Holy Electricity! My latest electric bill is

[Subdivisions]

$237.83!!!

That is OUTRAGEOUS! We live in a two bedroom (supposedly energy efficient) apartment. It has been cooler so we have either opened the windows or, if it was too cold, like today, the heat is set to come on at 65°. But no AC at all on this bill. And I'm energy-conscious, if not always as effecient a conservator, though I am more dilligent than most at turning off lights that aren't in use, etc. So, basically, I just don't understand it.

Why does my electric bill hate me?!?

[babylonsister]

1. Well, my gas bill hates me.

Went from about $50 last month to $146, and I don't know why either. :cry:

We have gas heat, but haven't used it that much here in TX.

[TwilightGardener]

2. Well, you can start crying when you see $400 gas bills every winter, like I do!

Combination of very old, drafty house (which we're slowly fixing up) and Nebraska cold. Totally sucks.

[babylonsister]

31. I get the really big bills in the summer here, for a/c. But

I shall refrain from complaining more about the uptick in my winter gas bill. And dare I say it, stay warm!

[Subdivisions]

3. I'm also in Texas, near Ft Worth. I was under the recent

impression that our electric rates were going to go down due to a court ruling that TXU was overcharging. This month, my bill is over $100 more than the previous month.

I'm flabbergasted.

You know what it makes me think about? If my bill is this much for an energy efficient apartment, what must it be for the one-paycheck-away-from-a-cardboard-box with an already adjusted sub-prime mortgage on the 4-bedroom McMansion in the gated suburbs that should never have been approved to begin with. And then there's the rentor of a leaky slum house whose balanced on the edge of poverty already and then gets a $400 dollar electric bill becuase the landlord won't seal up the cracks in the corners and floors.

[Ezlivin]

17. I'm just north of Fort Worth - my bill was $138

And I'm in a three bedroom, two bath 2500 square foot home. We've had extra insulation added, all Energy Star appliances (except the creaking old refrigerator) a super-high-efficiency Lennox HVAC and we run our programmable thermostat at 68°.

I've spend the past several years working diligently to reduce my overall energy usage. When I replace an old computer, appliance or tool I always make sure it uses less energy than what it replaces. But the biggest help was the 18.60 SEER HVAC and the extra blown-in insulation.

Unfortunately if you are in an apartment you are a victim of whatever corners they cut; apartments are not known for energy efficiency. It's not like you can tear out the walls and the ceiling to upgrade the insulation.

[fudge stripe cookays]

18. Sucks!

In 1997, I was living in Lewisville, and had that freaking Texas-New Mexico power company. I had ALWAYS met my bills on time, but that was the first time in my life I ever had my power cut off. Until THEN. I couldn't pay any of my other bills because of those greedy bastards. So they cut it in the middle of AUGUST.

During the winter, I'd had my thermostat set as low as I could stand it. I was wearing sweatpants, T-shirt, and heavy sweaters over it, plus two pairs of socks. I was paying over $200 a month for a ONE BEDROOM!

When I went to the office and asked if they could check and see if I had a major leak somewhere, the manager told me that that was a regular thing. They were spending $100 on vacant apartments just to keep the pipes from freezing.

I sympathize. I just moved from Texas to Wisconsin, but am doing OK. I keep it at a steady 71 here. It hasn't been too bad. YET. I'm expecting January and February to be a little different.

[sendero]

36. I'm sure you have already..

... but be sure to sign up with Reliant or Direct or somebody. You can really save some $$$

I'm getting a 11.9 cents per KWH next year, quite a bit better than you will get with the default TXU.

[rurallib]

4. Call them and verify it

I had a meter reader transpose numbers on me once that resulted in a 650$ bill. Like an idiot I paid it. Then a couple days later it hit me that it was almost impossible for me to use that much electricity. It had been extremely hot and for one of the few times we used our AC.
So I traipsed to the electric company with some numbers I had written down and by golly they had made a huge mistake.

[Cleita]

5. Welcome to California nationwide.

Remember the Enron scandal and the fleecing of California that brought us Arnold? Well, Arnold is still trying to "balance da boooks" because of the Enron cheating of California. Now the energy fleecing of America has spread.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

7. BINGO

[ixion]

11. Yep: Enron/CA was the testing ground for their scam, now implemented nationwide

across more than just utilities.

