters is less effective than insulating the ceiling of your top floor.

Do you know if your contractor used closed cell or open cell foam? How many inches of foam was installed? Do they have baffles to let your roof deck stay vented?  Do you have insulation over your rafters to prevent the thermal bridging of the wood?  Without more info, you still may not even have enough insulation!

As others have also mentioned, you haven’t been in the bulk of heating season either. You may see changes in the middle of January, as well as the peak of heat of summer, though not as drastic as the salesman mislead you to believe.  14k is a shit ton of money for insulation, and you were unlikely to see a material monetary return on it anyway.  You would have been much better off air sealing your ceiling and blowing in cellulose or fiberglass to R-60, while also taping the seams of your HVAC system and wrapping them in fiberglass duct insulation.  It would have been much cheaper (or easily DIY) and given you similar, if not better results based on how your spray foam was installed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Open cell and 5-6" per the invoice.  We had a vented roof but they sprayed over that.  Not sure on that last question.  Thanks for your thoughts

Paper Chaser

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1851
Open cell and 5-6" per the invoice.  We had a vented roof but they sprayed over that.  Not sure on that last question.  Thanks for your thoughts

Open cell foam has an R value about 3.7 per inch of thickness (similar to blown cellulose). If it's 6 inches thick, that's about R22 (equal to 6 inches of blown cellulose). Spray foam properly applied is great at air sealing, which can augment the R value, but depending on what you had before you may have essentially paid for the same R value that you had before, just better air sealing now.

Target R value for attics in the Mid-Atlantic is R38 minimum. With really great air sealing, your spray foam might get close to that effective R value, but it's still pretty much the minimum suggested for your area:

Papa bear

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1838
  • Location: Ohio
Well, you’re also now conditioning a much bigger space, as your attic is included in your building envelope.  And for overall efficiency in cold weather climates, insulating the rafters is less effective than insulating the ceiling of your top floor.

Do you know if your contractor used closed cell or open cell foam? How many inches of foam was installed? Do they have baffles to let your roof deck stay vented?  Do you have insulation over your rafters to prevent the thermal bridging of the wood?  Without more info, you still may not even have enough insulation!

As others have also mentioned, you haven’t been in the bulk of heating season either. You may see changes in the middle of January, as well as the peak of heat of summer, though not as drastic as the salesman mislead you to believe.  14k is a shit ton of money for insulation, and you were unlikely to see a material monetary return on it anyway.  You would have been much better off air sealing your ceiling and blowing in cellulose or fiberglass to R-60, while also taping the seams of your HVAC system and wrapping them in fiberglass duct insulation.  It would have been much cheaper (or easily DIY) and given you similar, if not better results based on how your spray foam was installed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Open cell and 5-6" per the invoice.  We had a vented roof but they sprayed over that.  Not sure on that last question.  Thanks for your thoughts
What climate zone are you in? 5-6” of open cell is inadequate in any colder climate area and wouldn’t meet minimum code.  You’re looking at an r value of 17-21, which is what you should have in your walls. 

If you had a vented roof and you had open cell foam sprayed over the venting system for your roof, you have bigger problems.  Your roof deck needs to have cold, fresh air under it to dissipate heat and prevent condensation.  Unless you can achieve a very high r value, typically only with closed cell foam at 7/in, you won’t be able to do that.  And even then it’s not looked at as best practice. You may have much bigger issues to deal with here, potentially with water condensing on your sheathing in the winter, causing mold and water damage, as well as voiding any warranty on your shingles, as they will have a much shorter lifespan. 

Sorry to give you the very bad news. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

uniwelder

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1697
  • Age: 44
  • Location: Appalachian Virginia
As I reread this, I keep thinking this sounds like a scam.  Otherwise, a horrible miscommunication between the auditors, yourselves, and insulation company.

