Our electric bills are killing us.

It doesn't help that our house is ON 24 hours since we have nurses in the house taking care of Hunter, and they of course want to watch TV.

Background info...

Our house is 5,000 sq. feet, masonry, with tile roof, and reflective film on the main windows. It was built well, and insulated well (in the walls and with blown-in insulation in the attics). We have gas water heaters and cook with gas.

Our house has three ACs (due to size) and for our son's special needs.
We also have 4 refrigerators (one huge main fridge, one regular fridge in the pantry for sodas and pizza and misc. crap, a wine fridge, and a mini-fridge for Hunter's medications (in his bathroom)

This is what we've done over the past year to help curb the bills...

1. Main House AC is at 80 all the time
2. Hunter's AC is at 78 full-time
3. Third A/C (my bedroom) is at 80 in the daytime and 74 at night (when we sleep)
4. I replaced about 24 of our ceiling can lights with compact flourescent bulbs
5. I replaced our two nightstand bulbs with compact flourescents
6. I replaced the six bulbs in Hunter's bathrrom with compact flourescents.
7. Pool pump runs only 6 hours per day to circulate chlorine
8. Spa pump runs 2 hours per day
9. Front yard lights (low voltage) are on for about 2.5 hours.
10. A/C filters are changed regularly
11. Rear yard lights are not on at all
12. Only one light is on in the kitchen at night (for the nurses)
13. The rest of the house has "nightlights" which are LED nightlights
14. Adjusted the fridges to medium cooling setting (vs. max cool)
15. Ceiling fans run on slow to circulate air.

All this has been in place about a year with negligible results.

Our most recent bill... $1,183.00 WTF!

Our bill at this time last year (before changes wer made) was around $800.00.

That being said... I do know that the utility rates have gone up 22% in a year.

So today, we decided to add to the list...

1. Keep the blinds closed in our masterbedroom permanently (they are light-blocking, foil-lined horizontal blinds)
2. Disconnected the mini wine fridge
3. Turn off the three PCs and monitors in the house when not being used
4. Reduce the number of loads of laundry by 25% per week.
5. Search for a few more bulbs to swap out with compact flourescent

What else can we do, besides move?

I don't want to live in a cave. I want to be able to enjoy the house and watch TV and have it comfortable inside. It's kind of hard when it's 95 degrees out and 90% humidity!

Your suggestions of things to look for, adjust, turn off, is appreciated

Thanks!

solar???

our neighbors just installed a 5kW system, ran about $40K, ROI should be less than 10 years, sooner if the rates keep going up...

Get a bunch of roof-mounted solar panels and invest in glass cleaner, that will reduce your bill to a degree. Be sure to have these covered in your homeowners' insurance in case they're damaged in a storm or some other event.

But seeing as you have a large house [by comparison], and special needs, your bill will be much larger than others'. See about getting LED or energy-star compliant flourescent bulbs all around your house (with new built in ballasts). Incadescent bulbs eat much more power than flourescent bulbs, which eat more than LED bulbs.

Reduce from 4 fridges to 2. If you buy a new one, make sure it is energy star compliant. Some cities (and energy providers) will give you a rebate for new hardware and house appliances over a certain dollar amount that are energy star compliant.

Don't run the A/C as much. That's a bit energy consumer right there, if not the largest. Household appliances (dishwasher, laundry machines) are also big consumers.

My last and most outlandish suggestion, would be a generator. Bio-diesel. It wouldn't hurt, at ~55¢/gallon to run it during the daytime hours.

I agree with the solar installation. You are in a good spot (geographically speaking) in terms of usable solar energy hitting the ground. If you are paying $1100 a month, that 5 kW system will pay itself off really quickly....

It seems that the dominant consumers of energy are the AC, fridges and pool/spa equipment. Not really a whole lot you can do about that except stop using them, I bet they use well over 50% of your total power budget. I you have central air, then you could close the vents to half of that 5000 square feet and just live in the rest

Our apartment is somewhere around 1000 square feet, we have no AC (live near the beach, recently it got up to 90 I think which is very very rare) one fridge, almost all lights are compact flourescent, etc. Our electric bill is somewhere around $30-$60 a month, sometimes a bit higher in the winter because we have a small electric heater we occasionally use. Our apartment was built in the 50s or 60s so it isn't well insulated at all!....

Anyway, sounds like lifestyle changes would do the trick.

