Tell us about your McMansion AC/electric bills (house, heat pump)

[elnina]

This is very true ^^^
Every saving matters (it adds) and good house insulation and energy efficient windows can make difference. Mature trees make difference and so is good roofing material.
Heck - even the way your house is facing can make difference - North and East is better than South and West.

There are many energy providers and people constantly shop and compare the rates.

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by tewest86

Do you currently live in Texas? It depends on the house. It also depends on what Electric company you sign up with. I have co-workers with 3,000 sf/ft house with a pool paying $600-700 during the summer. These single pane windows they threw every house built before the 2000’s don’t help. I’ve people with bills close to $1000 in the hotter months and only able to keep the house at 78 during the hottest part of the day.

Those would be outliers. I've never known anyone with a bill over $500 in the Summer, and that was a mobile home kept at 65 degrees in July. I did know people living in all electric homes during the freeze in December of 1983 that had $600 electric bills. They had resistive heating, since heat pumps weren't really a thing then. And, it got down to 11 degrees, and their houses were not that well insulated.

[mojo101]

You must not know Al Gore,his bill was $12K/month when he was running for president

[TallGreengrass]

Originally Posted by snackdog

I'm not really looking for energy saving tips, but thanks anyhow.

Sounds like big house are cheap to run in Houston. Most I heard was $350/mo with a pool. That's pretty cheap.

I have a large home, 2 AC units, no pool. Cool season is cheap. The hot season is OK. The hot, hot season is over $350 a month.

[Altuve]

Mine is over 5000 sq feet with two AC units, and I have a pool. I use about 1000 kW in the winter per month, and over 3000 kW in the summer per month. Keep my AC around 73 in the summer. I average about $180/month in the winter months (November through March), and then average about $300/month in the summer on electric bills. I get my electricity contracts through powertochoose.org. I typically try to get 18 month contracts, as it takes a while to compare plans, and I only like to do that once every year or two.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by gwarnecke

That's a great point - it's worth spending a bit of time to investigate your electricity usage, using a Kill-A-Watt and/or the Smart Meter Texas website. I made a couple of surprising observations:

-The Bunn ”always on” coffee maker and garage fridge that I thought were such energy hogs actually use only about $50 or $60 total per year.
-OTOH, resistive electric water heaters are huge energy hogs! We have one that serves only our guest wing, after figuring how much it costs to leave on all the time, I've switched it off whenever we aren't hosting guests (the other water heaters in our house are gas).
-As was mentioned earlier, electricity usage for LED lights is negligible. The gains associated with improving your HVAC efficiency or perhaps getting rid of a very old energy-hog fridge would dwarf those associated with any discipline in turning off lights that you're not using.
-Pool pumps use a ton of energy!

Overall, I think the degree to which energy usage is correlated to home size, and even quality of insulation, are overstated. The presence/absence of lots of resistive heating appliances, presence of a pool, and degree of shade on your property can be more impactful than people realize.

Do you have a single speed pool pump?

[KerrTown]

Originally Posted by gwarnecke

-OTOH, resistive electric water heaters are huge energy hogs! We have one that serves only our guest wing, after figuring how much it costs to leave on all the time, I've switched it off whenever we aren't hosting guests (the other water heaters in our house are gas).

Get ready for the clueless environmentalists trying to push the all-electric gimmick. You'll be paying more for energy; just bored, affluent housewives who have no idea of the cost difference between electric and gas who were sold on the unicorn farts of "clean" electricity hype through social media.

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by KerrTown

Get ready for the clueless environmentalists trying to push the all-electric gimmick. You'll be paying more for energy; just bored, affluent housewives who have no idea of the cost difference between electric and gas who were sold on the unicorn farts of "clean" electricity hype through social media.

I am not convinced that a heat pump water heater would be better than our gas tankless water heater, and it would probably take up a lot more space. We don't have room for a regular size water heater, which is why we have a gas tankless on the back wall of the house.

[houston-nomad]

Originally Posted by KerrTown

Get ready for the clueless environmentalists trying to push the all-electric gimmick. You'll be paying more for energy; just bored, affluent housewives who have no idea of the cost difference between electric and gas who were sold on the unicorn farts of "clean" electricity hype through social media.

Ha ha, women sure are dumb, ha ha ha

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by WRM20

Those would be outliers. I've never known anyone with a bill over $500 in the Summer, and that was a mobile home kept at 65 degrees in July. I did know people living in all electric homes during the freeze in December of 1983 that had $600 electric bills. They had resistive heating, since heat pumps weren't really a thing then. And, it got down to 11 degrees, and their houses were not that well insulated.

$600 for a trailer, that's crazy