The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: Gunny on January 06, 2016, 07:47:25 PM
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I am wondering how my monthly average electric bill compairs with others on this forum. Is mine high? If it is what am I doing wrong?
My data: Family of three. Live in Alabama. 2200 sq ft house-4br, 2bth (will have a special needs adult BIL coming to live with us soon. Average bill is $80.00 (11.2cents/kWh).
We keep heat at 65, air at 77. Keep lights off in empty rooms and use CFLs. Run water heater 1 hr/day. Four loads of laundry per week but run dryer a total of 20 minutes per week.
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1600 square foot house in Seattle. Super lazy with electricity, with lots of things plugged in. We typically run 30/month in the winter and 40/month in the summer. Before we got a standing freezer, air conditioner, and a lot of misc stuff plugged in it was more like 30 every 2 months.
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1600 square feet, tri-level, gas heat and water heater, everything else electric. About $90/mo, but it varies wildly, and not sure why. Summer is always about double spring/fall/winter, but we don't use the AC at all.
Only difference I can see is the girls are home all day in the summer, but all they would add is a few light bulbs and two laptops. Doesn't seem like that would double our bill...??
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I started keeping track last year, so I know my number now! :-D Average electric is $110/month, we use gas heating and gas water heater, electric cooling. Heat at 72, AC at 79, we're home all day everyday, and we have ceiling fans in all rooms. We have a little less than 5000 sqft, one story.
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1100sqft, apartment, 2 ppl, 72€ a month (at just around 27 cent per kWh). Yay, Europe!
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2000 sq ft ranch. 3 adults, one teen back and forth. Total is usually $115-150, includes natural gas heat. My mom's oxygen really churns up the bill.
we bought new construction here 2 1/2 yrs ago. Since then no one and I mean no one can get the programmable thermostat to work, even the builder or super-techy brother. I want to turn the heat way down at night but I can't, it's always back up within a few hours. We need to trash it and start over with a new one or even just a basic old fashioned one.
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1750sqft 2 story with 1 a/unit in central Texas.in the winter $70 - $80.In the summer $150 .I sweat all day working outside so got to be comfortable at home ,NExt house will be a single story for sure.
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1700 sq. ft. ranch in midwest. Electric water heater, gas stove and heat. Two adults, one child. Ours runs between 80-90/mo. We pay 7.16 cents per KWH. I'd like to see this go down--we use mostly CFLs and LEDs, use the dryer somewhat sparingly. I think the water heater really affects the usage.
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I don't know if it's because we live in California or what, but I'm jealous of these numbers.
We've only been in our new house for about 6 months (2100 sqft). Our summer bill was generally about $160 (live in the desert, so swamp cooler and not AC). So essentially it's just a fan and that's somehow costing us double what you people with AC have.
Winter looks like about $85, with our gas bill close to $100 (gas was $10-15 in summer; water and stove are our gas appliances). The part that concerns me is we keep our house at 65 degrees during the day, and 63 at night. That's with probably 600 sqft closed off (rooms we don't use often). I feel like our furnace isn't running correctly with how cold we keep it (also remember we're in the desert, so the temps are much more moderate for winter).
Edit: The post above mine kind of sheds some light on that. Ours is tiered, and the first tier is double that (15 cents per kWh). The next tiers up are 21 cents, 24 cents, and 31 cents. The "baseline" is incredibly low (10.6 kWh per day in winter), so with for example 423 kWh in November, we still had a portion in tier 3.
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1700 sq. ft. house, 2 stories with one A/C unit (it's not actually all that efficient since the 2nd floor is nearly always going to be a few degrees hotter than the bottom floor because of the open design). The summers are extremely hot (~ 110 degrees F), and winters are mild (40s-50s). Electric everything. My bill ranges from $70 to $150, depending on the time of year. Summer is the worst, though. This winter, I have kept my A/C set to turn the heat on at 66 degrees, which is a lower degree than past years. As such, I'm not getting huge electricity bills this year. Instead, my winter bills have been around $95 per month.
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1750sqft 2 story with 1 a/unit in central Texas.in the winter $70 - $80.In the summer $150 .I sweat all day working outside so got to be comfortable at home ,NExt house will be a single story for sure.
Same location and same amounts for my bills.
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540 square foot condo in Seattle and I average $9-$11/month depending on the season.
