Electricity vent

[Theadyn]

I don't get why mine's so much higher than everyone else.  What am I doing wrong??

-A/C set to 80, we are in the hot part of the summer with around 100 degrees for the most of last month.
-Unplugged phantom users, entertainment center and the like are on smart strips.
-Using ceiling fans to move air and sleeping with light covering.
-Using my drying rack for laundry.
-Handwashing all dishes.
-Keeping blinds closed during hot part of day.
-Turning off and unplugging laptop most nights and days when working.
-Haven't used oven at all last month, toaster oven if oven is needed.
-CFL's in most lights, ones that aren't are very, very rarely used (which is why I haven't switched them yet).
-All appliances are energy star rated.
-Keeping A/C filter clean.
-Unplugged unnescessary  but pretty accent lights.

House is around 1100sqft (I thought it was smaller, drats), and it's just me.  Seriously, what am I missing?  My A/C unit is outdated, and sometimes can't keep up in the heat.  New units are expensive, and mine is functioning.  I think it was put in in 1993. But otherwise, why can't I get the bill down?  $129 last month for electricity just making me mad.  It was $93 the month before.

:(   *vent over*

[olivia]

How many kWh do you use each month?  That seems to be how posters measure usage here, because the cost is highly dependent on your area's electricity costs.  And if your AC is old and doesn't cool the house quickly, that's probably a power suck. 

[GuitarStv]

Just on the AC thing . . .
- have you draft proofed your house?
- are your windows leaky?
- do you use something like cellular shades to insulate the windows a bit?
- how's the insulation in your house?
- do you open the windows at night to cool the house down?

[seattlecyclone]

Some tips:

• Consider upgrading your home's insulation. The more insulation you have, the less heat will get in from outside, which means your air conditioner has to work less hard.
• You mention you have the air conditioner set to 80. Does it get colder than that at night? If it does, turn the air conditioner off at that time, open your windows, and use a fan to cool things down.
• Consider investing in a programmable thermostat. Unless you work from home, there are probably large parts of your day when the house doesn't need to be cooled down to 80 degrees. If you can program a thermostat to keep it at 80 only when you're actually there, you can save some money.

[Jamesqf]

Have you checked your actual use?  If your utility has not yet installed smart meters, they may not actually be reading the meter every month, just sending you an estimated bill based on your past use.

[Simple Abundant Living]

Is your water heater on electricity or gas?  As I understand it, a dishwasher uses much less water than hand washing.  YMMV. 

I am waging a war with the heat (and electricity usage) in my house.  If you live in an area with dry, cool evenings, you really can't beat a whole house fan.  Mine is an Airscape 1.7 WHF, and I love it.  It probably paid for itself in the second season, and that was with professional installation.  I have just ordered solar screen fabric to put over my windows with the most direct sunlight. 

[Jamesqf]

As I understand it, a dishwasher uses much less water than hand washing.  YMMV.

That depends on how you wash your dishes.  I think the people who use more water/energy by hand washing must be like some friends of mine, who leave the faucet running the entire time.

[Kriegsspiel]

This might be obvious, but I don't let my AC run during the day when I'm at work.

[Theadyn]

I do need a programmable thermostat, one of my bosses can install it, so I have looked into it, will run me around $100 to buy, he'll install for free.  That may help.  I work odd hours, but he showed how he can set temps and such from his phone at work if he wanted.  That's do-able.

It does get below 80 at night, will consider opening windows.  Only concerned about the light and noise keeping me up.  Assumed the AC wasn't running at night if it's cooler outside than in, maybe I'm wrong.  I live very close to the hospital where I work, and they have a helipad not 1/2 block from my house, they mediflight out a lot to Oklahoma City.  Also, neighbors keep this killer outside light on right by my bedroom windows all night long.  I'm one of those that likes total darkness and fan noise to drown out other noises to sleep.  I'm up for experiments though. :)

House should be very insulated.  I have only south facing double paned windows, as well.  Just measured, the walls are 12" thick all around.  Attic very insulated.