-Tony

Is that bill for gas and power combined or just power? Either way, ouch.

on the solar. Is Fl doing anything at the state level with respect to rebates? I think we just had one expire at the end of June that was worth quite a bit (based on how big / how many watts your system produced). Plus there's a federal rebate / credit that is worth maybe $2500. (hopefully RichardL will chime in here, I think he's done research recently).

See if you can kill the second fridge in the pantry.

How comfortable are you at the current thermostat settings? Can you be a little less comfortable (I know, it's hard with the humidity).

I also agree on turning off computers and everything else you are not immediately using. I've heard about unplugging anything that has a remote control as they can suck nearly as much power in 'standby' as when they're on; but that seem unreasonable.

Can you cut back on the pool and spa pumps some more? Are you even using the pool these days or is it too hot to even swim?

Move to a smaller house?

Reduce number of fridges. The fridges that you do have- keep them packed (even with just bottles of water). Filling the fridge space with water is much more energy conservative then leaving the fridge filled with air. You should be able to tune a good fridge to turn on very infrequently, yet stay nice and chilly if it's packed with water like stuff.

Double paned windows- do huge energy savings (particularly for heating houses) and I assume it must be the same for cooling houses, because you'ree only going the opposite temperature direction, but a degree is still a degree. Check out some of the studies using infrared cameras compairing heat loss (or in your case cooling loss) between single pane windows vs. double paned.

Seal air leaks at all openings. There's some tricky ways to test this (I forget how exactly) something like use a match or smoke at the seam to 'view' the draft traveling in or out like around doors frame ect... then weather strip like a mad man. All the supposably closed openings around the house will add up to quite alot of leakage which is bad.

Airconditioning sounds like your number one energy monster. Check out swamp coolers. My dad has one (in a hot area) and supposably it's the chit. I haven't seen it but supposably uses water and some sort of radiator type stuff (I think) and evaporates into nice cool air.... Sounds like a much more green type of AC.

Paint the roof and house white. Nuff said.

Solar- definitely the direction this country needs to go in. Could be awsome but quite a project.

LED lights- have an almost immortal life span AND are like 3-5 times more efficient then flourescent. Not cheap, but immortallity never is. They don't generate heat.

Water heater recirculation pump. Combined with insulation on your water pipes. You set the clock to circulate the hot water for the times of day that you use it. Keeps it moving and returning to the tank, helps conserve heating energy overall.

Ummm, that's all I can think of. There's tons of info out there to research and it's fun going green!

Oh yeah! Do you have the pool and spa properly covered? Like for either keeping it cool or warm (depending on what you're trying to do). This one is huge... pools are enormous energy evaporators if you're talking about heating them to any degree. Invest in a top quality cover...

I agree with those who say concentrate on your A/C costs. Maybe investigate ground water heat pump? Dunno how well they work in florida since they rely on cooler temps in the earth. Basicly the same as your normal A/C but the heat exchange is done with coolant that is pumped underground instead of using air. Bigger temp differential=higher efficiency.

With a house your size solar would be a great option. Volume is going up so prices are coming down. I think it is Germany that introduced the concept of 'Standard Contracts'. You put in a solar system and the utility company agrees to buy all of it's output at a rate higher than what they sell power to you. So you make money on the full output of your system not just the excess that you don't use. Ontario has just introduced the same concept although the price is not as lucrative as europe - 42 cents per kilowatt hour. Maybe some political lobbying is in order :-) It really makes a lot of sense. You wind up building a distributed electrical generating system that does not need upgrades to your high tension distributions system. It's a lot cheaper than a new nuclear generator and requires no capital on the part of the government.

You can't use an evaporative cooler in a humid environment. They use water to cool the air passing through a wet filter. In florida all you have to do is turn on a fan to get the same effect. They are for dry climates and work great south and west from Colorado.

I've been told that leaving an AC'd area at a high temp and then cranking the AC down to cool (like the night-time scenario you described) actually uses more energy. I can't say that that's true for certain, but I just leave my ac at 75 all day and then kick it down to 73 at 10:00 p.m. I never checked for the actual difference in cost, but I know if I leave the ac at say 78 during the day when I'm at work and then set it at 74 when I get home in the late afternoon, it works and works and works and works to get the temp down. On a hot day it can take hours to get from 78 to 73.

Might be something to experiment with.

Does your power company offer on peak/off peak plans? Our electricity is pretty spendy from 9 - 9 durring the week days but pennies from 9-9 at night and on weekends. So we do laundry, dishes, run the pool, spa, and have the A/C set much cooler at night when it is cheap. saves us about $300 a month when compared to just a flat rate 24/7.