There are some really weird things pointed out----
1) Two days to remove the old insulation.  Im' assuming these were faced batts of fiberglass.  Unless they were bagging it all in the attic before it came down to prevent dust spread, that should only take a couple hours.  Difficult to access areas aren't much of an issue because they probably didn't care to get every last bit out, plus can just pull the end of the batt or use a rake/fork.  Pulling out a batt takes 1/10 the time than it does to install.
2) Two energy auditors had the same recommendation for removing the existing insulation and sealing/insulating the attic space.  Did they provide any cost/benefit anaylsis or recommendations as to how much insulation to spray under the decking?  How the decision was made to spend 14k putting the same r-value in place that probably already existed is confusing.  As PapaBear said, blowing cellulose over the existing insulation and improving the ductwork would have been much cheaper and more effective.
3) Did the energy auditors give the recommendation for who to use for installing insulation?  It makes me wonder if they're owned by the same people or get hefty referral payments.

YttriumNitrate

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1836
  • Location: Northwest Indiana
You didn't say where in the mid-Atlantic you are located, but it is worth noting that in Annapolis, the first 22 days of November 2021 were 4.5 degrees colder than the first 22 days of November 2020.

If you are going to see a noticeable change, it will probably occur on really cold days when you would otherwise be using electric baseboard heating.

401Killer

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 157
13.7k in insulation and labor.

$13,700?! Wow, how long was it expected to be before you saved almost $14,000 in reduction of energy costs? I'm a bit taken back by anyone saying that a reduction of 30% to 40% will be realized. If it cost $300/mo it would take about a decade for it to pay itself off at the 40% reduction "estimate". I'm going to guess that the attic insulation was not that bad and the reduction is MUCH less than 30 to 40%.

Sorry, I hope this is all just due to weather differences.






« Last Edit: November 23, 2021, 10:21:59 AM by 401Killer »

sonofsven

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 2026
I think you'll need to wait a little longer to be sure, too many variables as others have mentioned.
I do build houses however, and while I don't consider myself the ultimate expert in all things insulation I do question the wisdom of sprayfoaming the underside of your roof and covering all the vents.
I do BIB insulation in the walls and two layers of batts in the ceiling.
I don't do blow in in the ceiling because it has to be done after drywall.
Insulating the flat ceiling is the way to go. You've created warmth in the attic but for what purpose?

Paper Chaser

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1851
I'm going to guess that the attic insulation was not that bad and the reduction is MUCH less than 30 to 40%.

It's probably a misunderstanding by somebody on some level. I think it's more likely that any evidence used as the base for such a claim probably said something like "it could reduce HVAC energy consumption by up to/as much as 30-40%", and somewhere along the line that turned into "it will reduce your bill by 30-40%". If HVAC is responsible for 45% of a utility bill (google says that's the average), then reducing that amount by 30-40% would be a 15% reduction in a bill for months that see a lot of HVAC use. And that's if the 30-40% energy reduction claim is reasonable for this specific home.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2021, 10:43:47 AM by Paper Chaser »

habanero

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1145
I do question the wisdom of sprayfoaming the underside of your roof and covering all the vents.

That's kind of an understatement, isn't it?

If I understand this correctly OP has now effectively transformed an attic, which by design was built to be cold into a heated space and in the process shut off the natural flow of air underneath the roof. Why they didn't suggest improving/replacing floor insulation in the attic to trap heat inside actual living space of the home comes accross as very odd. This should have potential to create a bucketlist of problems when it gets cold such as condensation in the attic, the roof being too warm so ice forms on the outside and so on.

Of course, I was never there, but would ask for a 2nd opinion from some knowledgable local builder.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2021, 11:01:30 AM by habanero »

nereo

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 17496
  • Location: Just south of Canada
    • Here's how you can support science today:
In addition to the other questions asked:

Did you do a follow-up (post insulation/air sealing) audit and lower door test? I’m frequently left dumbfounded at how trades-even insulation guys- can open up gaps as they try to seal others.

FINate

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3114
Roof vents are there for very good reasons. Same with things like weep holes on windows. Generally, any sort of vent that's there on purpose should not be removed/covered without and understanding of why it's there and what will change if sealed. It's not clear to me that this was considered as part of the project.

Did the company pull permits and was it subsequently inspected? Permitting requirements vary per jurisdiction, but it's important to note that they didn't just replace existing insulation. I would want to find out if what they did is up to code. Unless they accounted for venting elsewhere, you will almost certainly end up with damage from moisture and mold.

