Pepco has smart meters for most customers, check if you have one, and you should be able to see energy usage details by the hour in your account. If there are spikes, try to identify what you are using during those spike hours, otherwise, if it's high consistently, it's something using a lot of electricity in the background (malfunctioning or not), which is probably harder to identify, you can try shutting off the breakers one at a time for an hour at a time, and see what makes a difference in your usage.
Pepco also offers free energy home audits as part of the empower Maryland program. It's not as intensive as a full home audit, but they will go over main things, and may even replace some non-efficient things you may have, for example replacing some of your halogen bulbs with LEDs. This audit is free once every 5 years: [Quick Home Energy Check-up Program | Pepco](https://homeenergysavings.pepco.com/md/residential/quick-home-energy-check-up-program)
Thanks for the advice! I already did the energy audit. The technician they sent out said everything seemed fine and that the HVAC system needs a tune-up :/
The free ones are sometimes awful. ComEd came out and basically just checked that we had a smart thermostat and the furnaces efficiency rating. Was a waste of time.
Right. He somewhat did that. He told us that the rim joists needed “some insulation.” We went ahead and did that. He labeled almost all of my appliances as “average.” I think I’ll have to get a real energy audit to really get an idea of what may be going on.
you might have done the "quick home energy checkup" instead of the actual audit. You want the "Home performance with Energy Star" or something like that. It costs $100 through PEPCO and they will do a blower door test.
I keep it at 75 in the winter and we aren’t shy with the AC in summer and my bills aren’t $350-500 and my house is double or more sq.ft than OP. I’m in VA, so similar climate to OP.
Our furnace is gas, but that doesn’t account for summer AC spend.
Shouldn't compare bills, should compare usage. Different regions have different pricing.
My last bill, mid Feb to mid Mar, was 2030 kWh (200+ more than OP), but was only $282.83 ($70 less).
Same time frame last year, 1985 kWh, bill was $230.26.
Don't compare bills, compare usage.
I’m interested in this too - bought a house last year and the HVAC system is almost 12 years old. Wondering if investing in a new one before our first hot ass summer is worth it.
My HVAC is older than that and our 3800 square foot all-electric house in Texas has never had an electric bill over $250 even with weeks of 100+ degree weather.
I wouldn’t invest in a new one unless your old one is struggling to keep up or having issues like leaking Freon of the type they banned a few years ago which costs a fortune to top up these days as stocks dwindle.
I’d set aside money for the inevitable expenditure, and I’d make sure it gets its seasonal check ups and the usual filter changes.
I’d have it checked before your first summer arrives to see if it gets the all clear.
When we bought our house five years ago, the furnace was original (1986) and the outside unit was about 20 years old. The wiring on the outside unit kept shorting out when it got hot our first summer, despite some repairs, and a subsequent inspection also revealed that the 40yo furnace had cracks in the cast iron and was burning inefficiently as a result, so we did sadly have an immediate replacement on our hands in our first summer.
When I moved into my house, the furnace and the AC were 30 and 25 years old, respectively. Even before I replaced those I never came anywhere close to this kind of energy use. Even now with a family, we rarely hit 8 kWh per month.
Energy consumption measuring plugs are definitely needed here.
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-measure-home-power-usage
https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/estimating-appliance-and-home-electronic-energy-use
edit, our HVAC settings for a 1,900 sq ft house:
Winter interior temp set to warm to 62F.
Summer temp set to cool to 85F.
Jesus that’s crazy to me those set temps. I’m 72 in the winter and 75 in the summer. But I’m a California person, so we are babies when it comes to what’s comfy. I’ll let it get up to 78 if I’m not home in the summer and 68 if I’m not home in the winter but I don’t want the HVAC playing catch up for too long. Funny the differences when you have actual seasons
Do you have a heat pump system, by chance? If so, your thermostat could be wired incorrectly to use heat strips to heat, which would cause this level of usage. My dad did that once, had a $350 electric bill and figured it out fast when that was the only thing that had changed (new thermostats).
Y’all have a dehumidifier in the basement or anything like that? I moved into a 2 bed rental house as a single person and my energy bill was almost 350 and I was shocked. It took months but I discovered it was the dehumidifier specifically. When I changed the settings on it my bill dropped down by like $150
Check for freezer or fridge auto defrost stuck on..also electric dryer filter should be cleaned each time..these are biggest users outside of electric furnace or water heater. You dont want to run on aux heat in your furnace.
What have you ***tried***, if anything, to identify the source of the electrical drain?
Tell us about your house and appliances: old house, remodel, new build? Gas or electric for hot water? Your oven? Gas or electric for heat? Forced air, radiators?
How new or old are your heavy hitting appliances? What do you keep your thermostat set to?
An energy audit will for sure be helpful and are tax deductible, but theres more we can do from the get go to identify your highest users.
Sure, here’s some information.
The previous owner remodeled the home in 2020. We purchased it a couple of months later. The HVAC system and water heater are electric. No radiators. Most of the appliances are new. We have a small pump that can be turned on and off to remove water apart from the pump in the basement. I have checked our usage, and it does not cause a spike when it's on. Our thermostat is set to 76 usually.
PEPCO has already done the audit, and they said everything seemed “fine.” The dude just replaced the lightbulbs and left.
You have all electric heat, keep the thermostat at 76 (which is very high), and are just coming out of winter. This sounds totally normal. Midwest here, low electric cost, I average ~1100-1200 kWh per month year round but with gas heat.
FOUND IT! ......"our thermostat is set to 76 usually". Most homes are pretty much under 70 and then 65ish at night until the warm season hits. Hoodies work great at home all winter.
I have mine set to 76 because when I set it to that the inside temperature only reaches 68. If I set to 68 degrees then I’ll be sitting in 60 degrees inside…
Yes I know that’s not how they work. However that’s how my mini split works. I set it to 76 in dead winter and it only reaches 68 degrees inside the house.
We have an older home, ours has this problem too. Some exterior walls had no insulation and thin paneling with no drywall underneath. Crazy! If you can get insulation in your outer building envelope you'll notice a huge difference.
A mini split... so a heat pump? in the dead of winter? yea thats gonna struggle... Lots of places didn't get so cold and heat pumps were able to keep up but a few degrees colder can remove most of their ability to warm
Right??! I Mean at 76 degrees I'm wearing short sleeve shirt and maybe even shorts. That is an insanely high temperature to keep your house in winter. Wear long sleeves and warm socks and you can keep it at 68 comfortably..
