Hey everyone. I am so tired of high electric bills. I am struggling to figure out where it is all going.

My bill is constantly higher than anyone I know. Here are the deets:
- 2400 sq. ft / 3 bed 2 bath
- 2 Adults / 0 kids
- 6 Year Old Construction
- Foam Roof / Damp Spray Cellulose walls
- 9' ceilings
- Winter house temp is 70 when I am home at day, 67 at night
- Summer house temp is 71 (ac never comes on during day), 67 at night
- Stovetop Gas
- Water heater is tankless gas unit

I can't fathom how I am using so much electricity. Look at the below graph. It is insane. Last month I used 2400 kwh somehow.

We don't watch tv, lights are kept to a minimum, we don't stand with the fridge door open all day. I just don't get it.

Electric clothes drier??

I'm the same. Just two of us and we're frugal with the power. The bill the last two months has been ridiculous.
I'm going to mark the meter this month and compare with their totals.

If you have a smart meter, setup an account on their website and you’ll be able to see your power usage throughout the day. Your power company may also be able to give you a daily breakdown. Watch the peaks and start turning off stuff until you figure it out. Maybe your fridge or freezer motor is getting ready to go out and is drawing extra power. You could also get a Kilowatt meter and see how much each outlet is pulling. I know my main office outlet pulls a ton because all the household computer/network stuff runs off it.

I assume you have one of the new meters. If you watch it the current KWH will show up right after you see CLS. You can also go on a website and get your usage on a smart meter. Just Google smart meter. I suspect that the OPs usage is related to his temperature settings. I have 1900sf and 8 to 10' ceilings. I keep my thermostat at 65 in winter and 77 in summer. I used about 1700 last month. It is just me so I only do a couple loads of laundry per month.

You got a beer fridge or freezer out in the garage or other non conditioned area? Those things are notorious for sucking juice. Also not too likely, but faulty wiring can also cause excessive electricity usage.

I checked usage on the Co Op's website. It spikes on days when it's cold here as expected, but they've added a charge for PCRF that I've never noticed until recently.
It's calculated per kWh.


Well, after all, we should be thankful to pay a lot more for everything these days AND we don't have folks insulting others all the time. It's great.

You must be on a coop. In that case you're locked in and can't shop around for a better plan. Coop power went up quite a bit about 10 years ago when the legislature mandated that they purchase a certain percentage of power from renewable sources. Which for most of them meant wind, which ain't cheap.

Mine didn’t. Not until a couple months ago. I guess I’m now paying what everyone else has been paying.

What is your heat source?

Even if you are on a coop, you probably have a smart meter. Either smartmeter texas or your coop and get you set up for hourly or 15 minute readings. Those readings will be about a day behind of the reports you download, but they will be timestamped, so you should be able to clearly see what is happening.

What kind of heat do you have? Any chance you have a heat-pump, with backup (ancillary) resistance heat strips? I know two people that paid HUNDREDS of dollars due to a problem with that resistance heat.

ID10T across the street from where we used to be installed a smart thermostat himself. (Not a Nest, but the same concept) He messed up wiring the thermostat and any time his AC was running, the electric resistance heat was running. It ran this way through the spring and half the summer.

The other guy's heat pump never came on. Any time he needed heat, he was using resistance heat, instead of the heat pump.



On other fronts...how about air infiltration.
Do you leave the bathroom or laundry fart fan running all the time? A bathroom fan should be sized to suck all the air out of the room every 5 - 10 minutes. All that air being sucked out gets replaced by outside air coming in somewhere else.
Is your fireplace damper and outside air intake closed when not using the fireplace?
Smoker in the house that is leaving a window open for hours at a time?

He probably installed a regular tstat and not one that was heat pump ready. From what I recall when I had a heat pump there is one more wire.

my house is bout that size, all electric and average last 12 months is 1919 kwh. i have a 30x30 shop with 30x30 apt. on same meter both with central heat and air. what is your rate you are paying? if its coop like me, call them they will help ya figure it out. good luck!

2400 sq ft Barndo. All spray foam. 10’ ceiling in bedrooms and 20 plus in kitchen and living room. Gas water heater. Gas stove. House temp is 70 in winter and 68-69 when the ac does run. We’ve got two adults and six kids. Just moved in December so Jan and feb are accurate. Also have a 20-30 shop on same meter with fridge running all the time and just lights for now.

There has to be something pulling a lot of power to do that. I would start with what is always on and see what it is pulling.

$ 300 for me. All electric, including water well. Lower in the summer without the electric heat.

Our increase is centered on the PCRF fee the Co op just instituted. Cost per kWh went from about .06 to .11.
We have heat pumps and gas.
The bill spikes during cold fronts of course.
Hopefully the worst of that is over this year but the cost per hour will be ongoing.

Only time ours get close to $300 is extreme cold and extreme heat. So about 5 months out of the year it’s $235-300. Rest of the year it’s below $200. 2100 sq Ft. And all electric. And we are on Co-op power.

Price is one thing. kWh is another. His usage seems really high for a house with two people in it. Granted I built
Mine to be as efficient as I could but there is a lot of laundry and a lot of water heater running in my house. And plenty of dishes getting done. Lots of lights always left on from kids and etc. and I don’t use near the power he does.

From that graph & what you wrote it seems like you are running an old builder grade central heat-pump ( less than 16 seer ) for heating & cooling - or one that is not running efficiently at all. I once had a leaky old 3500sq ft 2-story house w/3 30-yr old heat pumps & 7 people, & 2 elec water heaters, and that chart about matches our usage back then! Went to 16 seer heat pumps installed absolutely properly, and bill dropped in half year round.

Might have missed it but Electric heat??

Interesting that March is one of your highest months. Whether your heater is gas or electric, I would expect that to be one of your lowest months

My house is 2400 sq ft, built in 1979 - all original including the leaky windows and crap insulation. We are all electric no gas, no propane. We run two full sized refrigerators, two chest freezers, a 1.5 HP lake irrigation pump, electric aerobic septic system, etc. Summer set-point is 72 degrees and winter 69 with newer heat pump.

My cold and hot month consumption runs around 1800 - 2000 kwH. Mild weather months around 800-1000 kwH. Our minimum "base load" is .50 kwH overnight.

As suggested, look at your 24 hour profile to see what it looks like. Something is using way more power than it should!

Marc

Seems stupid high average, I just got my Electric Bill from Co-Serve. I only used 708 kwh for 2/14 to 3/15, My house is 4500 sq ft, two story, I burn lights outside front yard and backyard and backdrive all night long. I have gas for Water Heater, Cooktop, Fireplaces, Furnaces. I do have a lot of LED lights in the house.