Front door may could use a little more weather stripping at the very top, I see a tiny bit of light, but otherwise, I'm draft proof.  Sun in summer is completely blocked from zero windows on north side of house and back door that is very solid and weather-stripped well.  Doggy-door on north side of house is through the wall, with a built on doggy-house that had pooch turning to exit west side, to prevent sun and north wind from coming into house.

From my bill it shows for a 32 day cycle, 1,382 kwh.  43 kwh per day.  Cost per day is $3.94.   I don't know if they actually come to read my meter, should I call and ask?

Thanks all!!!  :)   keep it coming

[Theadyn]

Forgot to add, my water heater is gas.   Gas water heater and central heat.  Gas bill is low now, of course, through summer.  And water/gas/sewage is pretty cheap here, less than $30 a month for all three.  Gas right now is about $30 a month, as well.   Kinda irks me as I'm only using gas for water heating these months of summer.   I'm working on that, as well.

[Rural]

Windows to the south mean you're getting more heat and light in, not less, assuming you're in the northern hemisphere.

Have you considered options for shade on the south side of the house? I don't know what your options may be, but if trees are out, trellises with vines are a good option that would shade in summer and let more light and heat in during the winter. The advantage of shade of blinds is that it keeps the heat completely out of the house instead of it heating up behind the blinds but still inside the house (which beats no blinds, hands down, but isn't ideal).

Check your bill, though. You may simply be paying a high price per kwh.

[seattlecyclone]

It does get below 80 at night, will consider opening windows.  Only concerned about the light and noise keeping me up.  Assumed the AC wasn't running at night if it's cooler outside than in, maybe I'm wrong.  I live very close to the hospital where I work, and they have a helipad not 1/2 block from my house, they mediflight out a lot to Oklahoma City.  Also, neighbors keep this killer outside light on right by my bedroom windows all night long.  I'm one of those that likes total darkness and fan noise to drown out other noises to sleep.  I'm up for experiments though. :)

The AC probably won't run if it's colder outside than in. The main benefit of opening the windows at night is that you can cool the house down below 80 degrees. The colder the better! Then the next day your house will take longer to get up to 80, so you'll be able to go longer without running the AC.

For the light issue, try one of those window fans and get curtains that cover the whole window except where the fan is.

[abuzzyisawesome]

I do need a programmable thermostat, one of my bosses can install it, so I have looked into it, will run me around $100 to buy, he'll install for free.

We actually got our programmable thermostat for around $30 on amazon, they have a nice selection.

[willn]

That does sound very high per day, even for summer, especially for 80F.

Change the air handler filter every few months?  When they get clogged the fan may be working harder to pull air.

Our highest month is August with 3 window units running more or less constantly, keeping things in the low-mid 70s and our usage comes in at 38kwh.  During winter that drops to 10 with gas heated hot water radiators.

We have new, efficient windows and good attic insulation but our walls are uninsulated.

What's your attic like? Is it insulated? Is it vented?

Hows usage in the winter?

[Trede]

If you don't have one, a roof/attic fan to pull outside air through the roof vents and exhaust the trapped hot air in the attic makes a big difference for keeping a house cool.  Hopefully that would mean reducing the total runtime of your A/C to reach the same temperature.   

[Daniel]

Got an account just to reply to this topic, but now I will probably stop just lurking and reply to some other topics.

Doing some simple calculations with the numbers provided leads to two interesting facts:
- Your $/kWh is a little over $0.09/kWh, which is actually quite cheap, the avg. cost of electricity in So. Cal is $0.16/kWh and large users can pay a lot more (were talking >$600 a month for people in the desert), so it could be a lot worse. I'm actually a little jealous of how cheap electricity is there.
- Your avg. power is 1.8 kW, this is pretty high, the equivalent of 78 CFLs on all the time. It's not unreasonable at all to expect your AC to use that much but it's not on 24 hours a day. As everyone else has said it's probably your AC using a lot of the electricity. Try to cool your house at night with windows/fans, get a whole home fan, turn up your thermostat during the day, anything to make your AC run less.