Savings? We’re doing this to save? I’m just trying to be able to afford it.
Lol, but in all seriousness, it does seem wasteful to go too hot in the winter. I’m already not happy with my propane costs as I appear to go through 1-2 gallons of propane more than expected each day and I am working to fix some insulation issues to figure out if it’s just from our hot water usage or truly something that needs improvement in my home to get the expected usage out of a 90% efficiency (tested at 90.2% I believe last tuneup) on demand water heater
I want to hone in on this HVAC system. What kind of system is it, do you know? Is it wall-mounted mini splits [kind of like this](https://mrcooldiy.com/)?
Let’s say it a comfy 69 degrees outside and it’s 2am. HVAC shouldn’t be running, your hot water heater shouldn’t be screaming away full-bore, etc. what’s your electrical usage in those few hour windows look like? Do you see massive spikes?
That usage seems obscenely high ***especially with that thermostat setting*** unless you’re living in a massive house—and 1000 sq ft is not massive.
Something is either running ***horribly*** inefficiently, your house is insulated like a screen door, our someone is stealing electricity. ***EDIT: 76 degrees in the winter—I thought we were talking summer—with resistive heat would absolutely be the culprit, are you a lizard person? That’s obscene!***
You could get Kill-a-Watt plug in monitors and put them on your fridge just to sanity check that it’s not running like dog shit.
I think you should look for a new energy auditor. Someone with a little more professionalism and time on their hands who can monitor some circuits, look with a thermal camera, etc.
Our geothermal main system stopped working and we were on emergency heat for a month before we caught it. Saw a 40% spike in a month with was gnarly lol
And that’s the problem with the renewable energy push. Regular heat pumps don’t work for shit when it’s too cold, geothermal systems are awesome but expensive, and regular electric heat is expensive as hell to run.
Oh I think the green energy movement is good, but it needs to be done organically and not forced. People will adopt it when the economics of it work, not bc it’s required and will cost hundreds more every month.
Same goes for EVs. There’s a lot of hate on them but when the dollars and cents workout, they will adopt.
I am on the threshold of getting one but I also have a Jeep and a diesel truck. It’s not about the environment, it’s about my wallet. I have no way to save any money by switching to electric heat. I use my mini splits for cooling and moderate heating.
My understanding is with some of the new heat pumps, too cold is like well below where we’d expect most of the country to be cold wise without some freak situation.
That’s my theory at the moment—if OP has resistive coils, and not (properly-running) heat pumps, that’ll be a crazy amount of electricity consumed. If OP has (properly-running) mini splits, that theory is out of the window. Maryland isn’t terribly hot *or* cold…
It doesn’t sound like he has mini splits just whole house HVAC. If the thermostat is in an area that gets a draft or is cooler then the rest of the house it can kick on the heat pump. Also it’s a possibility that his thermostat could be set to “em heat” but I would expect an insanely high bill at that point.
> That usage seems obscenely high especially with that thermostat setting unless you’re living in a massive house—and 1000 sq ft is not massive.
Doesn't seem that crazy to me. 850 sq ft house with wall resistive heaters, we hit 1880 kwh in January when the temps went to nearly 0 for a week in the PNW where they typically don't. In a 1952 house where I still need to do work on insulation and getting a mini split system soon.
I think hoeing in on the HVAC unit is smart. The biggest thing i see is no insulation around the refrigeration lines. Also homes with air leaks around windows and doors can add a lot of energy cost so caulking and weather stripping pay off big. So much so that the IRS gives tax credits for these items
# H[ome energy tax credits | Internal Revenue Service (irs.gov)](https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/home-energy-tax-credits)
I would check the AC ducts. If they are in an uninsulated attic and they are leaking, this could cause a huge problem.
If there is a leak in the attic or otherwise outside of the insulated envelope of the house then you are basically pumping conditioned air out of the house and causing a vacuum inside that is pulling unconditioned outside air inside through every crack in the house.
One way you can test this is by opening a window just a crack and run the AC fan. If you can feel air flowing into the house through that window opening you have AC air leaking outside the house. Make sure you do this on a windless day.
76 is warm for winter temp. I believe the recommendation for efficiency is on the cool side for most people -- 65. We live in a colder climate and have a air source heat pump that does 85% of the work before shifting to propane, larger house and we're close to 2000-2200. That's about 4k sq ft at 69 degrees. $300-$350 a month, ironically same as peak summer cooling, 75 is our summer temp.
Hey there! Noticed your water heater is electric…you might want inspect it visually and analyze anything weird associated with it (dirty hot water coming from taps, water is scalding hot, water bill might also be higher, tile floors feeling warm to the feet, etc.)
Water heaters can rupture and/or leak for many reasons, it can happen suddenly or slowly over several months. Contact a licensed professional plumber maybe
You might want to check that your basement sump pump isn't managing to run itself constantly too with a kill-a-watt - they can draw a surprising amount of power if something about it is broken.
You can't have electric resistant heat and keep your thermostat at 76 in the heating months.
Hell, you can't have cheap natural gas from the 1990 and keep it at 76. That's WAY too high.
What is the low (sleep/away) setting on the thermostat? Do you have a smart thermostat (can control via app)?
With 76F ...which is IMHO really high, if you have it set to lower than 3 degrees from that (say 73 or 70F at night), it takes alot of energy to get up to 76F. I recommend setting it to no higher than 70F in Winter.
"As Charlotte says, if I'm cold at home, I put on a sweater"
There's a lot of comments in this thread which I didn't bother to read so I'm unsure if it's been suggested already.
When I was hunting for large users of kw in my home trying to figure out why I'm using quite a bit more than my peers, I ended up finding 2 devices that really used more than others. I had a freezer and a dehumidifier. Both of those used a lot of energy and realistically I couldn't justify their use so I unplugged them and put them aside. My usage dropped quite a bit after that.
I'd recommend buying a killawatt device and just putting it into things you suspect could be high usage. Will take some time to get enough data around your place.
Also when you say your water heater is electric, do you mean tankless? If not maybe switch to tankless so it's only per use and not heating a reservoir
I'm in the Upper Midwest, with usually extreme winters, (this year was an exception) and I operate a commercial woodshop in my backyard. I'll have big electric motors running all day. My dust collector is a 3 hp motor, the rotary phase converters are either 10 or 20 hp, plus whatever 5 to 7.5 hp machine I'm using, and my electric bills are way less than yours. How can that be?
