"I love how triggered you are by a stranger on the internet".

Not at all, I felt a late-night challenge to match your absurdity.

What absurdity Elmer? I think you are the only person seeing any in what Chris posted. Everything in the post was valid contributing factors to the high electric bill and relevant.

Just because a 6000 sq/ft house would cost $5M+ in your area doesn't mean it would where Chris lives. I have a couple friends with houses about that size around here that were built for 7-8 hundred thousand.

You're as welcome to have whatever opinion you wish to have as I am.

I have facts, you have an opinion.

What a strange conversation. Why would someone giving the facts about their home be considered to be bragging? (Especially when they matter to what is being discussed ) Facts are facts.

My sister lives just outside of Calgary (Springbank) in a home that is just under 6000 sq. ft. It is not out of the ordinary for many people. They’re just normal, every day folks. I’m sure that their concern about heating/cooling costs are just as valid as anyone else’s.

(Too big for me, but we’re all different)

Chris I think you are right about the windows. and perhaps double paned windows will lower your bill significantly although they can be expensive. And of course if you raise the thermostat you will save energy. But 6000 feet plus a pool is a lot to condition. I too think that if someone in similar circumstances shared the amount of their usage or their bill (whether it be higher, lower or the same) their details might be significant to you.

And really, all you can do is ask. Many years ago I was curious about how much my neighbors were paying and I tried to ask the customer service people at my electric company and they acted shocked and would not divulge local bills even without names/addresses.

My last hydro bill was $169.79 before taxes. $83.17 of that was for water and waste water charges. $86.62 for electricity and that includes a $15.34 Ontario Electricity Rebate. We are on time of use so I use the majority of my electricity off peak after 7 pm on weekdays I used 518 kwh

"I have facts, you have an opinion."

There's no doubt, I'm sure you think you do

Nicole stated she has a 6400 ft home and a heated garage. Nicole your "babies" are spoiled! LOL

Ha - for some folks, it seems a day without conflict is like a day without sunshine 😄

And it looks like Canadians have lower energy costs than us USAians...?

"Many years ago I was curious about how much my neighbors were paying and I tried to ask the customer service people at my electric company and they acted shocked and would not divulge local bills even without names/addresses."

Every month, my power company includes with my bill how my usage compares with comparable homes in my area. They also separate out for comparison high efficiency homes. Not sure where they get that data for comparison, but it might be using newer homes (many have been built in my area) which would have stricter energy requirements when they were built than when my house was built in 1983.

I look forward to those comparisons when I move to the pnw, unfortunately not all power companies post up that useful info. It would certainly be useful to Chris.

@Jasdip...That is true. ❣️They have a heating pad we keep @ 90F in the Summer.

I don't know how it is now but at one time in Canada, a high percentage of power production (compared to most US locations) was from hydroelectric sources. Flowing water. It's cheap. Same is true in the US Pacific Northwest

I get an email with a similar "report" as olychick describes. It says it's based on 100 homes in my neighborhood of similar size. To be honest I don't pay much attention to it. We've been in this house for several decades, have made energy efficiency improvements, and usage is what it is. I'm pretty aware of the variables as, I suspect, are most people who've been in one spot for a while.

Chris, we have similar bills for similar-sized homes. We have a 5500 sq. ft. house, no pool and our electric bill was $646 last month. Our air conditioning is set to 70. This is for a house built in 1999. In the winter, it's the opposite our natural gas bill is in the $600-800 range. We are in NJ.

2000 sq ft home with a pool and hot tub that we keep going all year 24/7 , inside temp set at 72 all year. Electric runs us $250-300 a month all year and backup heat in winter is gas (propane) and that is about $200 a month. Central Va

Just got my latest bill. $843 for 5/5-7/7. About the summer jump I expected.

FOAS - Yikes and ouch!

WOW! FOAS! Just WOW! I'm so sorry...

FOAS is your electric bill typically for a two month period?

Just got my bill for last month. I wasn't far off $380. Worth every penny. It would've been so much more unbearable with higher temps inside.

Yes we’re on bi-monthly billing, so that’s like $420 a month. Not the worst bill listed here.

Further details:

This is a leaky 1950’s house, ≈2700 sq ft I believe, no way to effectively balance our larger a/c which runs near constantly to keep the upstairs tolerable while freezing out most of the downstairs. Plus the pool.

And for further comparison, that bill is for 3211 KWH.