[MindPilot]

15. Yep. I'm happy when mine goes DOWN to that.

And the curious thing is no matter how much I try to cut back and conserve, usage just goes up and up. New furnace & a/c, CFLs throughout the house, CRT monitors replaced with flat screens, but almost every month I use more.

I'm looking into solar.

[WillyT]

30. Here's A Site To Check Out:

Link: http://www.realgoodssolar.com/solar/ecs/main/index.html

These guys have been around for years, and are very popular with environmentally conscious folks up on the north coast of California. I know a couple of people who've gotten totally "off the grid" using their products. Bonnie Raitt's even played some event's there.

:shrug:

Another Link: http://www.realgoodssolar.com/solar/ecs/main/Greatest-Environmental-Store.html

:hi:

[YvonneCa]

24. Enron...

...I remember.

[Lorien]

26. Yep. My friend in Glendale pays over $900 a month for electricity for

her 3/2 1930's Spanish Style two story. She NEVER runs the air or heat, either. She's had auditors over and no one can figure out why in the hell her bill is so high (The last auditor said "it could be your refrigerator", yeah, right). Her neighbor pays $1,200 a month, so she's hardly alone.

[HughMoran]

6. Oil bill for December $800

Relax, you could live in the Northeast. This is on top of a $100 electric bill and $80 for Propane.

[Subdivisions]

9. Please know that I do sympathize. I am

fortunate in that respect to live in Texas. There's probably not a single oil furnace in this state so we don't know anything about having to purchase home heating oil, which btw costs more than it ever has and could be in short supply.

[HughMoran]

12. $3.29/gallon for home heating oil

It's amazing to me that it costs more than gasoline considering I buy 150 gallons at a time. Actually, it sickens me :puke:

[asjr]

20. OMG! Until we converted in 1986 to

central air and heat our heating oil was at 35 cents a gal. I sold my house in 1996 because even then prices were soaring. It is hard enough to pay 3.00 gal for gasoline. I am convinced there is a conspiracy to overcharge us to death.

[conscious evolution]

28. There is a conspiracy

They would much rather steal your time and hard earned money then let you spend it on things lke progressive goverment.
It's hard to take to the streets when you are too busy trying to fullfil basic needs.

[1monster]

8. Two years ago, just after Christmas I got a $425.00 electric bill. I had not put up

copius displays of holiday lights. In fact, I had less than half of what I normally used.

It was a little colder than usual, but not THAT cold. I keep my thermostat set at 69 degrees, mainly because my DH complains loudly if it is set lower.

Depending on the weather, my normal electric bill for this time of year had ranged between $150 and $275.

Many people in our area had seriously high increases that month. It even hit the local mullet wrapper.

Mysteriously, the next month the electric bill went back to just slightly higher than before. And January was much colder than December that year.

[ThomWV]

10. Well then, it shold be clear to you that heating is not where you are wasting power

If you have no AC (huge power consumer) on the bill and you haven't been heating much (another huge power consumer) then the power consumption has to be somewhere else. Go start looking. Things that heat stuff are the first place to look, toasters, water heaters, electric ovens, things like that.

[Subdivisions]

16. Thanks for the advice! A bill like this does tend to make me

a bit proactive. I'll also speak to TXU and have already recorded my meter readings in case that is needed to see if a transcription was made. I'm also hearing that sometimes no one from the electric company actually makes it to my meter to read it, they will just estimate it (always to their benefit) and then make the math right after the next actual meter reading, which I think is just bullshit.

[catmandu57]

29. That's what happened to us this month

We lived through the ice storm and were without power for a couple of days, when I got our light bill it was higher than it had ever been for December. They had estimated our usage and it's way over what we normally use, I think they're making themselves an interest free loan to pay for the damage the ice did.
We'll get it back eventually, but in the meantime they get the use of our money and probably everyone else who is a customer.

[graywarrior]

13. Yipes!

Ours was $165 all summer and just dropped to $75 after we turned off the A/C.