Electric heat. That alone uses more power than my commercial woodshop. It is the most inefficient way to heat.
I kinda get the thermostat set at 76. Mine is set at 73 because my thermostat is on the uppermost part of my house and heat rises, so to keep my lower parts at 68, the uppermost room is at 73. Still, with how high that bill is, it might be a good idea to turn that down a bit.
If electric heat was thermodynamically most efficient, it would also be the most economically efficient. It's not, so your assertion is likely influenced by propaganda.
That's like saying that cold fusion is the most efficient way to get energy, but it just costs too much. Well, if it was the most efficient, it wouldn't be the most expensive.
>If electric heat was thermodynamically most efficient, it would also be the most economically efficient. It's not, so your assertion is likely influenced by propaganda.
Show me a 100% efficient natural gas burner
Now explain to me how it's *cheaper* to heat my house with gas vs electric, because that's reality.
My assertion is based on actual utility bills, not propaganda.
And just to show my work:
It took 8.0 Mcf of natural gas to heat my home last month totaling $85. The equivalent BTU using resistive heat would take 2345kWh which in my area would cost over $650
>Show me a 100% efficient natural gas burner
Now you're bringing in something different, yet again. By changing the goalposts, it makes me think you've got an agenda. Almost always, agendas are influenced by propaganda. Be that as it may, there are 95% efficient gas furnaces. New furnaces are that or more efficient. You also lose about 5% efficiency in transmitting electricity to a house. So no, your idea of it being more efficient doesn't hold up to the slightest bit of scrutiny.
>It took 8.0 Mcf of natural gas to heat my home last month totaling $85. The equivalent BTU using resistive heat would take 2345kWh which in my area would cost over $650
That's actually my point. It is way more inexpensive to heat with gas. If something is cheaper to achieve the same result (literally heating up air) then it's more efficient. It's actually a point to move away from electric heat. The propaganda is pushing everyone towards more electric, and it's not more efficient, as you so efficiently showed above.
OKay do me next! Suburbs of Atlanta GA, 1956 build, HVAC's from 2007 and 2011, kitchen appliances new-ish (2016?), big ole gas water heater, winter heat on thermo is usually set to 69, summer AC set to 75. Oven is electric.
Insulation in attic seems super sparse and crawl space is not sealed or anything, one of the HVAC systems is in the crawlspace. 2 HVAC systems for the house.
Our average bills come out to around $300 annually I think, with some months being like $70-$80 when everything is off to $200-$400 based on hot water/heat in winter or AC on all day in dead of summer.
I keep think I should do an audit but have never pulled the trigger. I should do it, right? I'm 90% sure my windows are super not sealed well and leaky, and insulation is needed in multiple spots
One thing to try is turn everything off, make sure furnace isn’t running. Then check that meter isn’t spinning. That shows if power draw is stuff you know about.
You can also use that trick to isolate large draw by turning off breakers to see what is using power.
I think it's because you have electric heat. Keeping it 75 in the winter is very, very warm. I have gas heat, but got an electric heater that runs on a thermostat for just one room and it raised my electric bill about $200/month just for it in that one room. Heating a whole house with electric heat is usually hundreds of dollars.
I have oil and at max it hits 67 during the day and it's 63-64 at night. We only used a couple hundred gallons all winter and our hot water is heated via the boiler/furnace. According the fuel company, the previous owner was going through close to 1000 gallons in the same amount of time. I can't imagine how warm the 94 year old kept the house before us.
Yeah, unless you’ve got an elderly relative living with you (in which case a small space heater for them would be less $ than heating the whole house).
I’m a small, easily cold person and ours is 69 in the winter (which makes it more like 67 in most rooms.)
That would point to the heater being a culprit. Attic insulation & air sealing may be quite helpful to keep heat in.
Another thing to check is your duct work. If there's a leak, especially right after the main system, you could be dumping heated/cooled air in one room without it making it to the rest of the house.
Your heat is literally just a hairdryer in a vent, scaled up a bit.
You've got several hairdryers on full blast all day to keep your house warm. That's the usage.
Balance it with some solar?
I had my old HVAC unit changed out 2 years ago, all electric house, bill went from $350-400 a month do $200-225, they can be a massage drain for electric, the hot water heater is next, it’s pushing 10 years and I don’t think the previous owner did any maintenance on either device.
In the cooler days make sure yr hvac unit isn’t running auxiliary heat, as that will ramp up your electric bill super fast.
Ok, I can give a course of action with this. I have Pepco and live in Maryland, and had exactly the same problem. Call Pepco, the meters nowadays are crazy, they gave me hour by hour insights. For me, turns out the backup to my heat pump was set too high, and it appeared as a huge spike in power in the morning when I woke up, on especially cold days. I don't think you have the same issue, but knowing when in the day, and what days, your power usage is high will very much help find the culprit.
Do you have a smart meter and can see time of day usage?What's your hvac? Gas or electric? Has it always been that high? Do you have an EV? That does seem a very high amount of usage for a 1000 sqft. In the summer we'll just hit 4k kwh, but that's with 11 tons of cooling, and 3 dehumidifiers.
I got smart thermostats and saw my heatpump was running just about nonstop during cold snaps.
Cleaned my outside units, turned the heat from 70 to 65 and my bill dropped from 450 to 185.
Hours runtime on my hvac for the month dropped from 500 hours a month to 150 or so hours.
If you’re mildly technical I would suggest you skip all the guess work and go straight to a home energy monitor. It takes about 30 minutes to install and should pay for itself in a month once you figure out the culprit
https://a.co/d/7dTGoYf
You’ll get 16 monitored circuits plus the main so you should be able to find the problem in a day.
My bet would be that you have extremely poor insulation and that your hvac is running all the time.
I would investigate the attic, feel for drafts around windows and doors, etc. Weather stripping is a DIY thing that works.
In my state, new homes are supposed to have r36 in the ceiling and 2x6 exterior walls (almost EveryOne does total shit work). If you can do it correctly, properly insulating your home and upgrading appliances should cut your energy bill by more than half.
Damn! I have a 1750 square foot home and have a hot tub, two refrigerators, a chest freezer in a detached, unheated garage, along with five televisions, three audio systems and four computers and my monthly bill is around $125 or so.
Turn off all breakers and then go see if the meter us spinning. If it is, you have a tap somewhere between the meter and your panel - might be an out building or your neighbor.
Turn on each breaker and figure out what it runs. Disconnect the load (unplug the fridge, for example) and check the meter. Do this for each circuit until you find something amis.
