Electric bill (Carrollton, Frisco, Wylie: insurance, houses, water heater) - Dallas - Texas (TX) - City-Data Forum

Idahoan · 08-12-2007, 02:08 PM

We just moved to Frisco from Boise, ID. We bought a two-story 2700 square foot house with a pool. This last week, we haven't been able to cool the upstairs below 79 degrees during the day. The house was built in 2002 and has two units. Is this normal? We have solar screens on all windows and our house is south facing.

In addition, we have a pool. We received our first electric bill for 6 days of service (the last week of July.) It was $103 for the electric charges alone. Is that normal? Should we expect $500-$600 electric bills when it is 90+? We keep the upstairs thermostat on 79 and the downstairs on 77. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

USA_Mom · 08-12-2007, 02:10 PM

Our experience was $300-500 in the summer, we didn't have a pool but we had about 2900 s.f. and the house was a Weekley built in 2005. I really don't remember what the temperature was, but the thermostat was set at 78 in the summer. I have 3 kids and a dog so that's a lot of in and out. The previous house was up to $350 IIRC in the summer and was 1700 s.f., one story; but, I kept it at around 72.

galore · 08-12-2007, 02:18 PM

Sorry to say, but this is normal for the area. The wonders of deregulation brought some of the highest $/kWh to TX.

I assume you have no shade trees?

I also used to pay $500-$600 /month last year for my previous two story home in a new subdivision.

lh_newbie · 08-12-2007, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Idahoan

We just moved to Frisco from Boise, ID. We bought a two-story 2700 square foot house with a pool. This last week, we haven't been able to cool the upstairs below 79 degrees during the day. The house was built in 2002 and has two units. Is this normal? We have solar screens on all windows and our house is south facing.

In addition, we have a pool. We received our first electric bill for 6 days of service (the last week of July.) It was $103 for the electric charges alone. Is that normal? Should we expect $500-$600 electric bills when it is 90+? We keep the upstairs thermostat on 79 and the downstairs on 77. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Solar screens will certainly help, but if the bulk of your windows are facing south - you are certainly fighting mother nature. If you don't already have one - look at getting a quick growing tree and put one or two on the south side of your home so it can provide some shade to those windows (incidentally it will help to keep the hot sun from warming that side of your home's exterior, which does eventually work it's way through.

Get a reputable HVAC person out to clean both the inside and outside HVAC units. Make sure your outside unit isn't sitting in direct sunlight - that decreases it's efficiency by 20%. The preferable location is on the north side of your home (full shade), then the next would be East - as then it gets afternoon shade when the units are working their hardest. Make sure to replace your air filters. Also ensure they are not too close to the house or have any shrubs/plants growing too close - they MUST have lots of open space to allow for proper air flow to remove the heat from your house.

While you have an HVAC person there - have them check your insulation. I suspect that if your home was built in 2002, it probably has R-38 insulation. The Department of Energy recommends R-49 in our area. You can get a local installer to increase your attic insulation levels to R-49 for probably $500.

The only other thing you can do is work on "air leaks" within your home. Anywhere outside air can push through a wall, window or door will waste energy (money). On the electrical outlets, light switches, etc that are on the outside wall, get those little foam weather strips that are cutout like switches/plugs. Air does push its way though those things - the $10 you spend increasing the air tightness here will help. Check all your windows - do you see light through any area? Is the caulk along the outside perimiter cracked? New caulking and weather stripping is a very inexpensive and often overlooked way to help lower your bills. Finally, look at your doors. Is the weather stripping in good condition? Does it make a good seal? If not, replacing it is pretty easy and very inexpensive.

All of these things should help to minimize your HVAC costs. Something to note - two story houses typically have higher energy bills when comparing two comparably sized homes. It has to do with the heat stack effect (heat rising - or cool air sinking) - your home is taller, therefore has a higher pressure difference between the top and bottom of the home.

One other item that is often overlooked... recessed can lights. If you have them on the second floor (or anywhere on the first that has an attic space above it instead of the 2nd floor), you need to have "airtite" rated cans - they're cheap, but need someone with the appropriate skills to install. They allow insulation to be installed directly on the lights and don't have ventilation holes to allow the heat from bulbs to be vented (also allowing conditioned air to escape your house).