I always have to laugh, quietly chuckle, when people post about recovering the cost of a solar system. While it might happen since the estimate is 8-12 years currently they should be used to lower your usage because by the time they are paid for a replacement system to upgrade would be needed. I look at them similar to whatever I am driving. Just as soon as it is paid for it starts breaking down making a never ending money pit.

The delivery charges are what gets me riled. we really conserve energy compared to most I know, but the delivery charges are so high it disheartening

“I always have to laugh, quietly chuckle, when people post about recovering the cost of a solar system.”

No need to chuckle. You may live in one of the regions where coal continues in use providing cheap power. Elsewhere, electricity is considerably more expensive and home solar systems offer a good ROI in not many years. in sunny places, the expected useful lives of the hardware can be 3x the number of years before costs are initially fully recovered. Money well spent.

Our panels are 12 yrs old and still going strong...they seem to be almost as efficient as when we installed them. And AFAIK, there is no new technology that's more effective to replace them. And we're delighted when our most of the year, our electric bill is $12.

Annie I do not want to know how much your system cost only if you have recouped the expense for installing and maintaining it. Yes or No is all I am wanting.

I have year around averaging, so my bills don't vary too much from month to month. I had to look at my account to see what the actual monthly cost was for this last month. It was $188. Last year, same month was $177. I have all electric home with electric baseboard heat but just added a mini-split heat pump unit in the main living area, so hope it is more efficient - too soon to tell. I have wood stove but haven't used it much the last few years. Our air has been so foul in the summers from forest fires, I hate to add to that problem, though my stove is very efficient.

maifleur, I can't answer that as we never figured out how much solar actually cost...it was a decision we made to have them installed along with geothermal heating and other energy efficient design elements which came with various tax credits and rebates. We were willing to make the investment in the building while I was working, to reduce our maintenance and energy costs once retired. (So, for example the decision to put a 50-yr roof served both reduced maintenance costs and to have the roof outlast the solar panels.) At the time, we estimated the payback at 10 yrs for the solar panels, so we are past that. (In our state, electricity costs are among the highest in the nation.) I have kept track of our total energy costs in this house. The average home in our state will burn 880 gallons of oil per year. This year, at $5 per gallon, that would cost $4,400 just for heat. Our total energy bill, heating, cooling, hot water, lighting, etc., is about 1/4 of that.

Part of what makes the solar panels pay is, due to the geothermal system, our primary energy cost is electricity which the solar panels directly offset. Had we installed solar panels just for lighting, it certainly would not have made sense.

" Had we installed solar panels just for lighting, it certainly would not have made sense "

I can't imagine solar panels are ever installed for a structure with only low-load power needs.

In my very populated state, heat pumps of any type (whether ground source or air source) have been rare for residential units because natural gas is available in most urban/suburban areas and that's what's used for heating. The same is true in may other cities and towns around the country.

Rooftop solar panels can be seen all over in other than modest-level neighborhoods. Why, if not for heat? Typically to offset the power needs of air conditioning and pool pumps and, more recently, for charging electric cars.

With the exception of one large municipal power provider, very little of California's electricity production in recent decades has been from cheap sources, whether nuclear or coal burning plants. Our electricity is expensive - tiered rates are the mandatory default and currently range from 26-40 cents per kwh in the two different investor-owned utility areas I pay for electricity in. It doesn't take much usage to have a high bill and even small solar installations pay for themselves quickly.

Canadian here:

My last bill (billing date Dec 5) is:

Energy Charge: 28.87

Admi fee: 6.66

admin fee saving: .49CR

Distribution Charge: 22.67

Transmission Charge: 17.79

Rate Rider: .43CR

Local Access Fee 13.65

GST(fed tax) 4.43

TOTAL: 93.15

GOA Utititly rebate: or what I call buying votes for the UCP: 50.00 CREDIT

TOTAL ELECTRIC BILL: 43.15

Then there's the electric bill:

Energy Charges: 32.66

Admin fee: 5.98

Admin Fee Savings: .44CR

Delivery Charge: 24.55

Delivery charge: 8.94 (yes: two delivery charges!)

Rate Riders 11.01

Municipal Franchchise Fee 10.41

Carbon Tax 23.26

GST 5.81

Current GAS Billing: 122.18

TOTAL DUE: 165.33 ($120.56USD)

This does not include: water, sewage, garbage pickup which added another $95 to our total bill. And it's not even cold outside yet.

