A friend who lives in England told me she keeps her house at 57 degrees at night and 67 degrees during the day in winter (after I translated for Celsius, which is what they use there).
in the past we have kept our house at 68 degrees in winter, night and day. However, with the price of electricity rising - APCO has a request before the SCC and has been granted leave to go ahead and start charging higher rates again - we've been looking at other options.
We heat with a heat pump and a furnace. The electric bill used to cost us about $200 in the winter. This past January/February/March, it hit $300+, and we expect it to do the same in the upcoming season. It's quite a punch in the paycheck.
We don't quite know what uses all the power. Our house is not that large - 1,500 square feet - but there you go. Maybe we don't have enough insulation or something.
So we're considering keeping the house between 60 and 64 degrees. However, 64 degrees is cold for me to sit and work at my desk. I huddle in a blanket but my fingers freeze and typing slows down. I have an electric space heater that I use but my husband swears it takes as much power to run the small electric heater as the furnace (although I don't believe that myself). The government differs with my husband's thoughts on this matter. It says if you cut the thermostat back and use a space heater in one room you save money.
We also have a fireplace with a stove insert. The wood stove requires the built-in fan to run by virtue of its design. The stove insert blasts heat into the house, so much so that it makes the living room nearly unusable. The heat traps itself in the front room. We have to run electric fans to blow it through the rest of the house.
The wood stove is nowhere near the room I use for an office; I am in the other end of the house.
I am not sure we're gaining anything with the wood stove. Plus I am allergic to many trees and the wood smoke from the fireplace generally makes me sick.
I am wondering what other people do for heat, and how warm they heat their homes. I am wondering if people are able to keep the cold at bay.
I am hoping for a mild winter with lots of rain.
Our house is kinda big at close to 4000 sq. ft. Our heat is natural gas with radiators. Biggest monthly bill we ever had was about $320. Last year, which was a mild one, it maxed out at about $270. We keep the thermostat at about 65 in the evening, but I tend to nudge it down to 62 when I go to work in the morning.
ReplyDeleteWe freeze in the master bedroom and bath, but we have a supplemental electric baseboard heater. We use that almost daily in the winter.
A couple of cats, strategically placed on the bed, can generate a bit of heat at night.
ReplyDeleteWe have a large house, but the den has a big glass door that faces south. (I keep the north-facing dining room and living room closed off. They're way colder than the rest of the house.) Heat pours in during sunny days. The cats love that door. We have a heat pump, but so far I've only paid over $200 a couple of times.
Jeff - I am wondering if the cost of natural gas is climbing the way everything else is. I assume your numbers are for the gas heat, and then you have electric on top of that.
ReplyDeleteBecky - Unfortunately I am allergic to cats (and dogs) so animals aren't allowed inside. Guess I need to get an extra blanket or two!
Since we moved here we have not used the heat (we have no air conditioning) so I don’t know how fast it spins the electrical meter. I watch it at times when I am visiting the dog outside. I do know the dryer spins the meter so fast that my head spins. I try to dry as much as possible outside of the dryer because I noticed how much electricity it uses. I don’t trust the electric company, none of them. Here is why. I had an apartment, no more than 1000 sq feet (at the most, probably it was smaller) that gave me a $200 or more electric bill every month. I asked to be monitor to be audit to be whatever because we burned up in that apartment (we could not afford the air conditioner). We had ceiling fans installed and we did everything the auditor who came out told us to do, yet still the bills came to 200 plus a month. One month (actually 5 weeks) when I left to travel with the military and turned everything off (including the refrigerator and the water heater) I received a $200+ electric bill. My claims were never believed. I was told we were not connected to another apartment accidentally, that I was using too much electricity.
ReplyDeleteAre electric blankets ruled out? I’ve not heard about them in years.
oK - I just lost my comment! I am too tight to pay for heating. In winter (which is NEARLY here) we have heating on for about 1/2 hr a day to stop the pipes from breaking but we generally avoid using it as much as possible.
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