Home heating/Duke Energy (Cincinnati, Green: apartment, renting, loft)

[HuskerDu]

I cannot believe the bill we just received from Duke Energy. $500.00 for one month of gas and this doesn't include electricity at all. We live in a well insulated house with 2 of our 3 bedrooms as well as a sunroom sealed off and have no idea what could possibly make our heating bill this big!! Before buying this house, we lived in a 1200 sq ft loft apartment downtown and the bill was never any more than $80.00.

Is ths normal for a 1700 sq ft home???

I need to add that we have brand new boiler with old style radiators as a heating system. Does that matter? I thought those were supposed to be relatively efficient.

[Cincy-Rise]

I feel you ... When I lived in the Shillito it was never over $80, now it can hover around $400/month.

[Hartwell Girl]

Hey Husker, We are feeling the pain too. We have the same heating system for an old 1890 house, about 1500 sq. ft and keep the temp set on 62...our bill we just got for heat was $380.

[Joe 4520832257]

I thought about making a similar thread.

We moved into a 2400 sqft house and our first heating bill was $400. It's an old house, but the windows are new, and the furnace is high efficiency. The worst part is that I actually keep the temp very low. Now I'm scared to think about this past month.

It seems like way too much. But people keep telling me that $400-$500 is normal. Is that people's experience here??

[HuskerDu]

I don't want to turn this into a political discussion, but the government really needs to regulate this in some way. We are lucky because there are some savings in our account to deal with unexpected crap and/or make some improvements to the house, but can you imagine a family that is already struggling with an adjustable mortgage payment... and then BAM, this hits them??? Duke Energy is just plain evil in my eyes.

[jlrosen]

Originally Posted by HuskerDu

I cannot believe the bill we just received from Duke Energy. $500.00 for one month of gas and this doesn't include electricity at all. We live in a well insulated house with 2 of our 3 bedrooms as well as a sunroom sealed off and have no idea what could possibly make our heating bill this big!! Before buying this house, we lived in a 1200 sq ft loft apartment downtown and the bill was never any more than $80.00.

Is ths normal for a 1700 sq ft home???

I need to add that we have brand new boiler with old style radiators as a heating system. Does that matter? I thought those were supposed to be relatively efficient.

That is one of the nice things about living in the city. Your house is essentially a six sided cube, if it standing alone, your bleed heat into the ground on one side and into the air on the other five sides. If you have an apartment or condo in a multi-story building, you bleed heat to your neighbors on four or five sides (and they bleed heat to you) and only loose heat to one side of air. That keeps the heating bill low.

[gman5431]

You all just hit a sore spot with me.......

DUKE Energy.....they suck. They would drink the blood from your body if they could, and then burn the skin as well.

I live in an old house, 80+ years old and have little to no insulation. Therefore, i keep my temp around 50 most of the winter and rarely turn it above 60 (would do so if i have company). Even with these drastic steps, my bill last year was over $200. I heard prices are even higher this winter. Just imagine if i actually heated my house to 72 or above. My bill would be right where yours is, $500 or even worse. Its an absolute joke. This is definately one of the negatives of home ownership vs. apt renting.....

G Rizzle

[Briolat21]

My monthly electric/gas bills in MI (in a 1800 sq foot ranch on a crawl space, insulated to code - but no more) was pushing $400/month last winter (one bad month was $450).

My goal was for our new house (two story) to not be WORSE than that. The first winter bill here (due today, actually) was $325. Considering I've almost doubled my square footage, plus I have an open foyer (a smaller open foyer, but open nonetheless). I'm happy.

I have a 95% efficient gas forced hot-air furnace. The house was built this year. So far we have been happy with windows (no dramatic cold spots next to window), and insulation. We did not do above what the builder did, but were very involved during building to make sure there were no gaps, etc..

Possibly eventually we will add extra insulation to attic.

We do have dual zone heat and keep the upstairs (bedrooms) at 62 degrees, 90% of the time (we warm them up briefly in the evening so that when we go to bed it is comfortable, but then let them go back to 62 overnight). We keep the downstairs at 62 during the day, warming it to 70 in the morning while we are preparing to go to work, and during the evening when we are home eating dinner/watching TV.

I hate to go below 62 as it is COLD.

Also, we have an attached sunroom (with french doors) with its own heater/AC (electric heat pump). We were keeping that room shut (we are not currently using it) and at 50 degrees, but we are going to paint it so we have reset the thermostat in there to 62 now.

I thought the bill here (so far) was reasonable. If I can keep the worst month of the year below or at $500 I will be happy.

By the way - I plan on this all year round (high bills in winter/ low bills in summer) - so this was unpleasant but NOT a surprise!

good luck to all!! Stay warm!

[bruce abel]

Your figures are way too high and you should call Duke.

I have two properties in Glendale, a suburb of Cincinnati. Live in one and have been trying to sell the other. 885 Greenville, an old insulated Victorian, where we used to live, heats about 3200 sq ft with three newish furnaces. When in full use on a normal winter I used 280 cu ft/month for the five winter months. In our present home, a brick ranch two blocks away, we use about the same although the sq footage heated is about 2800.

I have a blog which really goes into this topic deeply, www.natgagu.blogspot.com.

What is neat is that my ratios for both houses are as follows:

Go outdoors. If the avg. temp for the day is, like today, 10, then I subtract 10 from 65 degrees, getting 55 "degree-days," a recognized term by the experts. Then I divide by 3 to get my cost per day per house. So today my cost for each house is $18 per house. Wow. Sorry I went into this.

Will be cold again tonight but warming thereafter into the 50's.

Click on "heating degree days" and "ebills" for more than you want to know about this fascinating but boring to most topic. Also my very early posts on the blog give the normal heating degree days by day for all the winter months. This used to be readily-available at the Weather Service but it is not now without paying for it. But it is a stable chart for Cincinnati, so it's valuable until they run another 30-year period.

[Mike Dunn]

I hear your pain..........I have lived in several old Victorian homes over the years and heating costs can almost bankrupt you. Without sounding patronizing here are a few things I have done over the years to reduce heating costs. Some may work for you .......it becomes a trial and error process with your particular home.

Shut off rooms that you don't use regularly. In addition, in most cases, I shut off the vents to those rooms.

Place rolled up towels around the base of doors where a lot of cold air is coming through.

I keep the home at 62-65 degrees during the day. Pets seem to find a comfy spot next to floor vents!

Depending on your home......make sure you change your filters regularly. My one home in Covington, I had to change the filter every 30 days! Twice it was totally clogged when I waited until 45-60 days.

Close your blinds if you have them on overcast and cloudy days......open them on sunny days.

Hope these help!

Mike