I've been doing a lot of upgrades to our house. It is 2576 sq ft and built in 1976. We have a 16-SEER HVAC unit - R-49 insulation, IC-rated can lights, we relocated the hot water heater into the garage (and converted to tankless) and have two 35' live oaks in the front yard (we face South also). We also got solar screens for our two sky lights - which can be HUGE sources of heat load if not addressed. We keep our house at 80, Monday-Friday from 9am to 5pm while we are at work; we then turn it down to 77 while we are home and 75 at night (we like it cool to sleep). On the weekends, it's 77 during the entire day and atain 75 at night. Our bills in June and July were $165 and $175, respectively. Since the heat has really cranked up and I did take a week of vacation to work on our master bath (meaning HVAC was turned to 75 for a week while I worked) will be up for a portion of this month, we suspect our bill in the $230 to $250 range.

Hope you don't go into information overload.

Sorry for such a long post, but I have spent the last 11 months working on increasing the efficiency of our house. I fell it is also worth noting we still have our old, single pane aluminum windows. That's about the only thing we have left to do... and it's just not in the budget for several more years.

Brian

cdelena · 08-12-2007, 03:19 PM

Unfortunately it takes alot of cooling to live with the heat and humidity in North Texas. You also moved from a state with very low rates to one with relatively high rates. Expect it to be worse when it really gets hot.

MaryS80 · 08-12-2007, 04:39 PM

It's pretty common to have trouble keeping the upper level of a home cool in the summer. Though I am surprised you have two A/C units and they can't keep up.

Do you know if each one is connected to its own floor?

You may need to feel around the seams of your doors and windows and see if they are drafty. Also check your attic to see if it is properly insulated. Little things can help too like keeping your blinds closed, or hanging even hanging a blackout drapery liner.

If there are rooms you don't use, or rarely use close the vent for the A/C. Even if you have two that are close together, try closing one. This helped me out a bit. I also switched most of my light bulbs to CFL's, that helped a lot. Not only tdo they use less power, they put off less heat.

johnmarg · 08-12-2007, 04:40 PM

Welcome to the area. The welcome wagon wont tell you about the horrendous electric bills and trying to stay cool during the sweltering summer, spring and fall. THat plus the high homeowners ins. and property taxes blows away the savings many think they had with the low home price.

USA_Mom · 08-12-2007, 05:39 PM

Brian I think that's a very informative post. One of our friends in Carrollton is doing pretty much the same stuff you're doing with his house (built mid 70s as well) and the savings have helped him out a lot.

lh_newbie · 08-12-2007, 09:13 PM

I'm glad it helped! We also swapped most of our "non dimming" lights out for compact fluorescents - as MaryS80 pointed out they put out less heat. MUCH less heat. We have been experimenting with the dimable CFL's also. They're OK, but not great.

Johnmarg -

I think you'll see that everyone is very open about the electric bills. There are threads on this forum all the time about the bills. We make it no secret that the cost of electricity is about 12 cents/KwH, which is tied with CA for the highest per KwH prices in the US.

I'm not going to digress long on the insurance and property tax thing, but your statement is WAY off base here. Insurance is high. That is true, but property taxes aren't high. A 3bd, 2ba home in California would be $500-600K and would have $5-6K property taxes (1% property tax); the same home here would cost $150-200K and would have $3.5-4.5K in taxes. The "huge property" tax bills come in when a person moves from an area where they had to spend $600K to get that 3/2. They get here, act like a kid in a candy store and end up with a $500K home, THINKING they are saving a hundred grand. That bigger home has higher electricity bills and $12-13K in property taxes. If people did a little more research, which they should do when moving to a different state or when making ANY major purchase, they wouldn't get in that trouble. Again, I've stated this over and over. It is imperative that a buyer do their research. If they don't, then that surprise bill is their fault. The data is readily available.

Brian

harishv · 10-13-2007, 11:51 AM

Brian, thanks for the info. very informative- particularly about the recessed can lights. My wife and I are moving to Wylie and having a two story david weekley home built about 3200 sq ft. The insulation the home coems with is R30 in the ceiling + the aluminum foil readiant barrier in the ceiling, R19 on the slopes and R16 in the walls. Do you think its worthwhile to ask DW to add more insulation in the attic before we move in?