How much was your heating bill last month? (Madison: buy, cost)

[CoreLysium]

Originally Posted by denverian

Are most people in the South strictly on electricity for heating?

Mostly, yes. And we're all wusses that set our thermostat to 72 year round.

(Actually, I'm a 72 winter and 78 summer person.)

But, my house is 2200 sqft and my total bill (water, electricity, garbage, I think there's something else) was $230.

And that's TVA prices.

[HB2HSV]

Originally Posted by LCTMadison

They are pretty simple to change, HB....I'm sure a super smart engineer like you could handle it if I can do it

I am a good actor!

[FatTails]

I have a smart thermostat installed although I passed on the Nest. Ended up going with the Ecobee. It shows you the inside and outside temp and humidity. I let it do its thing while we're at work during the day. Sometimes the house drops to 67, sometimes 62, sometimes not at all. Depends on the outside temp. I also have it set to disable aux heat unless the temp drops below 35. That way it won't kick in just because it's taking too long to warm back up. I've had it just over a month now and it claims to have saved me 10% on my bill, although I don't know what the reference point is. You can also control it through the ecobee website. The Nest does everything the Ecobee can do, but the thing I didn't like about the Nest was that it learned your patterns even when you are home. I'd rather program what I want it to do rather than have it incorrectly learn what I want.

[autobahn]

Originally Posted by nerdtron

I have a smart thermostat installed although I passed on the Nest. Ended up going with the Ecobee. It shows you the inside and outside temp and humidity. I let it do its thing while we're at work during the day. Sometimes the house drops to 67, sometimes 62, sometimes not at all. Depends on the outside temp. I also have it set to disable aux heat unless the temp drops below 35. That way it won't kick in just because it's taking too long to warm back up. I've had it just over a month now and it claims to have saved me 10% on my bill, although I don't know what the reference point is. You can also control it through the ecobee website. The Nest does everything the Ecobee can do, but the thing I didn't like about the Nest was that it learned your patterns even when you are home. I'd rather program what I want it to do rather than have it incorrectly learn what I want.

Agree about the learning aspect of the Nest. I knew what I wanted as a schedule and turned that off and set my own schedule from day one. The user has the option of setting a schedule or letting the thermostat learn or both. I also use the auto-away (motion-sensor) feature so it will drop/raise the temperature when no one is home during the day. I also manually set it for Away when we are on travel and use the app on my phone to tell it we are coming home to bring the temperature back up/down.

[RatSnake]

I will upgrade soon to the Nest or something similar ... but here is my bill.

Specs: 3400 sq ft (2 levels, 2 systems)
Daytime: 67
Nightime: 63

I have the kids wear sweaters at home ...
I do keep 2-3 small room heaters for some rooms that are facing north / with big windows.

Month Total KWh Electric Bill Gas Gas Bill Grand Total (with H2O, sewer)
Dec 1486 141.17 9900 86.23 $247
Jan 1628 154.66 12900 112.36 $287

I did not include trash and all those taxes.

[CP79]

$277 for a newer 1800 sq ft home

[CoreLysium]

Originally Posted by CP79

$277 for a newer 1800 sq ft home

You must have beautiful windows.

(This was my 1000th post!! Woot!!)

[FatTails]

I contemplated lowering the temperature and buying some heaters, but the math just didn't seem to work out. Those little space heaters consume something like 800-1500 watts. You're pushing the breaker to its limit with just one of those plugged in. I would have needed two which would mean at least 2000 watts.

[LCTMadison]

I just got my gas bill.....$90 . Its never been that high, its usually around $25....we only have a gas hot water heater and our fireplace, but we ran our gas logs a lot during the really cold spells. Can't wait to see my power bill this month

That's interesting about the Nest versus some of the other "smart" thermostats....will have to look into those. Thanks for those recommendations, we really need to upgrade from our "standard" one to a more energy saving programmable one.

Nerdtron....did you go with the "Smart" or the "Smart Si" ?

[TreyFry]

Originally Posted by CoreLysium

You must have beautiful windows.

(This was my 1000th post!! Woot!!)

Congrats woot woot! I'm only on 3!