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2,500sq ft home in Florida
$110-120 in summer
$55-65 in winter
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1100 sq foot town-house in MN.
Electric bill - 100ish in the summer - 60ish in the winter.
I have gas heat though, so my gas bill jumps in JAN-FEB
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2 adult - 2400 sq (including basement) home. Our numbers are nothing to brag about but, 2015 avg bill:
electric: $89/month ($0.8/kwh)
gas: $59.71/month (older inefficient furnace and water heater)
This is if I am understanding all the different charges on my bill correctly .... Oddly Sept and Oct last year were terribly high electric usage. I'm not sure why - must check DH's elephant memory.
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Fairfax, VA
1800 Sqft townhouse
2 Adults
Average is $32/month according to Mint. Dominion Electric says about $.12/kWh. About 1/3 of that is fixed and I can't get away from it from what I've seen.
In the last two years we've never gone over 400kWhs/month.
Last bill was for 125 kWh. We are gunning for 100. We have gas furnace and stove.
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2 adults, 1 child in 1,350 square foot house.
$50 in the warmer months and up to $80 per month in the colder ones (with hot tub that is probably $15-20 per month to operate 24-7).
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3 adults and a dog in a 12 foot wide but 40 foot long apartment in NYC. Old drafty building but share a 40 foot wall with another unit, keep heat at 65 or 66 (just turned it on this week for the first time since last spring), and have two window units we run relatively sparingly June-September. Heat is gas.
It looks like I pay about 13 cents/kWh for my electricity plus another 13 in delivery, plus various fees/flat charges. I averaged 243KwH in 2015.
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Two adults, two children, ~150 m2 in the south of Norway. Whoever had the idea of building a house with NO FRIGGING ISOLATION in Norway, should be drawn and quartered. -12 C is cold enough, I can't imagine how my friends in the north are keeping up at -42... We are planning a major upgrade, but until then; we keep it cold. Finally replaced the inefficient combined parafin and wood burner with a clean burning wood burner, I'm really looking forward to lighting the first fire tomorrow.
Everything here is electric; hot water, kitchen stove, etc. When the house is so cold, we have to use the dryer when we wash clothes. In addition, we also charge an electric car. All lights are LED.
In 2015 we used 17693 kWh, at $0.10.
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1600 sq feet, 2 adults, Calgary, I.e. Very Cold winters but no AC ever.
260kwh average per month.
City average is 720 kWh. We could still do better!
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This is our last bill from Enmax for a 2-bed 2-bath condo in Calgary, for two people, although I am gone for work 6 weeks at the time. We have no TV/cable/videogame/electronics, no micro-wave oven, toaster, kettle, or other electric appliances, no AC or electric heaters, rarely use the clothes dryer or oven, and use lights very sparingly. Our usage is about 85 kWh/month average.
Energy Charge (Dec 1 to Dec 2): 5.580 kWh @ $ 0.0519220 / kWh: $ 0.29
Energy Charge (Nov 3 to Nov 30): 78.420 kWh @ $ 0.0500360 / kWh: $ 3.92
Administration Charge: $ 6.87
Distribution Charge: $ 13.58
Transmission Charge: $ 1.63
Balancing Pool Allocation: $ 0.47 CR
Rate Riders: $ 1.05 Local Access Fee: $ 2.22
Total: $ 29.09
This one below is from BC Hydro for my first power bill for our Gulf Island property. I almost choked when I saw it. My son has been staying there in our RV to do some land preparation before we build, with minimal power usage or so I thought -no appliance, no TV or electronics, a few 12V LED lights, EXCEPT the RV propane heater has stopped functioning a while ago so he's been using a small space heater probably continuously, which explains the 1549 kWh usage. It is for 62 days, so basically about 800 kWh/month. Got to find a solution to the RV heating issue.
Electric Charges
Nov 04 to Jan 04
Basic Charge: 62 days @ $0.22570 /day: $13.99
Usage Charge: 1549 kW.h @ $0.10730 /kW.h: $166.21
Rate Rider at 5.0%: $9.01
Tax: $22.70
Total: $211.91
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In the summer, it's $40-50. Winter time is $100-200 because I unfortunately have baseboard heating(other options weren't economical to upgrade). I must also note that I live in the PNW so power is cheap here.