I only circulate my pool 1.5 hrs a day.
There is no need to circulate that long.
If you have a Polaris type pool sweep with an extra boost motor, get a "Kreepy Krawly" that does not need a boost motor. These actually vacum the bottom of the pool when the circ pump is on.
Other system put the dirt into suspension in the water then depend on the filter to circulate the dirt out of the water.
Pumps stay on longer wasting energy.

I have had pools for 20 yrs with this system.

Close off all west facing windows with a reflective shade.



Good luck, I hate high utiliy bills.

I know you said you have good insulation, but how much? For your area an r49 is recommended for the attic I believe. That is in the neighbor hood of 13 inches of blown insulation. The house I have was built in the 80's, and I just increased my insulation from r23 to r49 and it made a huge difference in the amount of time the AC run. Check your AC ducts as well are they flexible or metal? Are they insulated? Are they leaking? Also you might check out two other options a geothermal heat pump and not sure on the wind situation there, but a wind turbine. Much cheaper than solar panels if you have a constant breeze. I agree with the roof color. It might not be pretty, but paint the main surface and leave the parts you can see from the ground if it bothers you too much. If you have a large TV change to a smaller LCD TV. Do you have trees that shade your house? if not get some they work great. Do you have people going in and out all the time? Look into adding an air lock. Insulated Low E windows. And keep the computers off. Most are like running 100 to 150 what light bulbs all the time and the monitor if it is a crt is another 75 to 100+

These are just some starting points. Some are expensive some are not, and the little things like AC ducting and air leaks can add up to a lot.

As Jon mentioned we are waiting on the install of a 4.6KW solar system. There is a one time $2000 Federal Credit available and in CA at least there was a $2.80 per Watt credit on the system (which we qualified for, even though its now lapsed).

A big saving comes from switching to a 'Residential Time of Use' meter. This charges a lot more between 12Noon - 6pm. This is when the solar system generates most power, which we can offset or sell back to the utility at peak rate. Then when we are drawing on the grid, we get it at low rates. The prediction is that our average cost per KwH will drop from 21.3Cents to 5Cents, and our usage will drop in half, hence a payback of around 10years.

It might make sense to go to a RTOU rate, then run the pumps etc. over night rather than during the day. Also have the AC at much higher temps during the day, and the same at night (or obviously a little higher to save energy at night).

Good Luck, thats a high bill!

R

Does it cool down at night where you are?
If it at least cools down to the mid 60's, then consider a house exhaust fan. Open the house up at night and turn on the exhaust fan which will draw air in through all of the open windows and cool the house right down. Then in the morning, close it all up.

We don't have the humidity here, but our house stays nice and cool so we don't even have to use the A/C. As long as it cools off at night, it can reach 105 during the day and not exceed 80 inside.

The only time we used our A/C this whole summer was a heatwave when it was 115 outside, and only cooled off to a low of 79 at night.

Also consider an thermally activated attic fan. It helps keep the air in the attic from getting too hot.

And c'mon, 4 refrigerators? Hunters medicine fridge is worthwhile I'm sure, but turn the other 2 extras off. Yeah, it's nice to have 4 cases of cold beer and soda, but really not necessary. Your one huge fridge should be enough for all your needs.

Demick

Turn off the celing fans. They use alot more energy than you think. Pluse the AC circulates the air when it comes on.
Or, you could find some type of cooling device just for Hunters room and where the nurses hang out and turn the AC off. Then you could run all the celing fans on High. That would be the most cost effective cut.
Yea, it sucks to live in heat, but I have been able to work, live, and drive a unconditioned 914 in 100+ weather (plus humidity) for years. Keep blinds closed everywhere. Open verticals (if you have blinds) just enough to let enough light in to see you you wont have to use the lights.

My employers installed "window tint" on their windows and it has make a drastic change in the heat level inside the house!! I don't know the exact cost, but I do not believe that it was an extreme amount of money to have that done. That way you wont have to run the AC so much.

Are your "nightlights" the ones that come on automaticaly when dark? There are some energy saving ones (green square) that acutally put off a good amount of light and use like 16 amps per year (not sure on the exact usage, but I have them and they work great!) Not sure what type of outside lights you are talking about (ground or on the house). Try installing solar lights outside. The ones that collect the sunlight durring the day then glow at night. They put off just enought light that you can see even when it is pitch black out and last until the wee hours of the morning.

Good luck!

I would start here

http://www.energysavers.gov/homeowners.html

or more specifically here

http://hes.lbl.gov/