How Much Is Your A/C & Heating Bill in Winter/Summer?

Is geothermal available to you? My inlaws have a 6,000 sq. foot house and pay less than $200 per month in the harsh Minnesota winters to heat it. In Oct. their heat bill was $62.
They have 2 geothermal units installed to heat and cool their whole house.

we have geothermal HVAC and love it. we are totally electric no gas at all. and in the summers we even have our pool set up and running the filter system and the highest our bills were just below $200 and for the winter they are less than $170 even in the coldest months. Our home is 1400sqf and its a very old farm house, we do have new windows but the doors are leaking cold air. we do have the basement spray foam insulated and that has helped big time. We keep our house 68* in winter (and we are in shorts and tshirt its that comfortable) and 72*-74* in summer. So I guess our house is pretty well insulated.

I didn't read through what everyone else has said so I my be a repeat. My husband who is an ac tech says have the attic done with spray foam insulation. He also says having your ducts clean is a waste of money, depending on the age and type of your duct work it is better to just have your duct work replaced. My husband recommended the spray foam to our neighbor and he did it. It dropped the temperature of his attic from about 150 to 90. He kept his AC set at 70 night and day and he has an AC unit that is to small for his house and is about 15 years old. The unit didn't struggle to keep up and the highest his bill got was 500. We will be spray foaming our attic with our tax return. :)

I just scanned through all the other responses, so I'm not sure anyone has mentioned this. But, you should check out powertochoose.org. It is a website that allows you to shop different electric providers for the best rate possible. We live in Corinth and I was able to get electricity at 8 cents a kilowatt hour with Reliant Energy. I have also seen commercials recently that Reliant is offering $100 to new customers when they switch. Most companies offer various plans for various terms. I usually pick a two-year plan and when that term is up, I shop all over again. Keeps our costs down!

I live in the Denton/Corinth area and used to pay over $400/month for a 2400 sq ft home. We moved this summer to a larger home-2700 sq ft- and our electric bill has gone down. We didn't pay over $300 this past very hot summer. Why? We have some large trees blocking some of the sunlight from our home. In addition to some of the ideas already mentioned, you may consider purchasing and planting some fairly large, fast growing trees on your property.

I was griping the other day about ours! I will do it no longer. I am somone who likes it cold in winter, and cold in summer, but husband doesnt like cold so. We very rarely use our AC.

We have a 3800 sq. Home with finished basement (part of 3800). We put in High Eff. furnace when we moved in. All windows were done new a year ago. We have central AC. Our winters are bitter cold here in MN, and on the worst days we set it at 72. Otherwise its 65. In Summer we only turn on AC if humidity gets above 60% or temp above 90.

Monthly in height of heat in summer 300$ Winter height about 450$ tops.

Ok, just edited my answer BC I realized you only asked about Electricity & not gas ;)
I live near Houston, Tx and we use Reliant for electricity & pay an Average price 11.6¢ per kWh, based on 2000 kWh with the cap & save. We have radiant barrier. I have not heard about the roof thing :/ It has helped, but also we had an AC man tell us to turn off the breakers to our house & hose off our outside units. There is also a cleaner you can get at Home Depot for your inside & outside units to make them more efficient. Our 2400sf, 2 story home was built in 1996. We have 2 units. We don't have EE windows. Our bill was quite high until we switched to Cap & Save, but that was also at the end of summer :/ it was over $700 before we switched. Our last bill was $132, before that was $147.

Wow. I don't know how you afford that. :(
We have a much smaller home (@2350 sqft) that is one story ranch-no basement, being almost in Florida where you can't really HAVE one. lol
We get heat almost year round of course, but the humidity is what makes it so unbearable. We run the A/C almost until time to start running the heat. Probably in March it starts kicking on and runs until sometimes November... We keep it set around 76 degrees. Our highest summer bills were around $300, and we have a pool with a pump w/aux vacuum pump that runs 8 hrs a day every single day. (the aux only runs about 2 hrs).
Last winter was one of the coldest and longest we have had here in a long time... and our bill (we are all electric) was around $300 for Dec/January.
We have tile floors, ceiling fans in every room that we run almost all year as well---if we are in that particular room--- and the low EE glass windows. Also, both the front and rear (SW and NE ish) windows have porches shading the majority of the glass during the hottest parts of the day. Our A/C unit is, I believe, a 13 SEER. I also clean the filters (we have two return vents) every month or so (sometimes I forget and it goes longer, like 2 or 3 months, lol). But they DO get changed. :)