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1700 sq ft tri-level, IL. Usually keep the house about 68* year round. Natural gas heat/dryer/water heater, brand new high-efficiency furnace and A/C. No real effort to knock down the electric aside from just turning crap off when not using it (ie, cell phone chargers stay plugged in, etc).
Highest electric bill I saw over the summer was ~$110 (and it was a catch-up from prior months since they average it). Spring/fall around $75. I haven't seen a natural gas bill over $30 yet (~half of which is delivery) but I've only owned the house since April.
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~$150/month, 1232Kwh for December. ~$100 for NG, 140 therms. Total $250
3200 sqft house, Electric baseboard heating in half the house, forced air for half. Last winter average was $170 total, but we have a 2 month old, and decided to keep it at a higher temp this year.
Our house was built in 1967, and has pretty terrible insulation. I'm in the process(slowly) of installing a hydronic heating system. First thing, the electric baseboards will be replaced with hot water baseboards. Should help a lot. And working on better insulation all the time. My father just bought the FLIR cellphone camera, and we'll be using that to figure out where the biggest problems are.
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We have an old house with baseboard electric heat. In the summer our bills are around $150.00-no AC-swamp cooler. In winter they are between $300-400/month. During the day it is at 68 and at night we turn everything down to 55 except our bedroom.
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Family of 4 in a 1400 sq ft two story (second story is a "finished attic" if you will) with a 900 sq ft semi-conditioned (a little A/C to help control moisture) basement in zone 7. Electric water, dryer (100% of clothes), and A/C. Heat is wood. All LED/CFL lights. We also run 2-3 deep freezers for homegrown/wild game meat. Winter bills are around $90-100 and summer bills are around $150-170. Rate is average at around $.09-.10 per KWH, but we pay a $25 base fee and sales tax. Hoping to add additional insulation and start hanging more laundry. Might also go around with a Kill-a-Watt and see if there is anything sucking a little more than it should.
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Average of $229/month for both gas and electric, ~2800 sq ft home. Cold climate.
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I am wondering how my monthly average electric bill compairs with others on this forum. Is mine high? If it is what am I doing wrong?
My data: Family of three. Live in Alabama. 2200 sq ft house-4br, 2bth (will have a special needs adult BIL coming to live with us soon. Average bill is $80.00 (11.2cents/kWh).
We keep heat at 65, air at 77. Keep lights off in empty rooms and use CFLs. Run water heater 1 hr/day. Four loads of laundry per week but run dryer a total of 20 minutes per week.
$55 is about average. We use a wood stove for heat
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Depends on the season.
I'm in a small apartment (maybe 400sf). In summer, the bill is about $55 a month. In winter, about $90 a month. Heating is with a small column heater on castors, no aircon. The oven is electric, not sure about the water heater, and the stove is gas.
My current plan is priced at the following rates:
Electricity usage: 23.21c/kWh (including GST)
Daily supply charge: $1.20747/day
That daily supply charge makes up the bulk of the bill. I should really look into changing providers. I'm currently with AGL.
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$60-$70 per month, $0.10 per kw-hr
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2400 sq ft, $35-45 /mo at 11-12 cents per kWh. That includes 2 days work from home every week in basement (add light for full day there as no windows and extra 1000 sq ft) and me playing with numbers and researching MMM every night for 2-3 hours. Frequent washer etc due to toddler in house. TV always one for SAHM :)
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OK, call me "Cliffy" from Cheers but I do this for a living so here's ours...
Dollar amounts vs. square footage give a rough idea, but best way to really compare homes and rates is measuring kilowatt hours (kWh) for equivalent square footage vs. average outdoor temps. That says how good the "envelope" of the house is for the size and external conditions. I attached our annual usage for 3500-ish square feet, 2001 construction, two story open layout house with really good insulation and double pane windows in "Hotlanta" Georgia, US (days are hot/humid from May thru Sept mid-90s Fahrenheit... the chart's average temp is optimistically mild and misleading!). This averages $172 a month (Southern Company power rates) with 4 people in the house constantly using juice. I'm tracking lower this year to about $150/mo after recent appliance updates and LED bulbs. This is for 2 HVAC systems running (~75 summer/66 winter) and the basement running a dehumidifier (far cheaper to run than an HVAC system and helps improve summer A/C efficiency by keeping moist air from the basement foundation from getting drawn upstairs and having to be dehumidified by the 1st floor A/C). Not that I obsess about this or anything... ;-)
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700ft apartment, $9-10/month (~13 cents/KwH), 2 ppl, in Hungary. 2 TVs (frequently used), 1 fridge, 1 laptop, no A/C.
