Relocating to Orange County (Santa Ana: condo, appliances, house)

[blm3523]

I am possibly relocating to the Orange County area and was wondering if I could get an average cost of utilities in the area? I want to make sure that I have a budget in mind before I accept a job.

[ElGuito]

Depends on the number of people.
It is Southern California Edison, The Gas Company, AT&T and Time Warner territory.
Edison will give you a "base line" what they estimate are the basics for a house to work, about $25 anything above that could get the bill to around $40 per person.
Gas is about the same, but overall less expensive if you have gas stove, oven and water heater.
For decent internet speed, TV and land line could be about $90
Depending on Celular plan that could be about $80 if you don't bundle it with other services.

[blm3523]

Thank you!

[FLSkater]

Depends on number of people in the house, where the house is located, one or two story, running 1 a/c unit or two, size of house, # and types of appliances used, ages of appliances.

When we were looking to move here from FL, husband's boss' wife warned us our electric bills would be $1000/month in the summer running a/c, since where we are (rancho santa margarita/coto/dove) gets HOT, and with a 2-story house it's worse. I thought she was kidding.

The first time we had a heat wave for a few days and ran the a/c the way we did in FL (meaning, all day). I got the Southern California Edison bill and nearly fell over. We went from around $150/month to over $450! Just for a few days running the air. Never in all the years we lived in FL, running the air 330 days a year, 24/7, did we have a bill that high, even having a two-story where the upstairs naturally gets hotter. Now, they are not new a/c units, and will probably be replaced soon, but just for a few hours for a few days it was ridiculous.

Now I am careful with pulling the blinds down once the sun hits the house, and tolerate the heat until it get to be around 83 degrees in the house before I put the air on, and I set it to 80.

Just thought I'd give you another perspective.

[denverian]

Originally Posted by FLSkater

Depends on number of people in the house, where the house is located, one or two story, running 1 a/c unit or two, size of house, # and types of appliances used, ages of appliances.

When we were looking to move here from FL, husband's boss' wife warned us our electric bills would be $1000/month in the summer running a/c, since where we are (rancho santa margarita/coto/dove) gets HOT, and with a 2-story house it's worse. I thought she was kidding.

The first time we had a heat wave for a few days and ran the a/c the way we did in FL (meaning, all day). I got the Southern California Edison bill and nearly fell over. We went from around $150/month to over $450! Just for a few days running the air. Never in all the years we lived in FL, running the air 330 days a year, 24/7, did we have a bill that high, even having a two-story where the upstairs naturally gets hotter. Now, they are not new a/c units, and will probably be replaced soon, but just for a few hours for a few days it was ridiculous.

Now I am careful with pulling the blinds down once the sun hits the house, and tolerate the heat until it get to be around 83 degrees in the house before I put the air on, and I set it to 80.

Just thought I'd give you another perspective.

I don't recall our bill being too bad in OC, but we had a one-story condo that was 6 miles from the beach, so we didn't use that much A/C.

But I've heard about electricity being much cheaper in FL or TX, for instance, where it's brutally hot in summer. It just makes me wonder. Here in Denver, same thing as you're experiencing. We have a 2000sq. ft. house, 2 stories, and the bill in summer gets up to about $350 when running the A/C. And here, it cools down into the 60s at night, even on hot days, so you'd think it would be much less.

As soon as it gets hot in Denver, they jack up the electricity rates to a "tiered system" so once you use X amount of electircity, the cost per unit doubles, then tripples. They say to just keep your A/C on 78 and you'll be fine. Yeah, fine, but hot

[Tigerlily64]

1860sqft Single family older home (terrible insulation, aircon doesn't do a very good job either) 2 person household - 1 at work all day, the other at home most of the time. Geeked up to the limits with 2 large HD/3D televisions, 2 laptops, 2 smart phones, 2 ipads etc. These are all averages over the year so allow for higher electric when air con needed and more gas when heating needed etc:

Electric - $40pcm
Gas (heating, cooking, hot water) - $35pcm
Waste - $46 per quarter
Water - $30pcm

Internet / tv package - we were paying approx. $180pcm for a medium TV package and reasonably good internet 25gb download (Cox) but a few months ago got rid of all the tv and instead increased our internet to 100gb download speed (to allow for tv streaming) and we subscribe to Netfix ($8) and Hulu Plus ($8) and in total this is costing us $76 pcm for the first six months then our internet deal finishes and the total cost will rise to $115 pcm.

Telephones - we don't bother with a landline anymore, just use our cell phones.

[ElGuito]

O yeah, I forgot about Waste removal and Water.
City of Orange, Waste removal $34 per quarter.
Water, which includes street sweep/vaccum, about $45, per person, in City of Orange they add a charge for "electricity" allegedly they have to use pumps to bring the water up the the hills.

Constant breeze from the Santa Ana Canyon, free.
Ferocious Santa Ana Winds between October and March, free.