what on earth does electricity cost near you?

[Larry Caldwell]

A fireplace will suck more heat out of your house than it will put in. Have you ever heated with wood? There's much work involved. Cutting, splitting, hauling, lifting several times.

Yep, for heat a fireplace is next to worthless. We have an insert that does a creditable job of heating the house. If I want to look at flames, I just leave the insert doors open. You need power to the fireplace to get the circulation fan running, which really improves the efficiency of the insert.

 

[geteh]

Looking at the final number on your bill is misleading, if you're doing comparisons. Even dividing the total of the bill by your kwh used is misleading in most places. There are going to be flat fees, no matter how much you use. Say you have a flat fee of $10, and your electricity cost $0.10 per kwh. If you only use one kwh during the month, your bill is $10.10, making it look like you're paying over $10 for every kwh. But, if you use 1,000kwh, your bill is $110 or $0.11 per kwh. In reality, your electricity cost the exact same, but the flat fees are skewing the numbers. There's also some places that charge more depending on the time of year and/or the time of day. A while back, I tracked down all the different components that determined how much I would pay, and it was very complicated. I had to read through probably 20 different legalese type contract documents to put together all the different things. In the end, you have to pay everything, so it may not really matter. But if you're trying to understand what you're paying and compare it to other people, in terms of kwh costs, you should factor these things in. This also makes it appear that your electricity rates are increasing if you start conserving electricity (use fewer kwh, so the flat fees start impacting the apparent per kwh cost).

My "average" cost, just dividing bill by usage, ranges from $0.0093 to $0.012 (EDIT: That should be "ranges from $0.093 to $0.12"), depending on how much i use. This last bill was unexpectedly high usage (60% more kwh used than same period last year), so I'm currently trying to track down if I have a malfunctioning piece of equipment. This is in southeast va. While we did have a couple cold snaps, the average temp is not that different than it was last year.

Keep in mind that prices aren't static. What you pay when you move in will go up over time, especially if the provider is using a generation technique frowned on by the govt (ie, coal). If you're concerned, you might want to call the Scottish Power phone number to inquire about potential future increases. There's a coal-fired plant about 1/2 a mile from me that is going to shut down in a few years due to EPA regulations. Think electricity demand is going to decrease before that shutdown? pfft. they're still planting subdivisions and mixed used developments in this area. Each persons usage is going up, and they're bringing in more people. The power company is going to have to upgrade other nearby plants and their distribution, causing my costs to go up.

If you really want to control your costs, control your usage and look into solar. Dependent on where you are and how fancy you get, the break even time frame for a grid tied solar setup may only be a few years - less if you can use tax breaks (state, federal, and others).

Keith

A $230 electric bill for a 900-square-foot apartment is on the higher side, especially if you previously paid around $80. Electric heating and water heaters can be energy-intensive, particularly in colder months. When buying a house, energy costs can vary depending on the climate, home size, insulation, and your heating system. A combination of heating methods, including firewood, can help reduce reliance on electricity. For heating a garage and working in cold temperatures, a wood stove is a good option, as long as it's properly vented and installed.

 

[deserteagle71]

For heating a garage and working in cold temperatures, a wood stove is a good option, as long as it's properly vented and installed.

As long as there is firewood available! Where I live, not too many trees. For years I drove to Oregon - round trip ~ 500 miles - to pick up loads of firewood. Then that source dried up too so I had to go to a pellet stove.

 

[ultrarunner]

Here we can’t give it away… oak which burns hot with very little ash..

I think part of the reason the woods are not clean like before when wood was in demand.

When an oak toppled all dad had to do was put the word out and guys would be there cutting and hauling…

The prohibition on new wood stoves and the burn bans in winter sealed its fate.

 

[deserteagle71]

The prohibition on new wood stoves and the burn bans in winter sealed its fate.

And then came the prohibition on gas stoves and gas water heaters....all to make us dependent solely on electrical appliances where the electrical grid is already overloaded and vulnerable to outages from hacking and other reasons. Already the power companies are turning off power grids whenever the wind blows due to "fire danger".

 

[ultrarunner]

Neighbors bought not long ago and decided the old central gas furnace had to go… nothing wrong with it but they wanted the Heat Pump credits…

I spoke with them recently and they said they got ahead of themselves… the new unit has had warranty issues and turned out to be more expensive because they originally did not factor a service upgrade…

They had only lived with the gas furnace a few weeks but it was quick to heat and now they find leaving the Heat Pump on 24/7 is needed because it takes a longtime to warm up from 50 when they are away.

 

[MarkF48]

Over the years I've maintained a spreadsheet of electricity usage and cost. In 2009 our oil fired water heater failed and I installed an electric one (conventional with heating elements) to replace it. The kWh rate in the spreadsheet is a total of the combined supply and distribution rates. Two people in the household, electric stove, well water pump, electric hot water, and pellet stove (primary heat source), and oil fired forced hot air (secondary heat source). Central Massachusetts.