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NE Alabama tiered electric averages at 10.8 to 11.2 (weighted average) cents kWh 3200 sq ft 4 br 3.5 ba electric and gas are combined at 144.00 average month 'budget' billing 69 degrees winter, 72 summer. Tankless gas water heater. Electric dryer, electric oven, gas range. 16" of attic insulation which is beyond huge in Alabama. Insulated attic access hatches. Multiple low wattage attic fans. This saves on cooling IMO.
With surcharges there is no easy way to calculate the electricity bill separately.
Given that I live in the same area as the OP this is only relevant if we know if s/he has gas in the home.
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NE Alabama tiered electric averages at 10.8 to 11.2 (weighted average) cents kWh 3200 sq ft 4 br 3.5 ba electric and gas are combined at 144.00 average month 'budget' billing 69 degrees winter, 72 summer. Tankless gas water heater. Electric dryer, electric oven, gas range. 16" of attic insulation which is beyond huge in Alabama. Insulated attic access hatches. Multiple low wattage attic fans. This saves on cooling IMO.
With surcharges there is no easy way to calculate the electricity bill separately.
Given that I live in the same area as the OP this is only relevant if we know if s/he has gas in the home.
Wow, 3.5 bathrooms? I don't think I've ever seen more than two in a normal-sized house :)
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975 sf apartment in DC. Average has been $27 a month for the past 12 months. A little higher in winter, a little lower in summer (my apartment faces north!) All CFL/LED lights, gas oven/stove.
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I find comparing kWh (especially kWh/day) is more useful than comparing dollar values - dollar cost basically shows cost variability as much as or more than use variability. Plus, here we have time of use billing so I am not sure my dollar amounts are useful. I am also paying rural residential low-density rates, which = expensive.
My average kWh per day is 14-16, except summer, when it jumps to about 35 - that is a bit of AC, and a lot of pool pump, both running at off-peak. I do watch time of use, I usually have 2-3 on peak (cooking, computer, lights in winter), 2-3 mid-peak and 8 - 32 (high is for summer) off-peak.
There is only so much incentive to cut total use - of my December 2015 bill, $43.43 was actual electricity, $67.75 was delivery charge, $2.67 was regulatory charge, $2.70 was debt retirement charge, and $15.15 was HST. Then there was the clean energy 10% credit. Total bill $118.53 for 385.2078 kWh for 28 days. This is one of the cheaper months, because no summer extras, no furnace fan for heating. This time next year it will be more, because the rates are going up, the benefit is disappearing, and we are moving to fixed charges for delivery (right now it is partially fixed and partially variable based on use). If our delivery rate was the same as in town, my bill would be a lot less, but I doubt that will happen.
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3300 sq ft home ranch ( main floor is 1650 sq ft with finished basement of equal sq footage). Thermostats is set to 65 is winter and 73 in Summer. We live in the high dessert of CO. Temps can be extreme hot/cold. Bill includes gas as well. Admiditly I have small children who are aweful at leaving lights on all over the place and I am constantly following behind trying to turn them off. Bill averages $200/mo. Prior to being hyper vigilant about thermostat settings and lights I had bills ranging in the $300-$325 range. I would love to get it down even lower.
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Same boat as RetiredAt63...you could get your usage to near 0 and still get a decent sized bill from Hydro One.
We averaged $97 a month for the past year.
-Laundry only on weekends.
-CFLs everywhere
-everything except the NAS on power bars.
-propane stove
-propane boiler/on demand water heater
-no cable or satellite
-outdoor (sentinel) lights are motion-activated
The only real energy pig we probably have is the well pump.
Not really possible to reduce anymore (unless we just move out.)
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I miss living by myself (currently sharing a condo w/ my brother) in a small place (~500sqft). My electricity bills were NOTHING. I had a top unit with lots of natural light, no TV, and like 3 lamps, ha.
$10-$15 in the winter. $28 in the summer because I would run fans all the time (again, top unit with a lot of sun).
Now, for 2 of us in a ~1000sqft, relatively dark place, with TV, tons of lamps, video game consoles, washer/dryer, etc. it's like $70-$80. Seriously kills me to have a bill this high!!!
