SMECO is freakin' killing me!!

[surfer1]

Our house is on a heat pump and we have the heat on 68 so you are doing better than us there. It is a 2 story ans we don't burn the lights either -about 2400 sq ft-our electric bills are about $125.mo-mind you our area is notorious for outages so that could help! One time we had a 2 month period where our bills were like 400 and it was before this huge hike-turned out to be a furnace malfunction-HVAC set something backwards or wrong after last repair and cost us a fortune. Good luck

[Toxick]

Originally Posted by beerlover

What do you guys average for electric?

If you're paying $400+ a month, you definitely need to take a look at something. Are you, by chance, heating your whole house with the kitchen stove?

We're averaging around $175.00 a month, and I have three kids that don't know how to turn anything off.

[PJumper]

Originally Posted by Toxick

If you're paying $400+ a month, you definitely need to take a look at something. Are you, by chance, heating your whole house with the kitchen stove?

We're averaging around $175.00 a month, and I have three kids that don't know how to turn anything off.

I agree. You need to check your appliances and heating/airconditioning equipment. I have a 2700 sq/ft house plus basement( which I had the vent shutters shut all the time) and my electric bill never go over 300 a month. I do have gas heating but during the summer, the AC unit in the house is running 24/7. My combined gas and electric bill do get up to around 300 because of the gas water heater.

Originally Posted by Toxick

Are you, by chance, heating your whole house with the kitchen stove?

You weren't supposed to tell anyone.

[PJumper]

Originally Posted by PJumper

I agree. You need to check your appliances and heating/airconditioning equipment. I have a 2700 sq/ft house plus basement( which I had the vent shutters shut all the time) and my electric bill never go over 300 a month. I do have gas heating but during the summer, the AC unit in the house is running 24/7. My combined gas and electric bill do get up to around 300 because of the gas water heater.

By the way, if you have those big screen TV's (not plasma or LCD), they do suck up a lot of juice. My TV's power consumption is about 200 watts, it's like having a dozen lightbulbs on.

[desertrat (Premo)]

Originally Posted by migtig

Split level three bedroom house a little larger than 2000 sq ft and the bill's been running $200 a month. Heat is set on 66 and AC was 77.

They (being the energy experts) say vampire electronics suck up most of your power - cell phone chargers, computers (even if they are off) and any other appliance that are still plugged in though not being used. Maybe you should wander through the house and unplug everything that can be unplugged until you need to use it.

Not most of it. I think the figure was up to %5.

Originally Posted by beerlover

I don't know if I have a major malfunction in one of my appliances or maybe a big invisible hole in my roof or one of my walls or what, but my electric bill seems way too high. I have about a 2,000 sq ft house (all electric) and my electric bill has averaged about $330 a month for the past year (about 16.5 cents/sq ft). Does that seem high to anyone else? Maybe I'm just naive... We keep the A/C on about 73 in the summer and the heat at about 65 all winter. We don't leave the lights and TV burning all the time...

What do you guys average for electric?

My house is a bit bigger, I have a new effecient heat pump and mine runs up to $260 in the summer. Only 2 people though. Winter it goes way down, but I'm paying for oil part of the time then. The house is not real well insulated, but does have double paned windows.

[Xaquin44]

I have 1800 s/f that is costing me about 225-275 per month.

not tooooo bad, but I'd love it to be less.

[dawn (Premo)]

Our house is about 3200 square feet, and for the last four months it has been roughly about 250 a month. Last December, January and February, my electric bill topped over 1000.00 each month. Smeco said I would have to pay 35.00 for them to come out and go over items in my home to see what was causing the inflated price. Come to find out we had fuse blown in the heat pump, so after that, the bill started trickling down to 300 monthly and we have finally platoed (?) at about 250.00 and I couldnt ask for anything better at this point!

[vbailey]

you could also check your hot water heater, if it is electric it may be able to be turned back too. Hot water heaters can be bad on your bill if not set at the right temp.

[citysherry]

Our house is 5 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, finish basement, over 3000 sq ft., with zoned heating/air (basement unit and attic unit.) We keep the ac at 74 and the heat at 68. This past summer our SMECO bill was averaging about $650 a month - but we have an in-ground pool and the pool pump and exterior lights, etc., were on constantly over the summer. Now that the pool is closed and ac is off our SMECO bill has been reduced significantly about $300 per month.