The tile floors make a difference in the summer and winter. In summer, it really helps the house feel cooler. In winter, it helps the house feel cooler, lol. But winter is normally practically non-existant here, so it doesn't impact our heat use that much in winter. :)

We're in FM as well. Switched from TXU to Bounce Energy, and it's definitely saving us money. Check it out!

if you need new windows, and cannot afford to do the whole house, do them on one side at a time. some places have 12 mon no interest. we did ours through
http://www.windowworlddfw.com/

Wow that's more then our mortgage at $1000 that's more then our mortgage and heat/cool combined! YIKES

we have 2400 sf and we spend at max in the winter $225, that is for heat and electric! BOTH together We have gas heat.

One thing that really helps with large houses is ceiling fans, get one in every room, or main room and push the heat back down in the winter. pull it up in teh summer! HUGE difference in large homes, especially if you have vaulted ceilings

Our house is about 3000 sq feet In the summer my bills are usually about $700 but that also includes the electricity to run a pool pump/filter for 12 hours a day. Out a/c unit is also not the most efficient of units.

Our bills in the winter are about $300 but we have gas heating and we run the pool filter/pump 6 hours overnight.

Garland has it's own electric company so I can't pick and choose. Out kWh is about 0.14. Not the highest in the state but not the lowest. We sit in the middle

I thought the same thing about getting my air ducts cleaned until our pedi suggested it a few years ago. Turned out our furnace was covered in mold...
Anyway, as to electric companies, I have found TXU to be the highest N the area. I was using direct energy (cheaper than TXU) until 2 mo ago. We switched to Ambient, 8 to 10 cents/kil.

We are saving hundreds by switching to Reliant. TXU is one of the most expensive out there we were not aware of this when we moved out here from California. FYI the price per KWH goes down the more you use. The most we pay per KWH when we use our energy the least is .10 cents so we pay even less in the summer because of high demand. Our home is just shy of 3000 sq ft. our highest bill with TXU was hitting $800 and now with Reliant our highest bill was under $600 so give them a call and see what they can offer our plan is called secure 14 with 20% wind and have never had any problems with our service. Good Luck

The radiant barrier is great! We also added lots of insulation and put in new windows. It all made a huge difference. I have a 1400 sq ft home. Summer electric bills didn't get above 100$ this summer...We use Stream energy. We a 9 cent plan.

Hey -
You mention that you are home during the day and want the kids to be comfortable (I agree), but you might try adjusting the temp at night (lowering it in the winter, raising it in the summer). You'll be amazed at how much you can save!

Also, you mention your electric bill. Do you have a furnace or a heat pump? If you have a heat pump, and you are considering changing all of your equipment, you might consider changing to a furnace. A heatpump can raise your costs in the winter because if you pump up the temperature, you might actually be turning on your electric heat strips.

Good luck!
L.

For a house your size we think your bills are a bit high, we do A/C in the south of Texas and for houses that size that's what we usually see. However your bills should be around the 650-850
There are a couple things you can do with your A/C if it is 10years or older, you should look into replacing it. I would of course suggest a high energy efficiency unit 16SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio; the higher the rating, the less electricity they spend) or higher if you can afford it. Also make sure your A/C is getting its yearly maintenance it should be once a year and that you change your filter once a month, you have no idea how many people forgets to do this and we can tell you it does make a difference.
Also if your A/C is older than 5 years or you simply don't know how old it is, I recommend you clean your ductwork, Clean your ductwork at least every five years and have it checked for leaks and resealed.
Up to 40% of your cooling costs can be going through ductwork leaks.
This tips will make a difference in your cooling costs
As for the price per kWh we think it's a good rate but you can negotiate a better rate based on the time you've been with TXU and the size of your home. They'll work with you.
Good Luck!

We have a 3200 ish home and ours was 140.00 but we did have it built in 2007 and paid for the extra installation.

we have an old two story/ 5 bedroom house ( built in the 1800's). We only have an old window unit that cools the whole down stairs and another window unit that cools the upstairs... when both are running during the summer our electric bill is about $200 a month.. any other time its about $100.