But it's difficult to know what's really going on via an online forum. You need to get a second opinion from an expert in your area to inspect the work. If it's in violation of code you may have grounds for legal recourse.

affordablehousing

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 778
I'm so sorry but like others suggest it doesn't sound like you got to a higher insulation value. I actually think that price seems pretty reasonable for the work they did, especially it being tight quarters and a difficult access, but other than bring the attic into the conditioned envelope. its unclear if you actually increased your insulation value. You could back up the foam with batts, do a lot of air sealing, replace your windows, etc. BUT DO LOTS OF YOUR OWN RESEARCH FIRST. And don't rely on an energy audit. I don't think those guys know what they are talking about.

YttriumNitrate

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1836
  • Location: Northwest Indiana
Insulating the flat ceiling is the way to go. You've created warmth in the attic but for what purpose?
I'm curious to see how their electric bill changes in the summer. It sounds like the unventilated attic is going to turn into a sauna in the summer.

In my current house, the attic was converted to living space, with insulation being placed between the roof and the ceiling. Even with two fans creating a draft through the attic, and good shade on the roof, it still gets 15-20 degrees warmer up there than other parts of the house.

Paper Chaser

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1851
Closing off vents when spray foaming is standard practice. The potential side effects are:
- hotter roof deck temps which can cause issues with asphalt roofing
- increasing the size of the HVAC envelope which can cause sizing issues with an existing HVAC system
- and a lack of proper air exchange can cause moisture issues (open cell foam might alleviate this to some degree since it's not a true vapor barrier).

Unvented spray foamed attics are great if designed that way from the start, but retrofitting buildings that weren't designed with foam in mind can be trickier.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2021, 11:19:21 AM by Paper Chaser »

Papa bear

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1838
  • Location: Ohio
Just spent 14k insulating the house and my electric bill is the same - what?!
« Reply #24 on: November 23, 2021, 01:51:04 PM »
Did they install a vapor barrier over your insulation?  My experience is all in colder climates.  Given that this is open cell foam, you can have vapor pass through the insulation and condense on your roof deck.

If it were my house in your current situation, I would use rigid XPS foam overlapped installed and taped over your rafters to)

1) increase total r value
2) stop the thermal bridging at your rafters
3) act as a vapor retarder

Please read here on unvented attic spaces and look to your climate zone for best practices.

https://www.buildingscience.com/documents/digests/bsd-102-understanding-attic-ventilation


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
« Last Edit: November 23, 2021, 01:54:30 PM by Papa bear »

bryan995

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 595
  • Age: 37
  • Location: California
Did you also look into solar?  That price seems wildly high for new insulation...  Not sure it will ever be recouped.

For 13k you could have installed solar panels which would ACTIVELY produce energy and offset costs instead of adding insulation which only PASSIVELY reduces energy costs. 

Sibley

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 7428
  • Location: Northwest Indiana
For comparison: I had insulation added to my attic this year. It cost around $2500 for them to airseal the tops of the wall and around ceiling penetrations then add 18 inches of blown in cellulose. This gets me up around R50 if I remember correctly. This resulted in an immediate reduction of the temperature (in the summer) of the upstairs. When I say immediate, I mean I came home after it was done, went upstairs to change out of my work clothes and said wow.

I've done a decent amount of research around how to insulate attics to make sure I did it right in my house. I'm sorry, but I think you just set yourself up for some very expensive problems in a few years. I'm really not sure how you managed to meet with multiple contractors and consider multiple types of insulation and ended up choosing what was pretty close to the worst option.

Abe

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2647
My costs for increasing insulation to R40 from R28 was similar to Sibley’s. I guess renovate the attic and now you have a bigger living space? I agree at very least you need an evaluation by a third party to see if this meets code.

affordablehousing

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 778
I just want to say that I don't think this was a "cost" problem or a "taking you for a ride" issue, it is an engineering problem that was addressed incorrectly.

Retire-Canada

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 8678
We just sold a 100+ year old poorly insulated house. Bad windows, bad doors, poor wall insulation, etc... The roof was the only thing reasonably well insulated with fiberglass on the attic floor. The house would be warm and the snow wouldn't melt on the roof.

As others have noted you need to figure out if your roof was designed for a cold attic. Sounds like it was. If so and you have now sealed/heated the attic you've got a problem. This is such an obvious error I have to believe the contractor that did the insulation work wouldn't have made the mistake, but crazier things have happened.

