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Old 02-17-2020, 08:09 AM
 
Location: USA
6,608 posts, read 3,560,549 times
Reputation: 3383

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Quote:
Originally Posted by AZire83 View Post
Hi, My family and I recently relocated to the Westport area, and I am looking for advice on utility suppliers, particularly electricity and gas. For clarity we use Eversource and Southern Connecticut Gas. I am new to the aspect that I can shop around for better rates. This winter has seen both our bills at around $350-$400 each. Coming from an area were we spent approx $70 per month on electricity (we didn't have gas) it's proving hard to pay near $800 a month for both utilities. I would love to know what is the 'norm', do you shop around on the regular? Are most suppliers equal in quality? Any tips/advice gratefully accepted. I feel we are doing something wrong.
Eversource and SCG are the only games in town. There is no shopping around to be had.
The electric supplier switching thing isn't going to save you life-changing amounts.
Welcome to the Northeast.

All the best.
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Old 02-17-2020, 09:50 AM
 
Location: Branford
1,395 posts, read 1,496,851 times
Reputation: 471
If your house is in a sunny location you can install solar panels. The state gave me $4000 towards my panels and my electric bill is $9.44 a month.

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Old 02-19-2020, 02:47 PM
 
81 posts, read 78,037 times
Reputation: 138
Sounds like you need to lower the thermostat in the winter. Just a couple of degrees would make a difference. And as someone said, in New England, we don't walk around the house in shorts in the winter. I have oil heat, so I am in a different ballgame (I hate it, it's expensive). I keep the house on 67-68 during the winter days and down to 63-64 at night. If I didn't have small kids, I'd let it fall to 60-62 at night. If nobody is home, it goes down to 64 as well. All programmable/wifi thermostats. If you have gas heat, and it is forced air, then you are using electricity to power the blowers. If it's hot water baseboard, then you should be using little/no electricity for heat purposes. Switch your incandescent bulbs to LEDs...they're much cheaper and better than they were even just a few years ago. That will help too. Also, a big overlooked culprit is outdoor lighting. Switch those bulbs to LEDs too. You don't realize how expensive it is to run 100 watt flood lights for several hours a day.

Eversource sends me a thing every few months saying I use more electricity in the summer and much less in the winter than my neighbors. I like my house cold in the summer, so I deal with the higher bills. As stated above, solar brings you cheap monthly bills, but sometimes at the expense of your roof and the panels themselves are pricey and also ugly in some cases. It's not always a slam dunk.
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Old 02-19-2020, 03:09 PM
 
Location: Coastal Connecticut
21,523 posts, read 27,765,355 times
Reputation: 6664
Tesla is doing a really good rental program on solar panels right now in limited states, and CT is one of them. I'm getting it installed soon.

Many solar leases aren't worth it, but this one is so drastically cheap - with free removal - that it deserves a look.

I applied for the energy audit and they kept cancelling on me and finally stopped following up.
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Old 02-20-2020, 10:38 AM
 
Location: Branford
1,395 posts, read 1,496,851 times
Reputation: 471
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stylo View Post
Tesla is doing a really good rental program on solar panels right now in limited states, and CT is one of them. I'm getting it installed soon.

Many solar leases aren't worth it, but this one is so drastically cheap - with free removal - that it deserves a look.

I applied for the energy audit and they kept cancelling on me and finally stopped following up.

Awesome. I purchased my solar panels a few years ago and they have been awesome. I also just swictched from oil to heat pumps and run those for free off my solar panels.

I would definitely do the energy audit. I had it done and it was like $75 but they did like over a thousand dollars worth of work. 3 guys were here all day. I got a list of companies that do them and had no problem scheduling it. The Energize CT program as huge rebates and incentives for alot of energy and insulation work. I think I have used close to 7k in incentives in my house so far. Its actually all funded on everyones gas and electric bills.

Www.energizect.com
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