Electricity Cost in the Phoenix Area (for sale, real estate, apartment)

[Captain Bill]

For those planning to relocate to the Phoenix area and want to know the electricity cost. Here are numbers from SRP.

Average Dollars/Month for Electricity in the Phoenix Area

Square Footage (sf).....No Pool..........No Pool.........Pool.........Pool
................................1 story...........2 story........1 story.....2 story
Apartment....................$94
<1000 sf.................... $111...............$97............$135
1001 - 1500 sf ........... $124..............$122...........$154........$167
1501 - 2000 sf.............$138..............$147...........$1 68........$178
2001 - 2500 sf.............$157..............$169...........$1 88........$198
2501 - 3000 sf.............$180..............$187...........$2 14........$215
3001 + sf....................$237..............$234...... .....$330........$290

During a typical Arizona summer, your home is exposed to an average of 102 days of temperature above 100 degrees.

In 2007 summer this number reached 108 days.

In a typical 3400 square foot home, last year the bill would be

• $990 for cooling,
• $90 for heating
• and $1792 for all other electricity, including cooking.

[HX_Guy]

I guess it depends on how cool you like to keep your home, if it has E/W exposure and how long your are home during the day.

Our year long total for 2007 was $2731 but our house is only 1884 sq ft. That doesn't include winter heating or hot water because those are both gas and I don't have the totals, but easily another $1000 I would say.

The thing is though, we work from home, so it has to always be comfortable...and worse the house faces east, and the office is in the front of the house (and has 6 windows, 3 facing directly east) so in order to keep it cool in this room, the thermostat has to be set at 75 on the other side of the house.

[canuckexpat]

Thanks for posting this Bill. I was just going to ask this question. I'm a Canadian who currently lives in CT and here we have heating by electricity which I absolute hate(and it is so expensive).

I am also a realtor in Canada(or was) and looking through REALTOR.com - Real Estate Listings & Homes For Sale I noticed that majority of listings in the Phoenix area list heating as electrical but more of the newer homes have gas. Is there a trend to go towards natural gas do you think?

[Captain Bill]

Originally Posted by canuckexpat

Thanks for posting this Bill. I was just going to ask this question. I'm a Canadian who currently lives in CT and here we have heating by electricity which I absolute hate(and it is so expensive).

I am also a realtor in Canada(or was) and looking through REALTOR.com - Real Estate Listings & Homes For Sale I noticed that majority of listings in the Phoenix area list heating as electrical but more of the newer homes have gas. Is there a trend to go towards natural gas do you think?

Since I don't do a lot of work with new homes I can't answer that question at the moment. My home was built as a custom home in 2000 and we have gas cooking stove but electric cooling and heating.

[wit-nit]

Capt Bill's scale is pretty much right on. We're 2000 sq ft with APS and our average monthly cost is $140.00.

[Captain Bill]

Originally Posted by HX_Guy

I guess it depends on how cool you like to keep your home, if it has E/W exposure and how long your are home during the day.

Our year long total for 2007 was $2731 but our house is only 1884 sq ft. That doesn't include winter heating or hot water because those are both gas and I don't have the totals, but easily another $1000 I would say.

The thing is though, we work from home, so it has to always be comfortable...and worse the house faces east, and the office is in the front of the house (and has 6 windows, 3 facing directly east) so in order to keep it cool in this room, the thermostat has to be set at 75 on the other side of the house.

I guess it's those 6 windows in front that causes your bill to be so high. We face east and there is a bedroom in the front of our home. It is shaded by a large Fica tree and the blinds are closed all day. Our front door is a very large glass door, but it doesn't get direct sun because of the construction. We use our ceiling fans constantly during the summer, and that seems to help also. The garage is on the east and it is a sauna in there during the summer, but it insulates the part of the house directly behind it. Next year we'll getting insulated garage doors. They have some now that are up to about R18.

I work from home, except when out on appointments, and my wife is home most of the day. We're 3400 sf, so I'm surprised that your bill is so high. But as you mentioned it must be those front windows.

We're on the energy savings plan so my wife does the clothes washing during the off peak hours, and our pool is also timed for off peak. That saves close to $300/yr.

[HX_Guy]

Hmm, I need to set our pool pump for after 9:00 PM. Its set for noon now because we have a rock formation/waterfall type thing and I like how it looks...but electricity costs 3X as much on-peak vs off-peak.

For the windows I talked about, we have wood shutters on all the windows which helps, but we should definitely look into getting a nice big tree, I think it would help greatly. I think they are costing us a lot...facing east...the sun, and two computers running all day long really make this front office hot. The rest of the house is actually cold, like the master bedroom (rear of the house, facing west) is at 74 degrees in the summer while the front room is at 78+.

[Captain Bill]

The tree definitely helps. We like the multi-trunk Fica because it grows pretty fast and stays green all year. Your plantation shutters help a lot.

What about a sun screen that pulls down? They have some nice (metal I believe) ones that you control from the inside of the home, and there are other types. Just get approval from the HOA first.

That could be of great help because of the insulating factor.

[sablebaby]

Originally Posted by HX_Guy

Hmm, I need to set our pool pump for after 9:00 PM. Its set for noon now because we have a rock formation/waterfall type thing and I like how it looks...but electricity costs 3X as much on-peak vs off-peak.

For the windows I talked about, we have wood shutters on all the windows which helps, but we should definitely look into getting a nice big tree, I think it would help greatly. I think they are costing us a lot...facing east...the sun, and two computers running all day long really make this front office hot. The rest of the house is actually cold, like the master bedroom (rear of the house, facing west) is at 74 degrees in the summer while the front room is at 78+.

My house faces East as well. Our front room is my office and it does get a little hot in there, but we do also have a huge sisso tree in the middle of our yard - it does help. It shades our whole house.

[markas214]

Currently in eastern Pa., Bethlehem, my electric averages $175/mo and gas $150/mo for a nearly 100 year old 2500 sq foot three story house with lots of insulation and newer windows up stairs. We keep the heat around 72 and use six window ACs in the summer totallying around 50,000 BTUs. I would imagine in Az we will be paying about the same for energy more or less for a newer 2500-3000 sq/ft home with a medium size play pool.

I see people set their AC at around 75-80. Is that comfortable? Here in Pa the humidity is always around 50% or more so we need to keep the air at 70 to help dehumidify and make it very comfortable.

What is the best orientation for a house with a pool? Front facing south or north? also I thought I'd save with a single story but it doesn't look like much. Do most people have two AC units in larger homes?