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- Over 3kft clown house, crazy cheap forcloser price for my area otherwise would have not bought it.
- $220 a month average for last 3 years, last month really started trying to tackle it. When I first moved in was over $400 a month!! I replaced all heating and cooling appliances and sealed off downstairs vents, closed unused bedroom doors, and replaced all lights with LED dropped to $220.
Things I'm doing this year to reduce expenses:
- I run 3 computers, one is server for a side hussle that easily pays for itself. Went down to two computers.
- Bought a few belkin power strips that turns everything off with a light switch you stick on your wall. One switch turns off all strips so I can basically turn the entire room off to reduce vamp power. Have heavy electronics.
- Started caulking the windows
- Got one of those FLIR camera which shows you relative heat you can rent at home depot fro $40. Took pictures of every wall/window in the house and found the major problem areas. Worked on getting new door sweeps/foam/rubber/caulk/etc in places around doors and windows where it was bad. Made some fireplace covers. Found one wall that had the insulation completely gone which looks like it was from some old water damage from a leaky roof before we got the place. Need to take off the Sheetrock and redo that area.
- Found a couple water leaks with FLIR camera, fixed those.
- Put timers on several electronics so they turn off at night
- Reduced the brightness on several screens in the house, nobody seems to notice except me.
- Bought one of those high energy efficiency gas inserts. Overspent on this (cringe) but the old fireplace had to be removed anyway.
- Got new insulated foam core garage doors and sealed the garage. This really made a difference in normalizing the temp in there.
Still working on other things. I WISH I could find a good solution that would turn off things when nobody is at the house by using smartphones to see if you are home. So far what I found was timer based solutions which only work if you are a robot and always on a fixed schedule (which I am not).
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2200 sq ft house, natural gas furnace and water heater. $55 in the summer, $105 in winter. Heat is set for 62 and wife and I go back and forth when to have it on. I can handle the cold a lot better than her. We hang dry clothes in the summer, but we're using the dryer more in winter.
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Hydro one - just a head-shaker ;-/
As LEDs go on sale at Costco I am switching out my CFLs.
Electric stove and hot water tank - no gas here. I do have a propane stove (the decorative ones that look like wood stoves) in the basement -when I am going to be down there for a while I turn the thermostat way down and put it on instead.
No cable or satellite.
Laundry always during off-peak, and solar dryer when weather permits. Clothes get line dried inside in the winter, sheets take too long and hit the dryer.
One house I lived in while in Quebec actually had electric baseboard heaters - no way would I use baseboard electric in Ontario!
Same boat as RetiredAt63...you could get your usage to near 0 and still get a decent sized bill from Hydro One.
We averaged $97 a month for the past year.
-Laundry only on weekends.
-CFLs everywhere
-everything except the NAS on power bars.
-propane stove
-propane boiler/on demand water heater
-no cable or satellite
-outdoor (sentinel) lights are motion-activated
The only real energy pig we probably have is the well pump.
Not really possible to reduce anymore (unless we just move out.)
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Correction to my reply above. I see that my wife has done averages for the last several years for all our expenses. Turns out it was a bit higher than my eyeball guess. Home is 1600 sq ft, trilevel, near Chicago, so cold winters and hot summers.
2014 electric $125.19, gas $89.58
2015 electric $106.87, gas $66.75
water bill is about $35 both years.
We use the dryer a few times a year at most. It was basically a waste of money that we bought it. Should have bought a much cheaper model.
We keeps lights off throughout the house unless someone is in the room (kids excepted!). Most bulbs are coiled fluorescents. No LEDs yet. Heat and water heater are gas, everything else is electric. All our large appliances were bought in 2006, and were rated 'high efficiency' at that time. The washer certainly seems to live up to that billing, considering my wife washes clothing about every two days (where does it all come from? No idea!) We have a dehumidifier in the basement that is on all year round, and is actually running quite a lot, especially in the summer. Outside lighting off unless someone is out late.
4 computers, all unplugged unless actually in use. AC never used.
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NE Alabama tiered electric averages at 10.8 to 11.2 (weighted average) cents kWh 3200 sq ft 4 br 3.5 ba electric and gas are combined at 144.00 average month 'budget' billing 69 degrees winter, 72 summer. Tankless gas water heater. Electric dryer, electric oven, gas range. 16" of attic insulation which is beyond huge in Alabama. Insulated attic access hatches. Multiple low wattage attic fans. This saves on cooling IMO.