Despite our terribly inefficient house the savings on heating costs for my part of Canada were so low it would have taken forever to recover the investment. Assuming we stayed at the same level of heat/comfort.

PMG

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1608
  • Location: USA
If I remember right from other threads the OP has a lot of plates spinning right now. To @MrsSpendyPants All these responses sound really dismal. This really sucks. I don’t have any thing great to say but I wanted to give you some kind of encouragement.

Dicey

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 22318
  • Age: 66
  • Location: NorCal
Oh boy. First, contact your energy provider. Then reach out to the insulation company. If they are no help, post a brief,  factual blurb on every review site you can find. Something like "We spent X and it looks great, but our energy bill hasn't gone down." That will get their attention.

One possible ray of light is that you might still be able to add batts or cellulose and achieve the desired result. They may be willing to do that to get rid of you allay your concerns.

Story: Some replacement window companies will offer to increase attic insulation for "free" with a whole-house window installation. Why? It's a cheap way to ensure the bill goes down. We bought a house to flip where this had happened. When we gutted the interior, we collected all of the insulation (95 bags). I hauled it home, 13 bags at a time, wearing a Tyvek suit, in the middle of August. Ugh. We hauled it up into the attic of our ca. 2006 energy efficient home. Because it was recycled, there was some debris in it and we couldn't use a blower. We just dumped out the bags on top of the existing insulation and kicked it around a bit. (DH guesstimates that the R Value is now around 50.) Surprisingly, our energy consumption has gone down noticeably and our HVAC system kicks on a lot less.

Good luck to you. This must be incredibly frustrating.

NaN

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 458
I've had two energy audits and both pointed to our attic as being extremely inefficient.  The insulation was old and on the floor of the attic while our HVAC trunk was above that and there was no insulation at the roof.  Both energy audits said we should see about a 30-40% reduction in electricity bills if we fixed our attic insulation. 

We met with a bunch of vendors - cellulose, fiberglass, and finally went with the commercial blown spray foam insulation that basically capped the roof.  They even spent two days removing all of the old insulation on the floor of the attic so as to keep the attic and the house the same temperature and thus cause the hvac to be more efficient.  2800 square foot ranch on a slab that was built in parts so lots of trusses going in different directions so they could only send small guys to do it and it took about a week to finish.  13.7k in insulation and labor.  This was in September.

All of our lights are LED and we have a supplemental wood stove that we use from wood we harvest on our property.  We have no natural gas available so our heat is a heat pump and baseboards which we have not turned on this year yet.  We live in the midatlantic so our temps at night have been in the 30s and our daytime temps in the 50s.

I just logged into my online electricity account and it's telling me we used the same amount of electricity as we did last year - 1805 kWh from end of October to now in November.

How is that possible?  What am I doing wrong?  What am I missing?  To say I am tearing my hair out over this is an understatement as we made this a huge priority and spent a fortune trying to get our monthly spending down in this category and it doesn't seem to have made a difference.

Help!

What in the green earth gods, do you have a bitcoin farm going? Do you have a kid that is running some gaming computer 16 hours a day? (edit, just joking on bitcoin farming, but still...)

In my 2300 sq ft home with natural gas and a furnace, we used 240 kWh last month. Our heat turned on because of our zone, but since that is gas not heat pump at most we are paying a little more for the forced air fan running. Our base electric load is 160 kWh in the summer (we do not have AC). Seriously, what in your house is generating 1800 kWh in a month with no electric baseboard heating or AC!?!?! Our range/stove is gas, but we rarely use that during the summer (grill, salads, hummus).

Seriously, something seems amiss with 1800 kWh without heat. It seems that with heat in the coldest part of winter you could easily reach 4-6k MWh a month. Is that right?

If your electricity use is not tied to heat then you are targeting the wrong problem here with the insulation. Something else is going on in your house. I would find out what that is before worrying about the insulation.

edit: I usually won't suggest smart home devices but you might consider the Sense smart home device in this case. https://sense.com/ It is one stop for figuring out what is on in your house at all times. You might learn what the energy hog is.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2021, 08:04:12 PM by NaN »

maisymouser

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 550
  • Age: 32
  • Location: NC
I've had two energy audits and both pointed to our attic as being extremely inefficient.  The insulation was old and on the floor of the attic while our HVAC trunk was above that and there was no insulation at the roof.  Both energy audits said we should see about a 30-40% reduction in electricity bills if we fixed our attic insulation. 