Also some other ideas for cutting your bill:
-Cities and Utilities often have plug in electric usage readers (i.e. Kill-a-Watt) for borrowing which you can use to measure how much electricty various things are using. (you can also buy them, but not as mustahcian) Some appliances start to use more power when they are about to break down, so that might be part of it.
-Clean the cooling coils on your fridge. Fridges use a lot of electricity, you can make them much more efficient by regularly cleaning their coils.
-If your AC has a fan (air handler) make sure it is set to turn off when the AC is off.
-If you do have a smart meter, you should be able to log into your electricity account at the utility and find your hourly usage, which could give you a better idea of when you are actually using the most electricity.
-Your oven is probably more cost effective than your toaster oven (unless your making something small) as gas is much cheaper than electricity.
-Cable boxes/DVRs never really turn off, and that couldn't be responsible for that much of your usage, but it would probably save you some energy to unplug them during the day (unless you are recording a show).

I think that's all my recommendations for now, but if I think of any more I'll let you know.
Source: I work R&D for an electric utility

[GuitarStv]

Cable boxes can use more energy than refrigerators:
http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2011-06/least-electric-bill-murdering-dvrs-every-provider

[Spork]

Cable boxes can use more energy than refrigerators:
http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2011-06/least-electric-bill-murdering-dvrs-every-provider

DVRs are basically computers.  That's not at all surprising.   I haven't measured my TiVo by itself, but I've measured the wattage of the UPS that it's plugged into.  I get about 100w for a Tivo unit, a small router and a desktop-sized "server".  (About $7 a month for me.)

My fridge averages at about 67w.

[Theadyn]

I canceled satellite last month, so no satellite boxes in this house.  I have 2 DVR's, they are smart strips, so when the TV's off, they get turned off, also. 

I did have my fridge break down on me weekend before last, that might be some of it.  Repair guy said the single motor in the defrost unit was inefficient for this model, he's seen it a lot, and replaced it with a double motor defrosting unit. 

Unless I'm wrong, I thought the summer's sun was high, and winter's sun low in the south.  The only window's I have are double paned, south facing, that only come down to my shoulders (yes, weird home, but I can run around the house naked with the blinds open and no can see a thing ;)  ).  The eave's overhang doesn't allow any sun to directly come into my home.  And zero coming in from the north.

The oven is electric, also, which is why I used the smaller toaster oven.  Since I'm cooking for one, I assumed it was more efficient that the bigger oven.

I bought a kill-a-watt, and have used it around the home.  The smart strips and CFL's followed.

As far as I know, according to the satellite installation dude back in December, the attic is very well insulated.  And the walls are thick.  Heck, even have laminate flooring and tile throughout the house which helps cooling, imo.  not so great in cold winter, but it's what I have, none the less.

AC fan only runs when it's on.  Attic is vented, but no attic fan, should look in to that.  :)

Will attempt the fans in the windows at night.  Not making excuses, but some things irk me about this house.   All windows on south side, zero electrical outlets on south side, grrr...

I know I shouldn't complain.  A year ago at this time our electric bill was over $300 a month.  Of course, had late hubby's income to help with that.  Yay for Oklahoma.  >.> 

[Spork]

I did have my fridge break down on me weekend before last, that might be some of it.  Repair guy said the single motor in the defrost unit was inefficient for this model, he's seen it a lot, and replaced it with a double motor defrosting unit. 

You may be onto something.  The defrost is actually the thing that makes refrigerators suck the power.  If you had an issue with defrost... that might be your issue.  Some of the really old manual defrost refrigerators are actually pretty efficient when maintained.

[GuitarStv]

All south facing windows sucks for cooling off a house.  It's impossible to take advantage of a breeze with that setup.  Is there a window on a front screen door or something on the other side of the house that you can open?  You really want a path for wind to travel from one side of the house to the other to cool things off quickly. . .

