Electric Bill.....
lucillle
3 years ago
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Comments (21)
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Gas heater running = high electric bill?
Comments (14)Hmmm, what wwu123 said makes sense. Just seems kind of crazy that the furnace blower would suck up so much electricity. In regards to how old the furnace is, I have no clue. It was installed by the previous owner. Based on what I can find, I would guess it's at least 15 years old. I have not had the unit service or checked by an HVAC pro. (What do they do when they service it? Is it like a car where belts/wearable parts are replaced?) As part of an experiment, I did not turn on the heat at all yesterday. (was 52 degrees inside the house when I woke up this morning! I can do this since my wife is traveling for work and she won't complain to me about the lack of heat in the house.) I'm waiting for our "smart meter" to update PGE so I can check the energy usage for yesterday. If the usage stays flat, then it means the furnace/blower uses an obscene amount of power! If there is a spike, then someone is stealing power from me since there would be nothing turned on that wasn't already on during the day already) FYI: my peak usage of power was on Saturday 8-10pm at 2.23kWh. (can someone tell me what 1kWh is equivalent to?) Thanks!...See MoreWhat if you dont pay electric bill?
Comments (10)I'm in Canada, particularly Ontario and it's a common misconception here that they can't shut off your power in winter months. But they can. Call them and set up a payment plan. Something is always better than nothing and if you make an effort, they can see that. So many people prefer to ignore their bills instead of calling the company. A few examples: We're having a bad month. I forgot to pay the rest of my cell phone bill so I called the provider and let them know I would pay it today. And I did. There was no lecture but instead she said, "Thank you for calling us and letting us know." When we were building our house, our furnace wasn't hooked up yet so after the drywall was done we had to keep the house heated. We set up multiple electric heaters. I got an over $900 hydro bill. Although I paid what I could, when I could, I couldn't keep up. I called them and they put me on a payment plan for a year which just adds a bit of that amount on to every bill. It's way more manageable. Other companies are great. Our propane company is not corporate owned. Again, the costs of installation were high. I called to tell them when I would be making another payment as I was behind. The lady was really nice and said to me, "We understand that the initial costs are high. As long as we see that you are paying it down, you won't have any issues." It took me maybe 2 months but I got it cleared. You need to call and see what they can do to help you. Ignoring it is never the answer. And consider moving. I'm not sure if that's an option for you but lots of people here live in apartments with baseboards and then wonder why their bills are so high. Baseboards and oil are terrible. Natural gas, propane and pellet stoves are much, much cheaper. I've been there. My first year of college my husband and I were basically living in one room of our apartment with a space heater because we couldn't afford to heat the entire place. We are obviously a lot better off now having just built our first home. Even now, we live in the dark 75% of the time. Not because we can't afford it but rather why pay for it when you don't need/use it? We have beautiful outdoor lights and never turn them on. The inside of our house is dark aside from the room we are spending time in. We don't unnecessarily run our furnace or AC. We take advantage of the sun, open windows etc. As for legal repercussions, they aren't just going to write the debt off. They WILL come after you regardless of whether it's off or not. How they might do that, I'm really not sure....See MoreGet Used To Blackouts and Higher Electric Bills As the Climate Changes
Comments (3)It's hard for people in other areas to remember that utility costs vary greatly depending on where you live. Out here in the West, natural gas eventually became cheaper than electricity, so now pretty much everyone has gas ranges and furnaces. The cost has gone up, of course; now both are expensive but gas is still the cheaper. Drought and demand has fueled electricity prices way beyond what we could have imagined twenty years ago. I know some TVA-supplied regions see electric costs at less than 9 cents per kilowatt. That's unimaginable in Northern CA, where electricity costs 17-20 cents retail. We did a solar panel installation and are very happy with it, but couldn't afford the battery installation to go off the grid entirely. Perhaps if Tesla can make a go of producing those lower-cost home system batteries, we can eventually make that purchase too. Water is the next big commodity that people will be eventually fighting over. There is a lot of pollution going on in Third World countries, especially China; and not enough fresh water much longer for everyone to share. China's super-dams project will almost completely cut off fresh water river flows through three SE Asian countries, and there's nothing they can do about it. It will effectively reduce them to colonial vassals, begging for handouts - but of water, without which they can't grow enough food to feed their people....See MoreElectric Bills are Crazy, need advice!!
Comments (323)This is a two year old post.. I was just thinking about it recently and wondered what the original poster had discovered. I wish people would come back and share their outcome after getting so much help/advice from the people on this site....See MoreElmer J Fudd
3 years ago
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