With surcharges there is no easy way to calculate the electricity bill separately.
Given that I live in the same area as the OP this is only relevant if we know if s/he has gas in the home.
OP here. I live in Grant and have no gas in the house. I may take a look at the amount of insulation in my attic and add a layer. Good tip!
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1100 SF 1950's era ranch house. Full basement. Zero insulation in walls and floor. An inch or two in the ceiling.
Four seasons climate, hot Summers and cold Winters.
Average gas and electric bill (includes taxes and fees) for past 12 months: $99.80.
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Average bill- $76.71/mo. Typically $110 during hot summer months and $55-60 rest of the year. Total kWh- 6633, or around 18.16 kwh/day. This is for a 4 person household, 3600sq feet in the Midwest where we get all 4 seasons. Usage was down 3% from the previous year, and I'm gunning for a 5% further reduction this year as I just switched 12 more bulbs to LED and did a couple other small things (of course any reduction depends on summer temps as they generate a big chunk of electric usage for AC).
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2 adults 2 kids 1 college kid and then my two kids 4-6 weeks a year. 2 story 1200 sf with small basement. Built in 2003. electric runs 180 on budget plan and gas is 80 which I always seems to be ahead on. My bill seems very high compared to others here. I have a kill-a-watt but can't find anything unusual. The tankless electric water heater might be killing us. It draws 27kw when being used. Looking for an alternative but not sure what is cost effective right now.
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2 adults 2 kids 1 college kid and then my two kids 4-6 weeks a year. 2 story 1200 sf with small basement. Built in 2003. electric runs 180 on budget plan and gas is 80 which I always seems to be ahead on. My bill seems very high compared to others here. I have a kill-a-watt but can't find anything unusual. The tankless electric water heater might be killing us. It draws 27kw when being used. Looking for an alternative but not sure what is cost effective right now.
A few questions:
Do you use AC much?
How often do you use a washer and (big one) dryer?
Stove electric or gas, and does it get used much?
Fridge...HE or not?
Don't know anything about electric tankless water heater. I guess I'd have to ask, do you luxuriate in long, very-hot showers? Dishwasher?
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This thread prompted me to calculate my average usage. It's interesting to see the trend. Both electricity and gas higher in winter, likely because we rarely turn on the AC. Usage increased from last year -- some explainable, a more recent tick not really. Suspecting the fact that our computers have recently been regularly waking up from overnight sleep to be the culprit. So good thing I checked -- we'll have to see if ensuring continued sleep will bring the numbers back down again.
Electricity was 292 kWh / month and gas was ~10 Therms / month in 2015, for $65/month for both.
2 people using mostly the kitchen (gas stove, electric oven), 1 bed + bath + living room parts of a larger house (gas water heater). Maybe about 1-2 load(s) of laundry (gas dryer) / week.
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2 adults 2 kids 1 college kid and then my two kids 4-6 weeks a year. 2 story 1200 sf with small basement. Built in 2003. electric runs 180 on budget plan and gas is 80 which I always seems to be ahead on. My bill seems very high compared to others here. I have a kill-a-watt but can't find anything unusual. The tankless electric water heater might be killing us. It draws 27kw when being used. Looking for an alternative but not sure what is cost effective right now.
A few questions:
Do you use AC much?
How often do you use a washer and (big one) dryer?
Stove electric or gas, and does it get used much?
Fridge...HE or not?
Don't know anything about electric tankless water heater. I guess I'd have to ask, do you luxuriate in long, very-hot showers? Dishwasher?
A/C in the summer set on a programmable thermostat, along with the heat (gas). Washer is front load. Dryer is electric (house did not have gas line ran for dryer). Stove is electric and it's an Amana glass top about 12 years old. Fridge is old but on the kill-a-watt only seems to use 175 a year if I put the right numbers into it. The sump pump runs about every 5 minutes. Dehumidfier in the basement. Small freezer in the basement that currently is mostly empty but per kill-a-watt was like $3 a month. Most electric devices are shut off manually via a power strip or a smart power strip is used. There is a dishwasher and it runs every night. We are on time of day meter so we try to run things at the cheaper time at night and on weekends.
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Two people. Pacific NW. 1600 Sq ft house.