 

[grsthegreat]

Ya, in 1996 my electricity costs $0.05/KWH. Now with all added fees, future repair fees, and upped hydroelectric fees were averaging $0.11/KWH. This is still pretty cheap, but our bills do seem to be getting higher over the past year. Maybe i need to be less lazy and burn more wood over winter.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

11¢

 

[MinnesotaEric]

As long as there is firewood available! Where I live, not too many trees. For years I drove to Oregon - round trip ~ 500 miles - to pick up loads of firewood. Then that source dried up too so I had to go to a pellet stove.

View attachment 3078912

Meanwhile, I live in a forest and trees keep getting blown over by wind. I just lost the top of a 2-300 year old norway pine this winter. What a mess that tree will be to clean up but I guess that's another reason I got a Payloader... I'm still cleaning up trees from prior years storms and then there is the beaver damage. Sigh. Less people heating with wood nowadays so it is harder to say come get this and it is yours—and the couple of friends who do heat with wood are old enough nowadays that it is a bigger hassle for me to process the wood than to toss it into a slash pile and blaze it up in the winter.

 

[ericm979]

now they find leaving the Heat Pump on 24/7 is needed because it takes a longtime to warm up from 50 when they are away.

That's normal for heat pumps.They don't have a lot of excess capacity like gas furnaces do.

 

[Looking4new]

610 KWH (the past month) Electricity = $0.09/kwh plus Delivery charge = $57.42 plus Regulatory Charge $4.28 plus HST = $15.39 minus Ontario electricity rebate $15.51 TOTAL= $118.30
With all those charges and minuses I take the total that I shell out of my pocket divided by the total kilowatt hours I used and that is what it co$ts me. 118.30/610=$0.1939344262295082/KWH. From November 1 through April 30th I get 1,000 KWH at his price.
Northern Ontario, Canada

 

[LHF2019]

Here is my running average usage/price.

Year	KW	Price	$/KW
2015	493	$72.37	$0.147
2016	650	$94.59	$0.146
2017	590	$92.06	$0.156
2018	503	$78.88	$0.157
2019	583	$87.06	$0.149
2020	594	$87.78	$0.148
2021	740	$ 107.02	$0.145
2022	741	$117.56	$0.159
2023	748	$142.39	$0.190
2024	485	$106.33	$0.219	Meter	Down	Beginning	of Year
2025	179	$36.42	$0.203

 

[grsthegreat]

My biggest problem…..we use too much kwh per month. Can't figure how to cut down. Have switched to nearly all led lighting. Mostly all gas appliances. I know in the winter i do have some heat tape and heated water troughs that have to be used, but even in Summer its too high.

 

[ultrarunner]

Maybe tracking individual devices with a Kill A Watt?

2500 square feet 1950’s California split level home with single pane windows, no floor insulation and 1960’s garage freezer and 1970’s refrigerator plus electric stove, oven and dryer runs 360 kW each month summer and winter with little variation.

 

[LD1]

Hot water and heating with electric are the biggest users of kwh

Im around 2500kwh/mo in the winter months, ~1200-1300kwh in spring and fall with little to no HVAC and 1800kwh/mo in the summer with AC

Still blows my mind some get down sub-500kwh per month. But 2 kids, lots of laundry, showers, a dusk-dawn security light, 3 fridges and a freezer, a 3600gph goldfish pond pump....we still use quite a bit even taking HVAC out of the equation

 

[LouNY]

just a touch over $0.20 per kwh,
we also use quite a bit of electricity most every month

 

[grsthegreat]

Then again…. I just went into electric heated tack room and wifes garden shed with 3 racks of grow lights for her garden starts and electric heater…..maybe its all her fault

 

[MinnesotaEric]

Ironically, now that we're back in the 20ish°F, I'm using my 18K Mitsubishi Hyper Heat, heat-pump to heat my house (only the upstairs, not my walk-out basement facing the lake) because it costs only about $40-45 a month compared to using my boiler's operating cost with propane and the taco recirculation pump that costs more. I originally installed the heat-pump back in 2016 for my mother's benefit (when she was alive) because I didn't want her to suffer in the summer heat, but eventually experimented on the operating cost of heating the upstairs and letting the downstairs buck (so long as it didn't get freezing temps for the pipes down there) one November just to see what it did cost.

Anyway, I now install heat pumps for people in my area since I bought all the tools and use three-cycles of pressurized nitrogen and vacuum to both test for leaks dry out the mini-split lines (which is what is necessary in order to get the hyper efficient mini-splits down to their crazy efficiency numbers) before filling with 410A.

All to say, go team electric!

Oh, if you do go with a heat-pump and you live where it genuinely gets cold, add the optional heat plate to the outdoor condenser so it cannot freeze up, and for convenience sake a Honeywell remote controller is also nice.

Oh and considering Building HVAC systems use single flares, I HIGHLY suggest using these fun gaskets at the flares even though I make nice flares because they help prevent leaks at the flares.

 

[ponytug]

@MinnesotaEric that sounds great! Thanks for the tip on the seals. Can you elaborate a bit on the nitrogen / vacuum purge process as to why it is particularly important for the Hyper heat systems? (I thought dry was important for all HVAC...)

All the best, Peter