That's 10% of my husbands seniors pension cheque for this month alone. It's why when I'm 65 I'll still be working full time.

26-40 cents per kwh

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is outrageous!

It's why when I'm 65 I'll still be working full time

I think the rising prices of basic necessities are worrying a lot of people.

We have zoned areas of our house. The bedrooms don't need to be kept cold during the day.. The main living spaces don't need it after we go to bed and before we get up in the morning. My partner takes care of the bills so I don't see the cost. Not constantly heating and cooling the entire house has to help.

" That is outrageous! "

I don't pay much attention to it, to be honest, but I find my mental recollection is dated. Here are the current rates, higher than I thought. The so-called "baseline" varies geographically - inland areas with more extreme temps get higher numbers, coastal areas with more moderate weather get less. Where I am, Tier 1 is up to about 250 kwh per month, which isn't all that much. Our usage is mostly in the 39 cents range. Click to enlarge

This is why solar panels are visible all over. The rates I pay in SoCal are, I believe, higher.

Just found SoCal - 39 cents per kwh up to 130 percent of baseline, 49 cents thereafter.

Come 1/1/2023, our generation rate will be doubling from 11¢ to 22¢ per kwh plus another 13¢ per kwh for delivery charges and we'll be running about 35¢ per kwh...a little more with the other various fees they attach. The good thing though is that the bank of excess power we generate in the summer and draw down in the winter is kwh for kwh regardless of how much the utility charges. If however we were a net generator, they would charge us retail for any power we use, but buy back from us at wholesale, so a lousy proposition.

After seeing this knowing I looked at what is available both with the federal tax credit and the local utility rebates. The federal tax credit of 30% of the cost will make a small difference in what I pay for taxes.

By the time I would make all the changes including new windows etc. to be eligible for the utility rebates and allow for any excess to go back to their systems it would make little financial sense to add solar. While this house is solid in this area it is a teardown changing to solar will only be for my comfort.

Anne, thank you. Very few people who I have spoken to even if they based the information that is currently available have ever been able to give even a projected time that installing solar would return the cost to install it. If I do it will be because I want to try it similar to trying a new food. I may like it or perhaps not.

" The good thing though is that the bank of excess power we generate in the summer and draw down in the winter is kwh for kwh regardless of how much the utility charges. "

Expect that to not continue, changes are afoot. The problem that has become quite clear to utility companies in recent years is that charging for "delivery" only when a customer is buying power has two obvious problems: 1) while customers with solar equipment are as heavily dependent on the existence of the grid hardware as any others (it's there to move net power generated on sunny days to the grid, and to provide power to work off an excess production credit when the day's production is inadequate), little to nothing is paid by such customers who don't actually "buy" much power on a net basis. Nothing is paid if they consume less than they produce, with annual reconciliations and 2) only customers purchasing power pay the delivery fee, which maintains the grids. For this second, everyone uses grid hardware but only some pay for its maintenance and equipment repairs.

A number of changes are being considered in various places to address the inherent unfaireness of the old system being applied to today's realities. One I know of that's already in use in one location (where I know someone with rooftop panels) is that the settle-up calculation, net production fed into the grid paid for at wholesale, versus a net deficit where the grid supplements a poor production day charged at retail, is done on a daily basis. In other words, no credit for sunny days carries forward to be used on cloudy days - each day starts with a balance of zero. A second approach being discussed is to have solar equipment owners pay the "delivery charge" for all power crossing over their wires, in both directions. Both for power to the grid on production days and for power supplied on use days, whether paid for or not.

" Very few people who I have spoken to even if they based the information that is currently available have ever been able to give even a projected time that installing solar would return the cost to install it. "

The variable here may be whom you've spoken to.

In my area, solar contractors prepare bids by looking at electricity use for the past several years and talking about any planned changes in power needs - electric cars, HVAC equipment changes, etc. From that, they size what equipment is needed to come to gross cost including install. The final bid proposals (for cases I'm aware of, over a dozen) all included calcs of net cost after credits and payback period at expected usage rates and current retail pricing.

I don't think most people are foolish enough to go forward with such a decision without considering payback period. Though, equipment costs are way down so it's not nearly as expensive as it used to be and power pricing increases shortens the payback period.

Anyone considering solar equipment only needs to ask for a complete bid. In a few areas I'm familiar with, a complete bid is indeed complete.

Maifleur: "The federal tax credit of 30% of the cost will make a small difference in what I pay for taxes."