We met with a bunch of vendors - cellulose, fiberglass, and finally went with the commercial blown spray foam insulation that basically capped the roof.  They even spent two days removing all of the old insulation on the floor of the attic so as to keep the attic and the house the same temperature and thus cause the hvac to be more efficient.  2800 square foot ranch on a slab that was built in parts so lots of trusses going in different directions so they could only send small guys to do it and it took about a week to finish.  13.7k in insulation and labor.  This was in September.

All of our lights are LED and we have a supplemental wood stove that we use from wood we harvest on our property.  We have no natural gas available so our heat is a heat pump and baseboards which we have not turned on this year yet.  We live in the midatlantic so our temps at night have been in the 30s and our daytime temps in the 50s.

I just logged into my online electricity account and it's telling me we used the same amount of electricity as we did last year - 1805 kWh from end of October to now in November.

How is that possible?  What am I doing wrong?  What am I missing?  To say I am tearing my hair out over this is an understatement as we made this a huge priority and spent a fortune trying to get our monthly spending down in this category and it doesn't seem to have made a difference.

Help!

What in the green earth gods, do you have a bitcoin farm going? Do you have a kid that is running some gaming computer 16 hours a day? (edit, just joking on bitcoin farming, but still...)

In my 2300 sq ft home with natural gas and a furnace, we used 240 kWh last month. Our heat turned on because of our zone, but since that is gas not heat pump at most we are paying a little more for the forced air fan running. Our base electric load is 160 kWh in the summer (we do not have AC). Seriously, what in your house is generating 1800 kWh in a month with no electric baseboard heating or AC!?!?! Our range/stove is gas, but we rarely use that during the summer (grill, salads, hummus).

Seriously, something seems amiss with 1800 kWh without heat. It seems that with heat in the coldest part of winter you could easily reach 4-6k MWh a month. Is that right?

If your electricity use is not tied to heat then you are targeting the wrong problem here with the insulation. Something else is going on in your house. I would find out what that is before worrying about the insulation.

240 kWh- I'm jealous and impressed. Our average consumption over the past year is ~900 kWh / month in our ~1700 sqfter. With that said, we charge an EV nearly daily, so that's a good 200+ kWh of our bill. We also heat a hot tub for about a third of the year when the weather is good for it (spring & fall). The latter is so not-Mustachian I am embarrassed to admit it, but yeah. I still don't think we could get it down below ~700 kWh if we tried. Not sure what draws the most electric. Hmm.

We DID have a major issue with high electric bills several years ago and were ultimately able to trace it back to an issue with our well pump- it was constantly on, I think there was a leak in the pipe or something so it was constantly running. The pump replacement was ~$1700 but our bills went down drastically. I agree with @NaN, have you worked with an electrician to identify any major electric vampires? And based on their reports of 240 kWh use, maybe I should do the same? lol.

cchrissyy

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1045
  • Location: SF Bay Area
I'm confused and sorry for whatever is going on.

Do you have a pool? Or run a lot of space heaters? I just don't get it but surely the energy auditors would have pointed to that if it's the case...

If my data points help at all from here in California, my monthly energy use without AC or electric car or electric heat and without counting any help from my solar production, is like, 400kwh, and, this year I increased my attic insulation by hiring a company to blow in over the good condition old stuff for $2500. 
« Last Edit: November 28, 2021, 12:19:15 PM by cchrissyy »

iluvzbeach

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1578
I looked at our electric bill that ran from 10/13 - 11/12 and we used 826 kWh. We are in Oregon in a 6-year old, single story, 1870 sq ft house. Our heater is gas, as is our stove, but the rest (including water heater) is electric. We didn’t use any A/C during that time period but did use the gas heater on occasion.

We are both at home pretty much all day, everyday, as hubby is FIREd and I WFH. We don’t have kids or anyone else living in the house. I’d have a really hard time figuring out how to use an additional 1,000 kWh. Something seems off on your usage. Any idea what might be drawing such a huge amount of power?