[GOPisEvil]

14. Let me guess: you have "choice" in electrical providers.

I have City of Austin utilities and my last bill was under $70.00. I have a 2 bedroom/2 bath home. Heat is always under 70.

[Bitwit1234]

19. Heating oil is sinking our budget.

3.50 a gallon. And the weather here in Minnesota has been low low in the minus 25 to 15 degrees.

[K Gardner]

21. Compare with your past bills and ask for another reading, as some

others have suggested. Mine is always low because I'm in TVA Country ($77.00 this month), but my total bill was $250. I nearly fell over. Turns out they had charged me $150 for WATER consumption. I live alone, and that's 10 x what I usually pay, so I asked them to come out. They found a leak, I had my plumber replace a portion of pipe and got credited back the waste water consumption.

I know bills will go up this year, especially where there is gas and oil usage. It's beyond me how people are supposed to pay for it.

[bullwinkle428]

22. Wow - I have to consider myself very fortunate in comparison!

I live in a 2 bedroom condo (a little over 1000 square feet), so I'm guessing our places our comparable, and my bill was $59! I was out of town for a week and turned the heat down to 60, but can't imagine it would have been significantly higher. Have your rates skyrocketed from years past?

[ingac70]

23. You need to contact the apt. manager....

and see about having your HVAC unit looked at.

That bill is as high as mine, and I live in a 3000 sq. ft., 100 year old house!

[Warpy]

25. Is it averaged over the year?

If so, you're stuck. If not, it sounds like they didn't read the meter this month and estimated. You'll get it back next month.

I just opened mine. It's been cold and we've had a few snowstorms. My heat was $73 and my electricity $30. I supplement the wheezing old floor furnace with a woodstove, and every room but the living/computer room stays frigid.

It pays to be an energy miser who knows how to KNIT.

[tularetom]

27. You oughta see what we pay to cool this ol drafty house in the summer

Before we replaced the windows and insulated the attic we had a frickin $800 electric bill one summer.

The heat bills weren't too bad because it rarely gets below about 20 here and we burn a lot of wood in the fireplace. But we've had $300 bills in December.

[Cleita]

32. Plant trees around your house.

I'm not being sarcastic. Planting fast growing shade trees, preferrably natives or near natives really changes the environment around your house. When I first moved here onto a bare hillside, the wind blew constantly, the heat on hot summer days was unbearable (no air conditioning), and when it rained, everything washed down the hill. I surrounded my house with shade trees that I planted back then. Putting them into the ground and creating hedges as fences and dividers were my very first gardening tasks at this new site.

They have grown to lovely shade trees that not only cool things down in the summer but also deflect the wind and filter the rain acting like a sponge that keeps it from washing down in sheets. I alternated deciduous trees with everygreens so that I have more light in the winter. Eight years seems like a long time, but you really start feeling the benefits after three years and it gets better every year.

[tularetom]

33. We got trees up the wazoo

Our house was built in 1912. We're in the sierra foothills on the east side of the San Joaquin Valley in CA and the guy who built the house located it in a grove of oaks. There are also a few digger pines that somebody must have planted since they normally do not flourish at this elevation. We're on top of a hill also and our little grove of trees are the only ones within a mile in any direction. It's just a drafty old house and it gets hot as hell here and we never have gotten around to insulating the walls although we did install double pane windows a few years back.

You are right, I shudder to think what our bill would be if we didn't have the trees.

[Cleita]

34. I was gonna say. Imagine how bad it would be without trees.

You could still try to build a "fence" around your property with fast growing acacias that need practically no water when established. I have an acacia "baileyana" that is really large and beautiful and got that way in five years from a little five gallon pot that I brought it home in. I'm gonna plant a line of them on the back of the property to replace eucalyptus in the adjoining property that have blown over and been cleared by the neighbors creating another mini-climate problem.

I never thought I would miss the eucalyptus because they were so brittle and messy unti they were gone and realized how much they affected the climate here. Anyway, insulating your house is a good idea as well, if you already have sufficient tree protection.

[tammywammy]

35. Mine is $48.26

TXU and my gas bill is around $50 too with Atmos.

I have a 2 bedroom, 1 bath house around 1000 square feet.