We have gas and electric and so we pay both sets of connection fees. Water heater, furnace, and cooking appliances are all gas.
Summer:
Electric: $20
Gas: $18 (pretty much 100% connection fees and cooking, insulated extremely well so we only need heat on about 5 months of the year)
Winter:
Electric: $35
Gas: $80
Even though we have mostly LED lighting, electric goes up in the winter due to having to use a dryer and having lights on a lot more . . . I think that's most of the change. Still working on getting the heating bill lower, have some spots around the house that need attention for better sealing.
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2 adults 2 kids 1 college kid and then my two kids 4-6 weeks a year. 2 story 1200 sf with small basement. Built in 2003. electric runs 180 on budget plan and gas is 80 which I always seems to be ahead on. My bill seems very high compared to others here. I have a kill-a-watt but can't find anything unusual. The tankless electric water heater might be killing us. It draws 27kw when being used. Looking for an alternative but not sure what is cost effective right now.
A few questions:
Do you use AC much?
How often do you use a washer and (big one) dryer?
Stove electric or gas, and does it get used much?
Fridge...HE or not?
Don't know anything about electric tankless water heater. I guess I'd have to ask, do you luxuriate in long, very-hot showers? Dishwasher?
A/C in the summer set on a programmable thermostat, along with the heat (gas). Washer is front load. Dryer is electric (house did not have gas line ran for dryer). Stove is electric and it's an Amana glass top about 12 years old. Fridge is old but on the kill-a-watt only seems to use 175 a year if I put the right numbers into it. The sump pump runs about every 5 minutes. Dehumidfier in the basement. Small freezer in the basement that currently is mostly empty but per kill-a-watt was like $3 a month. Most electric devices are shut off manually via a power strip or a smart power strip is used. There is a dishwasher and it runs every night. We are on time of day meter so we try to run things at the cheaper time at night and on weekends.
Hmm. What does Kill-A-Watt say about the sump pump? I'd guess that might be a big drain (pun intended).
Also, in my house the summer electric bills shoot up, and I suspect the basement dehumidifier, which runs pretty much constantly all summer. I'd suspect any machine that can turn itself on and off, and has to stay plugged in.
Are you in a floodplain? Why is the sump pump running all the time?
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I can't speak for others, but my sump pump runs a fair bit in the summer even though the house is on a bit of a rise (landscaping) and rain is directed well away from the house. The pump even runs occasionally in winter. The house is on clay, and clay holds water.
For the same reason, fields around here have tile drainage.
Are you in a floodplain? Why is the sump pump running all the time?
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Same here.. sump pump runs very very often even in dry weeks and even in 0F weather.. water level must be high
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Just chiming in to make some of y'all feel better. We are four adults in a 2600 Sf single-story home. Common areas of home have 14' ceilings, rest are 9'. House is only 10 years old, so fairly energy efficient. Scores of can lights, all LED's.
We live in this house to care for my MIL, who has Alzheimer's. This winter, DH decided it might be cheaper to leave the heat at a constant 68 degrees 24/7, as there is almost always someone home. Last month's gas & electric bill was $432.00. To add insult to injury, I often find MIL wandering around with a coat and knit hat on. We have to laugh and be happy that we're FI, or it just might be too hard to take.
Did you notice that we live in California? We also receive expanded baseline hours because DH uses a C-Pap. Off the top of my head, I'd say we average somewhere around $175/mo, but this month was a doozy, and there's not much to be done about it. Someday, when MIL is gone, we'll downsize and eventually make up for this exploding volcano of wastefulness, we hope.
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2 adults, and 2 kids that go back and forth, then 2 smaller kids.
19 year old moved out and it seems as though our bill has dropped in half since she left. Its crazy that this has happened, that one person affected our bill so drastically.
When we first moved into this house in June of 2015 our bill was 150. Even in Oct it was 180.
It now averages between 85 and 100 for a 2000 sq foot house with heat also going into the unfinished basement. We play down there with the kids on trampoline, bikes etc.
Heat bill is separate though, we are in the Midwest, cold cold MI to be precise.
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2900 sq ft house with 2 kids 2 adults. avg 113 a month. I need to work on this. I need to replace some lights and check on some on going electronics.
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Just got my 2 month bill, $75.10, includes a $5.50 a month low income break.
