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  #261  
Old Posted Sep 18, 2020, 9:52 PM
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Originally Posted by craigs View Post

As our electric bill is already $500/mo
WTF!?! how big is your house?

we have a 2,300 SF home, and we run our A/C all summer long. our unit is on the 1st floor/basement of our 3-flat in the city, and we don't feel comfortable leaving windows open overnight, so our A/C runs all night as well.

even at the height of summer in chicago, our highest elec. bill was ~$125/mo.

$500/mo seems outrageous to me. Have you had a technician inspect your HVAC recently to make sure everything is working ok?
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  #262  
Old Posted Sep 18, 2020, 10:29 PM
Buckeye Native 001 Buckeye Native 001 is offline
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I'm guessing that might have something to do with PG&E being assholes and possibly price gouging after declaring bankruptcy?

Hell, it's not unusual to have a $300+ a month electric bill in Phoenix from June to September. Central Valley and non-coastal California aren't that miserable, but it's still pretty damn hot for most of the summer.
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  #263  
Old Posted Sep 18, 2020, 11:18 PM
Crawford Crawford is offline
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$500 a month peak usage doesn't sound crazy in a hot area, at least not for a McMansion-type house. Or a really old house.
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  #264  
Old Posted Sep 18, 2020, 11:46 PM
mrnyc mrnyc is offline
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a/c is bs. ive lived in all climates and never had it. we dont have it in nyc. my mother doesnt have it in fla. i just despise it. outside of home is a different story though unfortunately.
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  #265  
Old Posted Sep 19, 2020, 1:35 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
$500 a month peak usage doesn't sound crazy in a hot area, at least not for a McMansion-type house. Or a really old house.
yeah, i suppose, if you've got some 5,000 SF mcmansion, and it's over 100 degrees out everyday, and you live in an area like cali with expensive electricity......

i guess i just never really appreciated how expensive it can be to cool a home in really hot places. it can get hot in chicago at times as well, but most of the time in the summer here, you're just trying to get 85 degree air down to 75 degrees, not 105 degree air down to 75 degrees.

it was just some sticker shock when i read "$500/mo" for electricity. i've never even spent close to that for an entire summer.
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Last edited by Steely Dan; Sep 19, 2020 at 2:03 AM.
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  #266  
Old Posted Sep 19, 2020, 2:40 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
$500 a month peak usage doesn't sound crazy in a hot area, at least not for a McMansion-type house. Or a really old house.
Our house is huge but our bill is half that in the summer. My parents paid that for their old house in the winter with electric baseboards. That was astronomical.
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  #267  
Old Posted Sep 19, 2020, 2:52 AM
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^ yeah, heating with electricity can get stupid expensive.

Which is why our home, like most of the Midwest, has a gas furnace. Even in January, the highest our gas bill gets up to is around $200 for the month.
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  #268  
Old Posted Sep 19, 2020, 4:02 AM
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We have a 1.7 acre parcel with four people in three separate homes on it, and yeah--we are PG&E victims. The main house (where I live with my husband) has double-pane windows, 2" thick masonry walls, and we're putting a new roof on later this month with extra insulation. The other, much smaller homes are well insulated but have older appliances. The biggest waste comes from our need to keep the grass green (county mandated, to reduce the fire hazard) when the high temps regularly hit 112 degrees in full sunshine with wind. The electric pump pushing the well water out is working overtime and even when nobody is home for days it pushes the usage way up.
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  #269  
Old Posted Sep 19, 2020, 4:48 AM
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^ oh, I didn't realize you were talking about a whole compound of homes.

5 hundo a month makes a lot more sense within that context.
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  #270  
Old Posted Sep 19, 2020, 7:27 AM
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It's not as fancy as it sounds, this is a family summer vacation property presently serving as a COVID refuge. The main house is 2 bedrooms and the other two are small 1 bedrooms. Only the main house has AC. We lived here in late March when it got down to freezing at night, but we've never spent a whole Winter here. I suspect the gas heating won't cost $500 a month. I really hope not, anyway.
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