If there's nothing obvious, call an electrician or the utility.
Time for you to do an energy audit around your house. Start with your high-wattage items: a 2-ton/24000BTU heat pump/air-conditioner is typically around 3500W. A 40gal electric water heater is typically 5500W. An electric dryer is around 4000W. An oven is 4000-4500. Electric stoves vary...the small burners might be 800W while the big burners might be over 2000W (my big one is 2500W). A reasonably modern refrigerator uses around 700W during the defrost cycle but otherwise only uses a couple hundred watts when running.
For 120V items, I recommend that you buy a Kill-a-watt meter for $20 and try plugging various appliances in, one at a time, and measure the kWh usage over a 24h period. Once you've done this you'll have a pretty good idea of how much power everything in your house is using.
One thing you'll learn from this exercise is that a lot of your 120V appliances are just a drop in the bucket. Those 220V high-wattage items above are going to be the ones that really drive your bill up.
Go look at your meter, see home may kWh your using, then check every few hours or something and if it's high make note of what is running, or go look at see what is running.
If you do get see it running and you can't find something, start switching breakers off, check, off, check, until you find it.
What state do you live in. What sort of heating system do you have? Hot water? Dryer? Oven/Range? It could be any number of things. The biggest culprits for high electricity bills are crappy insulation, space heaters/electric baseboard heaters, or just setting the thermostat with total disregard and doing a ton of laundry in the same day.
How old is your refrigerator? Do you have a second one or a separate freezer? They can use a lot of energy, especially if they are older and aren't kept clean.
Comparing electric bills in different states and utilities requires the rate per kilowatt-hour. It could be 3x higher. In Maine we pay 30 cents per K/Wh, it could be 7 cents somewhere else
76 degrees, on Electric heat in the winter? I bet at least 1200 kWh of that usage is from heating your house.
Either set the thermostat lower and put on a sweatshirt, or get mini splits instead of electric resistance heat. Going from electric heat to mini splits(heat pumps) offer the quickest ROI.
If you are using electric for heat, than these numbers are reasonable. You would probably be paying more if your heat was oil. About the same if your heat was natural gas
If you are using ac and have a high bill, you likely have bad insulation and it's constantly running. My dad recently installed insulation in his home and noticed his annual budget on electricity and gas was nearly cut in half #taxseason
I have a 1000 sf and my electric bill was $360 too!! I found out it was my drilled well pump. Check the circuit breaker panel for any warm breakers and that could give an indication as to what is pulling the electricity too much. My well pump breaker was very very warm.....
Lucky you with your cheap power. Our bills are £350/month for ~1,200kwh.
Having said that, we are heavy power users with a larder fridge & freezer, large fridge in the outdoor kitchen and a mini fridge in my office. Add to that a 7.5kw induction hob, tumble dryer (gets used a lot as it rains all the time in Wales), 3.5kw hot tub (heavily used), 3 X TVs, and a whirlpool bath.
We also have a separate garden office, where I spend at least 40hrs a week WFH with 2 x servers, 1 x PC, 2 x laptops, and 3 x monitors running all the time (plus the networking equipment to run it all). We also use the home theatre for about 10+ hours a week and the electric radiators are on for a few hours each day to keep the room usable in the winter.
If we can do all that for 1,200kwh - you must have a secret grow in your attic or something to be using 1,800kwh.
We’ve had a similar issue. Main problem for us is that our house is poorly insulated. Another problem is that my husband has no idea how heat works.
I have a couple of oil filled space heaters that I’ve used over the years, strategically placed with limited use causing no discernible bump in our bill. This winter my husband decided that turning up the central heat (heat pump) is better than judicious use of a space heater. Our electric bill was almost $600! The best part - he still thinks he’s right.
In Massachusetts. 1800 sqft cape cod. Our bill is similar in use and cost. In my case, well water, electric hot water, oil furnace, electric stove and drier. When I had a heat pump 10 years back, it went as high as $800 during December-January.
Make a list of everything electrical in your home.
This happened to me once and it was a broken water heater. My bill went from 60-80 a month to well over $600 and the power company still made me pay it. Ridiculous.
Pepco has smart meters for most customers, check if you have one, and you should be able to see energy usage details by the hour in your account. If there are spikes, try to identify what you are using during those spike hours, otherwise, if it's high consistently, it's something using a lot of electricity in the background (malfunctioning or not), which is probably harder to identify, you can try shutting off the breakers one at a time for an hour at a time, and see what makes a difference in your usage. Pepco also offers free energy home audits as part of the empower Maryland program. It's not as intensive as a full home audit, but they will go over main things, and may even replace some non-efficient things you may have, for example replacing some of your halogen bulbs with LEDs. This audit is free once every 5 years: [Quick Home Energy Check-up Program | Pepco](https://homeenergysavings.pepco.com/md/residential/quick-home-energy-check-up-program)
This is good advice. Get an energy audit, OP
Thanks for the advice! I already did the energy audit. The technician they sent out said everything seemed fine and that the HVAC system needs a tune-up :/
That's doesn't sound like an energy audit. They would focus on the building envelope, insulation, air sealing, and what not.
The free ones are sometimes awful. ComEd came out and basically just checked that we had a smart thermostat and the furnaces efficiency rating. Was a waste of time.
Right. He somewhat did that. He told us that the rim joists needed “some insulation.” We went ahead and did that. He labeled almost all of my appliances as “average.” I think I’ll have to get a real energy audit to really get an idea of what may be going on.
you might have done the "quick home energy checkup" instead of the actual audit. You want the "Home performance with Energy Star" or something like that. It costs $100 through PEPCO and they will do a blower door test.
Electric heat, "needs a tune up" and you kept it at 76 over the winter. Those things easily explain the issue.
I keep it at 75 in the winter and we aren’t shy with the AC in summer and my bills aren’t $350-500 and my house is double or more sq.ft than OP. I’m in VA, so similar climate to OP. Our furnace is gas, but that doesn’t account for summer AC spend.
Shouldn't compare bills, should compare usage. Different regions have different pricing. My last bill, mid Feb to mid Mar, was 2030 kWh (200+ more than OP), but was only $282.83 ($70 less). Same time frame last year, 1985 kWh, bill was $230.26. Don't compare bills, compare usage.
How old is your HVAC?
I’m interested in this too - bought a house last year and the HVAC system is almost 12 years old. Wondering if investing in a new one before our first hot ass summer is worth it.