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2300 sq ft house, 4 people (+1 who just left for college so comes home for holidays). Electricity bills have been enormous. Topped out last January at $475 when it got cold and kids were sent home from school for a few days - house heated to 72F with ...... heat strips. I've written about this in another thread. We have a/c and live in south central texas - last august's bill was $315. I've now started getting this under control and so far have seen reductions of 30% on the electricity bill. Everything in our house is electric. I'm keeping an eye on this month's bill and looks like I will manage to just about keep it under $200 (2000KWh). I'll be changing the a/c condensor units to heat pumps and installing foil in the attic before the summer really kicks in to keep summer bill under control. Also swapping out pool pump for a variable speed one which will save on electricity too.
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200 sqft Off grid living, 4kw generator to charge the batteries a few times per week... ~$20/mo
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200 sqft Off grid living, 4kw generator to charge the batteries a few times per week... ~$20/mo
Okay, now that's getting towards hard core! :-)
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ALL ELECTRIC townhome. 1200 sq feet. Heat pump which also acts as a/c. Lowest is Spring and Fall when it is $60 per month using NO a/c or heat. Highest is Winter. Last Winter Jan and Feb were around $180 each. Heat strips were coming on to supplement the heat pump which was working 24 hours a day. 12 cents per KWH.
Currently (Jan) have thermostat set at 60 (brrrr) which seems to be reducing heat pump usage compared to 64. Been a very mild Winter so far here in East (knock on wood) so no heat strip usage yet either. Dec 2015 bill was only $90.
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My wife started keeping a daily log of loads of dishes washed, loads of laundry washed and dried, numbers and length of showers, hours oven or cook top is used, stuff like that. We were able to use the data to show us areas where we could save the most while cutting down on energy consumption. I a, also very concerned with water waste. Not just because of my costs, but for environmental reasons.
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$55 - $60 a month year round (electric HW tank) except for July and Aug $80 due to some minor AC use. Gas (heating) totals $400 a year, surprisingly low considering that it gets to -35 here on a regular basis and the furnace is on from Oct to April.
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In NYC. Heat & hot water are included in rent, our one window unit a/c is not.
I am not a fan of summer or the heat and we have big west facing windows (no cross ventilation either) that really heat up in the afternoon each summer. A/C comes on when we're home, or when it's over 90 and I don't want my poor old cat to roast all day.
Winter is about $25-30/month for our one bedroom home of two people, and in the summer it can rocket up to as high as $175/month from our one little window unit used as sparingly as our comfort level allows. I really hate summer in this city!
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When I lived in Fort Myers, FL, our electric bill averaged 100/month which is really good for south florida. I bought a new a/c system to make that happen. The house was 1750 sq. ft.
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Boston apartment dweller here, 800 square feet: We pay about $45 bucks a month on average. I work from home, so this includes my 2-3 laptops and displays running 50-60 hours a week.
Gas is just for the stove (our heat/ac are wall units that are quite efficient) and it averages about $12-15 a month.
I love that my utilities only cost me 30-35 bucks (split with the boyfriend)! Now if I can get him to ditch the cable TV, then we'll be in good shape...but try taking that away from a die-hard sports fan.
I don't really think we can get much more efficient...but I think the secret to our success is living on the 3rd floor! We've only turned the heat on 3 times so far this year, and just for a few hours. If you're apartment or condo hunting in a cold area, definitely choose a higher floor!
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Ours averages about $160 for gas+electric, mostly from electric. Gas oven, fireplace, and heat. Everything else is electric. We averaged 24 kWh/day last month. I have no idea why it's so high for 2 people in a 1,000 sq ft house. My only guess is it must be the electric water heater in the cold basement (lots of days around 0 here during the winter).
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Around $28 in the winter, $120 in the summer. That's for a 900 sq. ft. house and two adults. When I lived by myself it was $8 lower in the winter and $30 lower in the summer. We keep almost everything plugged into power strips that are turned off when not in use. Lighting is all CFL or LED, and we don't use a clothes dryer.
Gas is around $27 most months (the minimum charge isn't much less than that). In the winter it jumps to an average of $95 per month.
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I have a 2 bedroom semi-detatched house in the Paris .The house is quite small, 20 years old and fitted with double glazing. We pay $100 a month for electriciry .let's just say, its Too Much
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So far in a new house we pay $75 average for el+gas per month (starting September), water and sewage are extra. Total is 120 so far