I should add that, although we do have LED lighting throughout the house and we try not to leave lights on when they aren’t being used, we aren’t as thrifty with our electricity usage as we could be. Our dryer is electric and we’ve been known to use it quite a bit, and my DH has battery tenders on various motorbikes in the garage. Lastly, we run a Dyson heater/fan in one of our bathrooms (while in the room) when it’s colder outside.

I think our next door neighbor would need to have their house plugged in to ours to achieve an 1800+ kWh usage during the month.

habanero

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1145
OP didn't say no heating, just that the baseboards are not used. The mini-split is running as far as I understand.

Retire-Canada

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 8678
Coastal BC Canada we used ~900kWh/month averaged over the last two months. We only have electrical power for everything including heat. We'd have a similar climate to Seattle. My GF works, but I am home everyday and the house is heated the whole day.

I ran a comparison with our utility company for our power usage vs. similar homes in our area. We are lower during the week, but higher on the weekends. With the differences being fairly small.

10 year old house ~1550sq ft.

uniwelder

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1697
  • Age: 44
  • Location: Appalachian Virginia
OP didn't say no heating, just that the baseboards are not used. The mini-split is running as far as I understand.

Yes, that’s my understanding too. Average temps 30-50’s during the month would be a bit ridiculous not to be heating.

habanero

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1145
I think our next door neighbor would need to have their house plugged in to ours to achieve an 1800+ kWh usage during the month.

It's hard to compare energy usage even for similar-sized homes in roughly same climate area. People live different lives, have different preferences for indoor temperature, have homes with different insulation standard. Some have teenage girls who live a large part of their lives under a hot shower, some hardly ever shower at home (like us...). Some heat the basement, some don't.

Compared to when our house is built, the insulation standard and where I live we use less electricity than "normal" and we even have an electric car as our only car. But we keep indoor temps bit on the low side as our central heating system is tad too small and we use a fair bit of firewood in the cold months. We are at a cabin a few weekends during the winter. With seeminly minor adjustments to general life our electricity usage would be significantly higher.

For us Im most surprised that we use almost 1000 kWh / month during the months we have hardly any heating - only the floor heating in the bathroom is on. We have no air-con so it's basically only stuff being on, hot tapwater + the electric car.

NaN

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 458
OP didn't say no heating, just that the baseboards are not used. The mini-split is running as far as I understand.

Yes, that’s my understanding too. Average temps 30-50’s during the month would be a bit ridiculous not to be heating.

Yeah, that was confusing in the original post - I took it as both were not on. But, yeah with 30 lows 50 highs the heat is for sure on. If the heat pump is on, eve if not the baseboards, then for sure the electricity could run high.

Out of curiosity, I looked up for a heat pump that is 60k BTU and 12 EER rating it would run at about 5kW. Say 900 kWh of the OP usage was the electricity from the heat pump (based on all you electric hogs out there commenting, haha, jking). That means the heater is running 6 hours a day for a 30 day period. I think a 25% duty cycle is not terrible (10-15 minutes every hour, maybe more in the evening, less in the day), might be on the low end. This math sort of looks right, done quickly, but curious to see if anyone disagrees. Of course, OP can have more than 900 of the 1800 kWh devoted to the heat pump, but ballpark looks reasonable.

uniwelder

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1697
  • Age: 44
  • Location: Appalachian Virginia
OP didn't say no heating, just that the baseboards are not used. The mini-split is running as far as I understand.

Yes, that’s my understanding too. Average temps 30-50’s during the month would be a bit ridiculous not to be heating.

Yeah, that was confusing in the original post - I took it as both were not on. But, yeah with 30 lows 50 highs the heat is for sure on. If the heat pump is on, eve if not the baseboards, then for sure the electricity could run high.

Out of curiosity, I looked up for a heat pump that is 60k BTU and 12 EER rating it would run at about 5kW. Say 900 kWh of the OP usage was the electricity from the heat pump (based on all you electric hogs out there commenting, haha, jking). That means the heater is running 6 hours a day for a 30 day period. I think a 25% duty cycle is not terrible (10-15 minutes every hour, maybe more in the evening, less in the day), might be on the low end. This math sort of looks right, done quickly, but curious to see if anyone disagrees. Of course, OP can have more than 900 of the 1800 kWh devoted to the heat pump, but ballpark looks reasonable.