For the winters we go through 250 gallons of fuel.. a little over $500 a month to e/o month.. all depends on how cold it is outside. We have been lucky so far this winter!! Our house is in desperate need of new windows and insulation though.

our's kWh X $.01406

We live in the DFW area also, but we live on a small farm in an old farmhouse (almost 40 years old). Our house is about half the size of your home, so I'm not sure how much this comparison will help. We also use TXU. Our home is extremely solid. We can't hear anything outside. Anytime workers come to fix anything they comment on how solid our home is, probably because it's old. They don't build things like they used to. ;) I think in this case it helps to have an old house. It keeps the hot/cold out.

We don't have any gas; it's all electric. Our bills are usually right around $200 year round. It varies some, but it averages about $200, even in our super-hot summers. We replaced all of our door insulation (I'm not sure what that's called) a couple of years ago, and replaced some windows, too. That helped a lot. We also have plenty of insulation in the attic, and have good vents in the roof. We also have a bunch of trees surrounding the house, and I think the shade helps in the summer.

We keep the house set on 78 during the day during the summer, and 72 at night. During the winter we keep it at 70 during the day, and 65 at night.

I don't know about the Radiant Barrier. We've thought about it, too.

ETA: Something else, we used to be on a "savings plan" with TXU, but got off of it about 2 years ago. When we got off of the special plan that was supposed to save us money, our bill dropped by about half. Now they keep telling us that our bill can go up at any time, but so far (knock on wood) it has stayed extremely low. They keep trying to get us to sign another special plan, but we won't while our bill stays low.

Up here it's (you made me go look this up D. :P!!! <wink>) $0.0914 p/kwh . Which is significantly less.

We don't have cooling costs (we only need it for 2-3 weeks a year, then we NEED it... it's 30-40 degrees hotter than normal... people always die during our "heat waves", and I'm talking 80 or 90, not 110 or 120)...

Our heating costs are through the roof, and our water costs are through the roof.

Cooling = nil
Heat = oil.

We have a TINY 1000 square foot house. I just wrote out the very complicated payment we have to do, and it's insane (tank refils, top offs, 40% plans, etc.), so let me just simplify it by saying apx $350- $500 per month depending on the price of oil.

My grandparents 5000sqft home cost about 2k per month in oil. And then 10k every 6mo in property taxes. Their house was paid off DECADES ago, but we had to sell it, because oer 4k a month to just live in it was far, far too expensive.

Water costs us about $400 a month in the winter, and then Seattle decided to "motivate" people not to water their lawns by doubling the water bill (jerks, I don't care about my lawn, but I can't afford $800 a month!!!)

((Every time we start doing cost comparisons on this site, I REALLY think we need to move! Food, heat, water... ugh. Out electricity is cheaper than yours... but sheesh. Cost of living is just astronomical round these parts. Seattle should NOT cost as much as somewhere nice, like Hawaii, which at least has the excuse of everything needing to be shipped in.... or urban like NYC. I KNOW we're subsidizing the midwest and california -water costs, we pay more for water here than in the desert... but that doesn't make things easier. The poverty line being at over 40k here is just... oops. Sorry. Tangent!!))

We keep our heat at a chilly (brrrr), pants and jackets and slippers year round, 68 degrees.

Wow that is expensive!! My house is a tad smaller than yours but still pretty large and our bills are not more than $300 for heat or cooling. They usually run in the high $200 range. We just got new windows this week, so I'm hoping it will go down. I'm not sure about the other thing you mentioned, Radiant Barrier. I was talking with my hairdresser the other day, and she mentioned that her air conditioning bills were over $1000 last summer, with the largest one almost $1200. She just got a new roof and windows as well to try to help it go down.

T. F - I bet you are in SunCreek and your builder is Drees....I used to work for them and would not be surprised if we met....was your walkthrough done with a man or a woman......glad you got it all sorted out.....

OMG how do you afford it?

For us, in Norcal, which doesn't get too cold for too long, our bills go from about $125 at the lowest in the summer (that's with not using a/c), to about $350 at the highest in the winter, but we turn the heat off at night. Our house is a lot smaller than yours, maybe 1800 sq. ft.