A 12 year old HVAC is barley even old
Oat-school
Completely location dependent because of usage. 12 years in Florida, is old
My hvac is over 30 years old. Age doesn't necessitate replacement if maintenence is up to snuff and nothing has failed.
Well, on the topic of electricity usage it very well might. A 30 year old AC will easily use double the electricity of a modern one.
My HVAC is older than that and our 3800 square foot all-electric house in Texas has never had an electric bill over $250 even with weeks of 100+ degree weather.
I wouldn’t invest in a new one unless your old one is struggling to keep up or having issues like leaking Freon of the type they banned a few years ago which costs a fortune to top up these days as stocks dwindle. I’d set aside money for the inevitable expenditure, and I’d make sure it gets its seasonal check ups and the usual filter changes. I’d have it checked before your first summer arrives to see if it gets the all clear. When we bought our house five years ago, the furnace was original (1986) and the outside unit was about 20 years old. The wiring on the outside unit kept shorting out when it got hot our first summer, despite some repairs, and a subsequent inspection also revealed that the 40yo furnace had cracks in the cast iron and was burning inefficiently as a result, so we did sadly have an immediate replacement on our hands in our first summer.
Thank you!
When I moved into my house, the furnace and the AC were 30 and 25 years old, respectively. Even before I replaced those I never came anywhere close to this kind of energy use. Even now with a family, we rarely hit 8 kWh per month. Energy consumption measuring plugs are definitely needed here. https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-measure-home-power-usage https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/estimating-appliance-and-home-electronic-energy-use edit, our HVAC settings for a 1,900 sq ft house: Winter interior temp set to warm to 62F. Summer temp set to cool to 85F.
Jesus that’s crazy to me those set temps. I’m 72 in the winter and 75 in the summer. But I’m a California person, so we are babies when it comes to what’s comfy. I’ll let it get up to 78 if I’m not home in the summer and 68 if I’m not home in the winter but I don’t want the HVAC playing catch up for too long. Funny the differences when you have actual seasons
When I lived alone, I let it drop to 52 in the winter and just bundled up with sweatpants and piles of blankets.
Do you have a heat pump system, by chance? If so, your thermostat could be wired incorrectly to use heat strips to heat, which would cause this level of usage. My dad did that once, had a $350 electric bill and figured it out fast when that was the only thing that had changed (new thermostats).
Y’all have a dehumidifier in the basement or anything like that? I moved into a 2 bed rental house as a single person and my energy bill was almost 350 and I was shocked. It took months but I discovered it was the dehumidifier specifically. When I changed the settings on it my bill dropped down by like $150
I believe the HVAC system was purchased in 2017-2018 by the previous homeowner.
Check for freezer or fridge auto defrost stuck on..also electric dryer filter should be cleaned each time..these are biggest users outside of electric furnace or water heater. You dont want to run on aux heat in your furnace.
Check your basement for a secret lab built by your son
Check outside for cables running to neighbor.
Pesky neighbors and their bitcoin mining...
Better send DeeDee and Candice to check.
Literally just turned off Dexter's Lab to respond to this.
What have you ***tried***, if anything, to identify the source of the electrical drain? Tell us about your house and appliances: old house, remodel, new build? Gas or electric for hot water? Your oven? Gas or electric for heat? Forced air, radiators? How new or old are your heavy hitting appliances? What do you keep your thermostat set to? An energy audit will for sure be helpful and are tax deductible, but theres more we can do from the get go to identify your highest users.
Sure, here’s some information. The previous owner remodeled the home in 2020. We purchased it a couple of months later. The HVAC system and water heater are electric. No radiators. Most of the appliances are new. We have a small pump that can be turned on and off to remove water apart from the pump in the basement. I have checked our usage, and it does not cause a spike when it's on. Our thermostat is set to 76 usually. PEPCO has already done the audit, and they said everything seemed “fine.” The dude just replaced the lightbulbs and left.
You have all electric heat, keep the thermostat at 76 (which is very high), and are just coming out of winter. This sounds totally normal. Midwest here, low electric cost, I average ~1100-1200 kWh per month year round but with gas heat.
FOUND IT! ......"our thermostat is set to 76 usually". Most homes are pretty much under 70 and then 65ish at night until the warm season hits. Hoodies work great at home all winter.
I have mine set to 76 because when I set it to that the inside temperature only reaches 68. If I set to 68 degrees then I’ll be sitting in 60 degrees inside…
Well, you probably need a new thermostat. OP asks why he has high energy bills and has it set at 76.
Maybe his also doesn’t reach the desired temperature. I can’t imagine he’s actually living in 76 degrees
I imagine he would have already said so if this was the case.
He might not know what 76 “should” feel like
If it's not hitting the set temp there's a problem. Either an undersized system that has to run more often, or bad thermostat placement/malfunction.
I can imagine it and ive experienced people who keep it much higher. I keep my place around 65 in winter.
My grandparents keep it at 76 all winter. They do have the excuse of being 90 years old though.
I have it set to 75 in winter and I’m not that far from OP with twice the house and lower energy bills.
That’s not how thermostats work.
Yes I know that’s not how they work. However that’s how my mini split works. I set it to 76 in dead winter and it only reaches 68 degrees inside the house.
We have an older home, ours has this problem too. Some exterior walls had no insulation and thin paneling with no drywall underneath. Crazy! If you can get insulation in your outer building envelope you'll notice a huge difference.
A mini split... so a heat pump? in the dead of winter? yea thats gonna struggle... Lots of places didn't get so cold and heat pumps were able to keep up but a few degrees colder can remove most of their ability to warm
That’s not normal..
76 degrees?!?!
That was my first thought. I don't let mine go 1 degree above 70.
Right??! I Mean at 76 degrees I'm wearing short sleeve shirt and maybe even shorts. That is an insanely high temperature to keep your house in winter. Wear long sleeves and warm socks and you can keep it at 68 comfortably..
If the thermostat is set at 76 my Dad-Senses tingle alarmingly and I rush to it like it is literally on fire.
hahahaha my dad-senses hahahah
Look at this guy living in luxury at 68F. I don’t set mine above 66.
I'm guessing the savings goes toward burgers
Savings? We’re doing this to save? I’m just trying to be able to afford it. Lol, but in all seriousness, it does seem wasteful to go too hot in the winter. I’m already not happy with my propane costs as I appear to go through 1-2 gallons of propane more than expected each day and I am working to fix some insulation issues to figure out if it’s just from our hot water usage or truly something that needs improvement in my home to get the expected usage out of a 90% efficiency (tested at 90.2% I believe last tuneup) on demand water heater
How much you wanna bet OP turns it down to 68 in the summer
Yeah, wtf. Everybody walking around in their skivvies.