Your numbers sound about right.

We live in about the same climate as OP, all electric appliances and heat, with a 1,700 sq ft house vs her 2,800 .  Our total electric usage was about half of OP's during the same time period, 840 kWh.  Base electric usage (non-heat) is about 300 kWh each month, so for our mini-split to run, that would have been about 550 kWh.  We're pretty low usage people in a smaller house, so I don't find OP's amount surprising, but for someone actively looking to cut back and willing to spend 14k to do so, I think there's definitely a good amount of fat to cut.

NaN

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 458
OP didn't say no heating, just that the baseboards are not used. The mini-split is running as far as I understand.

Yes, that’s my understanding too. Average temps 30-50’s during the month would be a bit ridiculous not to be heating.

Yeah, that was confusing in the original post - I took it as both were not on. But, yeah with 30 lows 50 highs the heat is for sure on. If the heat pump is on, eve if not the baseboards, then for sure the electricity could run high.

Out of curiosity, I looked up for a heat pump that is 60k BTU and 12 EER rating it would run at about 5kW. Say 900 kWh of the OP usage was the electricity from the heat pump (based on all you electric hogs out there commenting, haha, jking). That means the heater is running 6 hours a day for a 30 day period. I think a 25% duty cycle is not terrible (10-15 minutes every hour, maybe more in the evening, less in the day), might be on the low end. This math sort of looks right, done quickly, but curious to see if anyone disagrees. Of course, OP can have more than 900 of the 1800 kWh devoted to the heat pump, but ballpark looks reasonable.

Your numbers sound about right.

We live in about the same climate as OP, all electric appliances and heat, with a 1,700 sq ft house vs her 2,800 .  Our total electric usage was about half of OP's during the same time period, 840 kWh.  Base electric usage (non-heat) is about 300 kWh each month, so for our mini-split to run, that would have been about 550 kWh.  We're pretty low usage people in a smaller house, so I don't find OP's amount surprising, but for someone actively looking to cut back and willing to spend 14k to do so, I think there's definitely a good amount of fat to cut.

The 1800 kWh is pretty big from heating (assuming 900 kWh or more) and other (900 kWh from anything else??). If 300 kWh is base each month without heat, three times your usage seems high. Further, after insulation was reinstalled on one surface (ceiling) there was no change makes me think a) the heat loss was somewhere else and b) there is a lot of other electricity use.

Just a casual browse the heat loss from a ceiling could be around 25%. If the OP did go with 6" of the foam, which as mentioned might be R22, then they only improved that part at most by 40% if they had R13 insulation on the ceiling. If it was anything higher that is even less improvement. And actually with moving the insulation to the roof, assuming it is pitched, that increased the surface area and volume of the heated portion of the house, with the first being counter to improving insulation and the second being potentially more volume affected by infiltration heat loss. I think the improvement on the total heat loss of the house was, best case,  ~5% based on these numbers. And considering the total kWh used in a month is so high, I think that improvement is buried in the noise of year-to-year variability and other uses changes.

The OP could consider a power meter on the heat pump itself, but considering they have a mix of heat pump/baseboard that would be a very hard. I think the Sense tool could be the most useful to figure out what is taking the most power in the house.

Very strange.

Dicey

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 22318
  • Age: 66
  • Location: NorCal
FWIW, I just showed DH this thread. He says in CA, the new Title 24 Building Code specifies the roof and the ceiling be must insulated for energy efficiency.

NaN

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 458
FWIW, I just showed DH this thread. He says in CA, the new Title 24 Building Code specifies the roof and the ceiling be must insulated for energy efficiency.

https://energycode.com/2008-new-title-24-energy-code-summary/

A summary for anyone interested.


I think that's only for new construction or additions, and I from what I read R-22 is still the code for any alterations to existing structures (at least that is the 2016 version and not the 2022 one, slide 41: https://title24energyreports.com/docs/Decoding-Hi-Perf-attics-walls-handout-2016Code.pdf). Though, in OPs case they sealed off the attic, which is weird, so now the attic is conditioned space. All the new Title 24 code drafts where they are recommending insulating the roof is for vented attics. I am not sure what is required when someone has made their attic a conditioned space, if that is even up to code. From what I gather California likes vented attics for moisture control.