[Theadyn]

I meant I had DVD players, not DVR's, oops.  And they are on the smart strips that kill the electric when the tv is off.  Sorry was unclear on that.  :)

Yeah, house is a weird setup.  The back door is the only opening on the north side of the house, there are none east or west ends.  And the back door doesn't have a screen on it,  pretty stupid, huh?   The house is rectangular in shape, my room at one end, kitchen at the other.  Maybe I can set up to have the fan in the window at my end and a window open at the kitchen end.   Get a breeze down the length of the house, perhaps.  Now..  to figure out how to block out the glaring neighbor light right outside my bedroom window...    >.>   as of now there are sun blocking curtains.  A rock and a good aim might help out...   hehe

[wakkowarner]

I saw a large jump in my bill recently.  Was confused since I had been focusing on trying to cut usage down.  Saw that my kW usage had gone done (which made sense), but the bill had gone up.  Looked up on the website for the electric company and apparently they charge more in certain summer months.  So while my usage went down my bill went up from the prior month.

Another idea to consider if you've got a small place:  Cut off the central AC.  Get an inexpensive (but still efficient) window unit and install in your bedroom or whatever small room where you spend the majority of your time.  Only cool that room using the window unit and only do it when you need it.  This idea doesn't work that great if you've got a family though.

[Spork]

Another idea to consider if you've got a small place:  Cut off the central AC.  Get an inexpensive (but still efficient) window unit and install in your bedroom or whatever small room where you spend the majority of your time.  Only cool that room using the window unit and only do it when you need it.  This idea doesn't work that great if you've got a family though.

They are also very difficult to compare.  Central units and wall units have different "SEER/EER" ratings.  And many wall units are 120v and terribly inefficient.  When we moved from a 600sqft outbuilding (window units) to a 2200sqft house (central) our electric bill went down by about 50%.  (Yes, there were definitely other factors there: water heating, more insulation, gas appliances, etc.)

[secondcor521]

The only window's I have are double paned, south facing, that only come down to my shoulders (yes, weird home, but I can run around the house naked with the blinds open and no can see a thing ;)  ).

Well, that's one way to save on the AC bill... ;-)

I checked and my usage for the last billing cycle was 1,325 kWh.  I have a larger house (~1800 sqft), but I live in a less hot area of the country, so I can probably keep my house at the same temperature as you do with somewhat less AC usage.

I second the idea to vaccuum your fridge coils.  The only other idea I haven't seen mentioned is the clothes dryer.  I believe electric clothes dryers use quite a bit of electricity, so you might either check it with your kill-a-watt, or maybe use it less and just air dry stuff.  Also, make sure that your dryer venting is clean and clear -- if it is clogged or plugged with lint and if your dryer has a moisture sensor to decide when to stop, it will run longer and use more electricity to dry your clothes than necessary.

Oh, I did think of one other one...your electric company may be willing to come out and do an energy audit -- they might be able to give you some good ideas to check where your electricity is going.

Oh, and I thought of one more...it's rare but happens...are you sure that your bill and your meter is associated with your usage?  Sometimes the electric company screws up and bills you for your neighbor's usage, or your neighbor's hot tub is plugged into a circuit that's plugged into your circuit breaker somehow, or that sort of thing.

Good luck!!!

[Spork]

The only window's I have are double paned, south facing, that only come down to my shoulders (yes, weird home, but I can run around the house naked with the blinds open and no can see a thing ;)  ).

 The only other idea I haven't seen mentioned is the clothes dryer.  I believe electric clothes dryers use quite a bit of electricity, so you might either check it with your kill-a-watt, or maybe use it less and just air dry stuff. 

That probably won't work.  I've never seen a 240v kill-o-watt.  If you want to go down that path, you'll have to use an inductive ammeter inside the electrical panel.  You might be out of the OP's comfort zone/set of tools.

[hoodedfalcon]

I bet the old AC unit has a lot to do with your usage. I recently replaced my old (14 year old) HVAC with a new 13 SEER unit, and last month my usage was 25% less, and this month 42% less (compared to this time last year).

Two other things that I am factoring in to explain this significant decrease are 1) I stopped using my electric clothes dryer, and 2) this summer has been about 4 degrees cooler than last summer.

If you can access your meter, you may be able to see how much is being used when the AC is on v. when it is off. That could give you an idea of where it is coming from.

Good luck!

[SunshineGirl]

How much of your bill was fees and taxes?

And does your utility offer off-peak rates, and if so, would you save by signing up for it?