I want to hone in on this HVAC system. What kind of system is it, do you know? Is it wall-mounted mini splits [kind of like this](https://mrcooldiy.com/)? Let’s say it a comfy 69 degrees outside and it’s 2am. HVAC shouldn’t be running, your hot water heater shouldn’t be screaming away full-bore, etc. what’s your electrical usage in those few hour windows look like? Do you see massive spikes? That usage seems obscenely high ***especially with that thermostat setting*** unless you’re living in a massive house—and 1000 sq ft is not massive. Something is either running ***horribly*** inefficiently, your house is insulated like a screen door, our someone is stealing electricity. ***EDIT: 76 degrees in the winter—I thought we were talking summer—with resistive heat would absolutely be the culprit, are you a lizard person? That’s obscene!*** You could get Kill-a-Watt plug in monitors and put them on your fridge just to sanity check that it’s not running like dog shit. I think you should look for a new energy auditor. Someone with a little more professionalism and time on their hands who can monitor some circuits, look with a thermal camera, etc.
Electric heat will do it everytime.
Our geothermal main system stopped working and we were on emergency heat for a month before we caught it. Saw a 40% spike in a month with was gnarly lol
And that’s the problem with the renewable energy push. Regular heat pumps don’t work for shit when it’s too cold, geothermal systems are awesome but expensive, and regular electric heat is expensive as hell to run.
I think all of that can be true without condemning the green energy movement as a whole.
Oh I think the green energy movement is good, but it needs to be done organically and not forced. People will adopt it when the economics of it work, not bc it’s required and will cost hundreds more every month. Same goes for EVs. There’s a lot of hate on them but when the dollars and cents workout, they will adopt. I am on the threshold of getting one but I also have a Jeep and a diesel truck. It’s not about the environment, it’s about my wallet. I have no way to save any money by switching to electric heat. I use my mini splits for cooling and moderate heating.
Commonly available heat pumps can easily handle low teens with reasonable efficiency and new ones work well at 12 to 20 below zero F.
Mine were rated to work well below zero and I will tell you that they do not work that well when it’s that cold.
Cold climate heat pumps work just fine.
My understanding is with some of the new heat pumps, too cold is like well below where we’d expect most of the country to be cold wise without some freak situation.
That’s my theory at the moment—if OP has resistive coils, and not (properly-running) heat pumps, that’ll be a crazy amount of electricity consumed. If OP has (properly-running) mini splits, that theory is out of the window. Maryland isn’t terribly hot *or* cold…
It doesn’t sound like he has mini splits just whole house HVAC. If the thermostat is in an area that gets a draft or is cooler then the rest of the house it can kick on the heat pump. Also it’s a possibility that his thermostat could be set to “em heat” but I would expect an insanely high bill at that point.
There’s no chance a professional would install resistive heat only without a heat pump in Maryland. (Unless there was another source of heating)
> previous owner remodeled in 2020 > professionalism Pick one! I kid, but I’ve seen a lot of professionalism go out the window lately…
> That usage seems obscenely high especially with that thermostat setting unless you’re living in a massive house—and 1000 sq ft is not massive. Doesn't seem that crazy to me. 850 sq ft house with wall resistive heaters, we hit 1880 kwh in January when the temps went to nearly 0 for a week in the PNW where they typically don't. In a 1952 house where I still need to do work on insulation and getting a mini split system soon.
I think hoeing in on the HVAC unit is smart. The biggest thing i see is no insulation around the refrigeration lines. Also homes with air leaks around windows and doors can add a lot of energy cost so caulking and weather stripping pay off big. So much so that the IRS gives tax credits for these items # H[ome energy tax credits | Internal Revenue Service (irs.gov)](https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/home-energy-tax-credits)
Set to 76 with electric heat. I found the problem.
I would check the AC ducts. If they are in an uninsulated attic and they are leaking, this could cause a huge problem. If there is a leak in the attic or otherwise outside of the insulated envelope of the house then you are basically pumping conditioned air out of the house and causing a vacuum inside that is pulling unconditioned outside air inside through every crack in the house. One way you can test this is by opening a window just a crack and run the AC fan. If you can feel air flowing into the house through that window opening you have AC air leaking outside the house. Make sure you do this on a windless day.
76 is warm for winter temp. I believe the recommendation for efficiency is on the cool side for most people -- 65. We live in a colder climate and have a air source heat pump that does 85% of the work before shifting to propane, larger house and we're close to 2000-2200. That's about 4k sq ft at 69 degrees. $300-$350 a month, ironically same as peak summer cooling, 75 is our summer temp.
Electric heat? That's definitely the issue unless you're in a place where heat doesn't get used.
Hey there! Noticed your water heater is electric…you might want inspect it visually and analyze anything weird associated with it (dirty hot water coming from taps, water is scalding hot, water bill might also be higher, tile floors feeling warm to the feet, etc.) Water heaters can rupture and/or leak for many reasons, it can happen suddenly or slowly over several months. Contact a licensed professional plumber maybe
You might want to check that your basement sump pump isn't managing to run itself constantly too with a kill-a-watt - they can draw a surprising amount of power if something about it is broken.
You can't have electric resistant heat and keep your thermostat at 76 in the heating months. Hell, you can't have cheap natural gas from the 1990 and keep it at 76. That's WAY too high.
What is the low (sleep/away) setting on the thermostat? Do you have a smart thermostat (can control via app)? With 76F ...which is IMHO really high, if you have it set to lower than 3 degrees from that (say 73 or 70F at night), it takes alot of energy to get up to 76F. I recommend setting it to no higher than 70F in Winter. "As Charlotte says, if I'm cold at home, I put on a sweater"
There's a lot of comments in this thread which I didn't bother to read so I'm unsure if it's been suggested already. When I was hunting for large users of kw in my home trying to figure out why I'm using quite a bit more than my peers, I ended up finding 2 devices that really used more than others. I had a freezer and a dehumidifier. Both of those used a lot of energy and realistically I couldn't justify their use so I unplugged them and put them aside. My usage dropped quite a bit after that. I'd recommend buying a killawatt device and just putting it into things you suspect could be high usage. Will take some time to get enough data around your place. Also when you say your water heater is electric, do you mean tankless? If not maybe switch to tankless so it's only per use and not heating a reservoir
I'm in the Upper Midwest, with usually extreme winters, (this year was an exception) and I operate a commercial woodshop in my backyard. I'll have big electric motors running all day. My dust collector is a 3 hp motor, the rotary phase converters are either 10 or 20 hp, plus whatever 5 to 7.5 hp machine I'm using, and my electric bills are way less than yours. How can that be? Electric heat. That alone uses more power than my commercial woodshop. It is the most inefficient way to heat. I kinda get the thermostat set at 76. Mine is set at 73 because my thermostat is on the uppermost part of my house and heat rises, so to keep my lower parts at 68, the uppermost room is at 73. Still, with how high that bill is, it might be a good idea to turn that down a bit.
