Midamerican Power question (Des Moines: appliances, townhome, bankrupt)

[NowinIowa]

Hi everyone, My family and I recently moved to the Des Moines area. We love it, but the only thing that is somewhat disturbing is our electric bill, now I do understand we moved into a bigger place (2,400sf townhome with full finished basement).

But our first electric bill was around $190 ($10 of that was for a natural gas service charge). But I figured our bill would be high because we ran a dehumidifer 24/7 and a/c at 73 the whole month...We don't normally do that, but our townhome hadn't been lived in since late 2008 so we needed to get moisture out of the air.

Now this months bill came and it was around $130, but my biggest question is I thought it would be lower...for one we ran the a/c for a combined 5 hours a week at 76. We didn't use the dehumidifer once, and we unplugged everything. It is just my wife, my 3 year old and myself. We each take 1 shower a day for maybe 5-10mins, and we do 3-4 loads of laundry a week. We have a ton of natural lighting so we hardly ever use our interior lights.

We do not have cable tv or a large computer, so we watch maybe 3 hours a day tv. All of our appliances are energy star. So basically our usage is pretty low I think. Has anyone ever had issues with midamerican billing and/or meter readings?...Maybe we are just more power hungry than I thought.

One thing I do wonder about is like I said earlier our place hadn't been lived in since late 2008 (it was built in 2007, builder went bankrupt..bank took it over..bank got shut down) so it sat empty for awhile..is there any chance that the meter could go bad by just sitting for the last 5 years?

[ElleTea]

Originally Posted by NowinIowa

Hi everyone, My family and I recently moved to the Des Moines area. We love it, but the only thing that is somewhat disturbing is our electric bill, now I do understand we moved into a bigger place (2,400sf townhome with full finished basement).

But our first electric bill was around $190 ($10 of that was for a natural gas service charge). But I figured our bill would be high because we ran a dehumidifer 24/7 and a/c at 73 the whole month...We don't normally do that, but our townhome hadn't been lived in since late 2008 so we needed to get moisture out of the air.

Now this months bill came and it was around $130, but my biggest question is I thought it would be lower...for one we ran the a/c for a combined 5 hours a week at 76. We didn't use the dehumidifer once, and we unplugged everything. It is just my wife, my 3 year old and myself. We each take 1 shower a day for maybe 5-10mins, and we do 3-4 loads of laundry a week. We have a ton of natural lighting so we hardly ever use our interior lights.

We do not have cable tv or a large computer, so we watch maybe 3 hours a day tv. All of our appliances are energy star. So basically our usage is pretty low I think. Has anyone ever had issues with midamerican billing and/or meter readings?...Maybe we are just more power hungry than I thought.

One thing I do wonder about is like I said earlier our place hadn't been lived in since late 2008 (it was built in 2007, builder went bankrupt..bank took it over..bank got shut down) so it sat empty for awhile..is there any chance that the meter could go bad by just sitting for the last 5 years?

Is $130 for electric and gas or are you just quoting the electric only part?

If it is the total bill, that is pretty cheap IMO, if you are running the AC. My total bill for last month was about that and I have a 1400 sq ft house that I only use the lower level of. I ran my AC maybe 10 days last month.

[capitalcityguy]

That seems pretty reasonable to me although we don't ever run are air conditioner at anything under 78 or 79. I would guess our bill would be significantly higher if we went down to 76.

I could be niave, but the humidifier and other small appliances/TV take pennies to run, so I don't think they really make a big difference either way.

It is my understanding that the vaste majority of your utiility bill will be driven by your air and your heat. It is because of this, we run our ceiling fans almost 24/7 which helps keep our overall bill down as the central air (and heat in the winter) have to work less often to heat and cool our place.

[schmink]

Heck, That's cheap, wait till this winter when you get $250-$300 heat bills.

[capitalcityguy]

Originally Posted by schmink

Heck, That's cheap, wait till this winter when you get $250-$300 heat bills.

Good point. We spend in the high $200's in the winter for heat. Also live in a townhome. We have vaulted ceilings, so that doesn't help though.

[my54ford]

Understanding your power providers rights vs your own is a good place to start......It can be a confuseing read but maybe this link will help.....

MidAmerican Energy - Rates

[duster1979]

OP, check the dates on your bills. Your first bill was more than likely just a partial month so it stands to reason that it would be lower.

And welcome to Iowa!

[runewell]

Originally Posted by NowinIowa

Hi everyone, My family and I recently moved to the Des Moines area. We love it, but the only thing that is somewhat disturbing is our electric bill, now I do understand we moved into a bigger place (2,400sf townhome with full finished basement).

But our first electric bill was around $190 ($10 of that was for a natural gas service charge). But I figured our bill would be high because we ran a dehumidifer 24/7 and a/c at 73 the whole month...We don't normally do that, but our townhome hadn't been lived in since late 2008 so we needed to get moisture out of the air.

Now this months bill came and it was around $130, but my biggest question is I thought it would be lower...for one we ran the a/c for a combined 5 hours a week at 76. We didn't use the dehumidifer once, and we unplugged everything. It is just my wife, my 3 year old and myself. We each take 1 shower a day for maybe 5-10mins, and we do 3-4 loads of laundry a week. We have a ton of natural lighting so we hardly ever use our interior lights.

We do not have cable tv or a large computer, so we watch maybe 3 hours a day tv. All of our appliances are energy star. So basically our usage is pretty low I think. Has anyone ever had issues with midamerican billing and/or meter readings?...Maybe we are just more power hungry than I thought.

One thing I do wonder about is like I said earlier our place hadn't been lived in since late 2008 (it was built in 2007, builder went bankrupt..bank took it over..bank got shut down) so it sat empty for awhile..is there any chance that the meter could go bad by just sitting for the last 5 years?

This sounds a bit high. We cool our 2800 sq ft house to 75-76 degrees in the summer and have lots of computers and a dehumidifier running but also use lots (but not all) of fluorescent light bulbs, and I can expect a $100/mo power bill. Midamerica always tells us our energy usage is among the lowest 15% of comparable households.

$250 sounds about right for the worst months of the winter when we heat the house to 68-69