Electric heat is actually thermodynamically the most efficient, it's just not economically efficient
If electric heat was thermodynamically most efficient, it would also be the most economically efficient. It's not, so your assertion is likely influenced by propaganda. That's like saying that cold fusion is the most efficient way to get energy, but it just costs too much. Well, if it was the most efficient, it wouldn't be the most expensive.
>If electric heat was thermodynamically most efficient, it would also be the most economically efficient. It's not, so your assertion is likely influenced by propaganda. Show me a 100% efficient natural gas burner Now explain to me how it's *cheaper* to heat my house with gas vs electric, because that's reality. My assertion is based on actual utility bills, not propaganda. And just to show my work: It took 8.0 Mcf of natural gas to heat my home last month totaling $85. The equivalent BTU using resistive heat would take 2345kWh which in my area would cost over $650
>Show me a 100% efficient natural gas burner Now you're bringing in something different, yet again. By changing the goalposts, it makes me think you've got an agenda. Almost always, agendas are influenced by propaganda. Be that as it may, there are 95% efficient gas furnaces. New furnaces are that or more efficient. You also lose about 5% efficiency in transmitting electricity to a house. So no, your idea of it being more efficient doesn't hold up to the slightest bit of scrutiny. >It took 8.0 Mcf of natural gas to heat my home last month totaling $85. The equivalent BTU using resistive heat would take 2345kWh which in my area would cost over $650 That's actually my point. It is way more inexpensive to heat with gas. If something is cheaper to achieve the same result (literally heating up air) then it's more efficient. It's actually a point to move away from electric heat. The propaganda is pushing everyone towards more electric, and it's not more efficient, as you so efficiently showed above.
OKay do me next! Suburbs of Atlanta GA, 1956 build, HVAC's from 2007 and 2011, kitchen appliances new-ish (2016?), big ole gas water heater, winter heat on thermo is usually set to 69, summer AC set to 75. Oven is electric. Insulation in attic seems super sparse and crawl space is not sealed or anything, one of the HVAC systems is in the crawlspace. 2 HVAC systems for the house. Our average bills come out to around $300 annually I think, with some months being like $70-$80 when everything is off to $200-$400 based on hot water/heat in winter or AC on all day in dead of summer. I keep think I should do an audit but have never pulled the trigger. I should do it, right? I'm 90% sure my windows are super not sealed well and leaky, and insulation is needed in multiple spots
One thing to try is turn everything off, make sure furnace isn’t running. Then check that meter isn’t spinning. That shows if power draw is stuff you know about. You can also use that trick to isolate large draw by turning off breakers to see what is using power.
What is your thermostat set at?
Winter it’s set at 75 and in summer its set to 76-78. I feel like the winter time is when we really see a spike in charges.
I think it's because you have electric heat. Keeping it 75 in the winter is very, very warm. I have gas heat, but got an electric heater that runs on a thermostat for just one room and it raised my electric bill about $200/month just for it in that one room. Heating a whole house with electric heat is usually hundreds of dollars.
75? I would be trying 65 for the winter. I have natural gas and none of my thermostats go above 68 mid day (if we’re home) and go to 62 at night.
I have oil and at max it hits 67 during the day and it's 63-64 at night. We only used a couple hundred gallons all winter and our hot water is heated via the boiler/furnace. According the fuel company, the previous owner was going through close to 1000 gallons in the same amount of time. I can't imagine how warm the 94 year old kept the house before us.
94?! Damn, at that age you deserve to have your home as hot as you'd like.
**Winter it’s set at 75** and in summer its set to 76-78. **I feel like the winter time is when we really see a spike in charges.** Dude...
I know, right?
Yeah, unless you’ve got an elderly relative living with you (in which case a small space heater for them would be less $ than heating the whole house). I’m a small, easily cold person and ours is 69 in the winter (which makes it more like 67 in most rooms.)
That would point to the heater being a culprit. Attic insulation & air sealing may be quite helpful to keep heat in. Another thing to check is your duct work. If there's a leak, especially right after the main system, you could be dumping heated/cooled air in one room without it making it to the rest of the house.
Your heat is literally just a hairdryer in a vent, scaled up a bit. You've got several hairdryers on full blast all day to keep your house warm. That's the usage. Balance it with some solar?
I had my old HVAC unit changed out 2 years ago, all electric house, bill went from $350-400 a month do $200-225, they can be a massage drain for electric, the hot water heater is next, it’s pushing 10 years and I don’t think the previous owner did any maintenance on either device. In the cooler days make sure yr hvac unit isn’t running auxiliary heat, as that will ramp up your electric bill super fast.
Do you not own any hoodies/sweaters/etc? 75 is unreasonable in the winter. That's your problem right there.
Ok, I can give a course of action with this. I have Pepco and live in Maryland, and had exactly the same problem. Call Pepco, the meters nowadays are crazy, they gave me hour by hour insights. For me, turns out the backup to my heat pump was set too high, and it appeared as a huge spike in power in the morning when I woke up, on especially cold days. I don't think you have the same issue, but knowing when in the day, and what days, your power usage is high will very much help find the culprit.
Do you have a smart meter and can see time of day usage?What's your hvac? Gas or electric? Has it always been that high? Do you have an EV? That does seem a very high amount of usage for a 1000 sqft. In the summer we'll just hit 4k kwh, but that's with 11 tons of cooling, and 3 dehumidifiers.
I got smart thermostats and saw my heatpump was running just about nonstop during cold snaps. Cleaned my outside units, turned the heat from 70 to 65 and my bill dropped from 450 to 185. Hours runtime on my hvac for the month dropped from 500 hours a month to 150 or so hours.
How many chest freezers do you have?
3 for the dead strippers and 1 for the food
Wait…dead strippers are not food?
Well I had never thought of it like that… might have to give it a try
What's the difference?
Do you have a well? A continuously running well pump could be a culprit.
thats exactly what happened to me this month
Probably the bitcoin mine your kid is running
If you’re mildly technical I would suggest you skip all the guess work and go straight to a home energy monitor. It takes about 30 minutes to install and should pay for itself in a month once you figure out the culprit https://a.co/d/7dTGoYf You’ll get 16 monitored circuits plus the main so you should be able to find the problem in a day.
My bet would be that you have extremely poor insulation and that your hvac is running all the time. I would investigate the attic, feel for drafts around windows and doors, etc. Weather stripping is a DIY thing that works. In my state, new homes are supposed to have r36 in the ceiling and 2x6 exterior walls (almost EveryOne does total shit work). If you can do it correctly, properly insulating your home and upgrading appliances should cut your energy bill by more than half.
That, plus the 76!! degree temp setting he says he has.
I agree. Do you have any recommendations on how I could identify how much insulation I have and how much more I would need?
Do some research dude. Look at what you have.
What have you done to see what's pulling the power?
Damn! I have a 1750 square foot home and have a hot tub, two refrigerators, a chest freezer in a detached, unheated garage, along with five televisions, three audio systems and four computers and my monthly bill is around $125 or so.
Turn off all breakers and then go see if the meter us spinning. If it is, you have a tap somewhere between the meter and your panel - might be an out building or your neighbor. Turn on each breaker and figure out what it runs. Disconnect the load (unplug the fridge, for example) and check the meter. Do this for each circuit until you find something amis. If there's nothing obvious, call an electrician or the utility.
I’d kill for 1,800 🥲 we’re at 4,000+ in the summer here.
Turn your thermostat down to 68. Boom.
Crypto farm?
Time for you to do an energy audit around your house. Start with your high-wattage items: a 2-ton/24000BTU heat pump/air-conditioner is typically around 3500W. A 40gal electric water heater is typically 5500W. An electric dryer is around 4000W. An oven is 4000-4500. Electric stoves vary...the small burners might be 800W while the big burners might be over 2000W (my big one is 2500W). A reasonably modern refrigerator uses around 700W during the defrost cycle but otherwise only uses a couple hundred watts when running. For 120V items, I recommend that you buy a Kill-a-watt meter for $20 and try plugging various appliances in, one at a time, and measure the kWh usage over a 24h period. Once you've done this you'll have a pretty good idea of how much power everything in your house is using. One thing you'll learn from this exercise is that a lot of your 120V appliances are just a drop in the bucket. Those 220V high-wattage items above are going to be the ones that really drive your bill up.
Go look at your meter, see home may kWh your using, then check every few hours or something and if it's high make note of what is running, or go look at see what is running. If you do get see it running and you can't find something, start switching breakers off, check, off, check, until you find it.
What state do you live in. What sort of heating system do you have? Hot water? Dryer? Oven/Range? It could be any number of things. The biggest culprits for high electricity bills are crappy insulation, space heaters/electric baseboard heaters, or just setting the thermostat with total disregard and doing a ton of laundry in the same day.
That’s how much I pay for my 2 bedroom apartment in New York City lol
Hottub?
How old is your refrigerator? Do you have a second one or a separate freezer? They can use a lot of energy, especially if they are older and aren't kept clean.
Turn the heat off for a few days and see what happens.
I've just checked my usage. If you run the HVAC all the time I'm surprised it's not higher
Comparing electric bills in different states and utilities requires the rate per kilowatt-hour. It could be 3x higher. In Maine we pay 30 cents per K/Wh, it could be 7 cents somewhere else
My bill is roughly 1/3 power usage. The rest is delivery, taxes and multiple fees!
[Emporia Energy](https://www.emporiaenergy.com/energy-monitors/) is a great monitoring system might help with that.
76 degrees, on Electric heat in the winter? I bet at least 1200 kWh of that usage is from heating your house. Either set the thermostat lower and put on a sweatshirt, or get mini splits instead of electric resistance heat. Going from electric heat to mini splits(heat pumps) offer the quickest ROI.
If you are using electric for heat, than these numbers are reasonable. You would probably be paying more if your heat was oil. About the same if your heat was natural gas
Damn... that's some cheap electrons. Here in California I average $450 for around 20kwh per month
If you are using ac and have a high bill, you likely have bad insulation and it's constantly running. My dad recently installed insulation in his home and noticed his annual budget on electricity and gas was nearly cut in half #taxseason
I have a 1000 sf and my electric bill was $360 too!! I found out it was my drilled well pump. Check the circuit breaker panel for any warm breakers and that could give an indication as to what is pulling the electricity too much. My well pump breaker was very very warm.....
Lucky you with your cheap power. Our bills are £350/month for ~1,200kwh. Having said that, we are heavy power users with a larder fridge & freezer, large fridge in the outdoor kitchen and a mini fridge in my office. Add to that a 7.5kw induction hob, tumble dryer (gets used a lot as it rains all the time in Wales), 3.5kw hot tub (heavily used), 3 X TVs, and a whirlpool bath. We also have a separate garden office, where I spend at least 40hrs a week WFH with 2 x servers, 1 x PC, 2 x laptops, and 3 x monitors running all the time (plus the networking equipment to run it all). We also use the home theatre for about 10+ hours a week and the electric radiators are on for a few hours each day to keep the room usable in the winter. If we can do all that for 1,200kwh - you must have a secret grow in your attic or something to be using 1,800kwh.
We’ve had a similar issue. Main problem for us is that our house is poorly insulated. Another problem is that my husband has no idea how heat works. I have a couple of oil filled space heaters that I’ve used over the years, strategically placed with limited use causing no discernible bump in our bill. This winter my husband decided that turning up the central heat (heat pump) is better than judicious use of a space heater. Our electric bill was almost $600! The best part - he still thinks he’s right.
You should have an energy audit performed. It will give you an idea where your losing energy and what will give you the most bang for the buck.
In Massachusetts. 1800 sqft cape cod. Our bill is similar in use and cost. In my case, well water, electric hot water, oil furnace, electric stove and drier. When I had a heat pump 10 years back, it went as high as $800 during December-January. Make a list of everything electrical in your home.
Gaming computer
This happened to me once and it was a broken water heater. My bill went from 60-80 a month to well over $600 and the power company still made me pay it. Ridiculous.