The tax credit is not to lower your taxes...it is to recompense you for the cost of installing the system. If the system ends up costing $16k and you get a 25% tax credit then the system costs are actually $12k.

I think it's slightly different. It's a financial incentive to do something. One of many techniques put in place in expectation that more people will take an action a legislature wants to encourage than would do so otherwise. In the face of such incentives, it's known that suppliers juice prices higher so that the incentive benefits really go to them (in the form of more business at higher prices) more so than the customers.

There are all kinds of financial incentives that are available from governments for various things, the renewable energy credit is but one of many. Others many may be familiar with is tax benefits for various approaches to save for retirement, tax abatements for building new factories or other new business locations to create local jobs, financial incentives (as Canada and some US cities and states offer) for filming movies and TV programs there, tax deductions for charitable contributions, and on and on. All were created to encourage particular acts or behaviors.

Some information I found from a search said that the Netherlands and Germany are the two countries in Europe with the highest percentage of power supplied from solar equipment. Both countries can be cloudy and gloomy (certainly compared to the Med areas) so the the reason behind this is simply because both countries offered very generous governmental financial incentives to individuals and businesses to install these systems. And, so that's what happened.

"I think it's slightly different. It's a financial incentive to do something."

It's not different. Lowering costs *is* a financial incentive. And that's what a tax credit or rebate does. It lowers costs. Just as raising excise taxes on cigarettes is a financial incentive to *not* do something by making it more expensive. Raising or lowering prices via taxes is the mechanism used to apply governmental incentives or disincentives. It's market conditions (that old supply/demand thing) that determine the final price to the consumer and how much the seller can pass along or must absorb.

This is semantics. The credit is not to "recompense" taxpayers for getting the equipment, it's a financial incentive payment to do so. Done in the form (in this case) by lowering taxes. Other financial incentives offered by governments (and that's what the field is called, some form of the words State and Municipal Financial Incentives) can be handled differently.

Federal and state tax laws are what the polls call Christmas Trees of social engineering when enacted, bills from which all kinds of things get hung. Financial incentives in various forms that come and go to encourage with money or discourage with disadvantages for various activities.

Yes it is semantics, but you were the one who said they were different when they are not. If you talk to any solar salesperson and get to price, they will tell you how much the tax credit you get will lower the final cost to you. There may be other nonfinancial incentives, but a tax credit or rebate *is* a financial incentive as it affects the final cost to the consumer of the equipment.

Yes, not a price reduction. You could pay $20,000 in January of Year 1 for a solar install and not get the governmental inducement until 15 months later, April of Year 2. The price paid is $20K.

Maybe your experiences differ from mine but I've never found salespeople to be good sources of information or explanations.

My neighbor has installed solar panels - which surprised me a little. We're not known for an excess of sunny days here on the coast ;) He loves them. So, he's a bit quirky but a wonderful neighbor. When the panels were first installed I could see him through the trees, come out often, and check the gauges, dials on the side of his house when working at my desk. I wouldn't install them on this cedar roof that is nearing the end of its lifespan. Maybe when we reroof? I'm not sure.

My electricity isn't awful, but we have only two rooms heated electrically. Our bedroom at one end of our long house, my office at the other end. Two hot water tanks, two refrigerators, freezer, clothes dryer, entire kitchen, exterior lighting that we take advantage of and have on every night (I'd never had garden lights and I love them)...I'm sure there are ways I could cut down a bit on usage. Covid era - DH will run the 240 heater that is mounted on his side of the garage, entertain his friends out there.

We don't have whole house air conditioning and rarely need it. We did have it in our former house and I don't think I had it on more than 2 or three times a year. If DH needed to be asleep to get up for work in the mornings, I would turn it on rather than make him wait for the evening ocean breezes to make the house more comfortable overnight. I didn't like the house all closed up in summer, same as trying to keep cold air out in winter. It felt isolating from the neighbors. I missed the bird sounds, neighborhood sounds.

Where I was gasping this week....my natural gas bill. Whew! I almost needed smelling salts, it was that high. And only mid December. Heat is set on 70 days, 60 nights. On a very stormy or icy day I might turn it up to 72 in the evenings. We are mega insulated and very solidly constructed. But rates have gone up significantly. I can pay it, but there are other directions I would like to be using monthly money.

A suggestion but look at your utilities to see how they show your usage. The previous NG company showed daily usage rather than the current company's lump sum previous month usage. I used to be a firm believer that lowering the temperature when not at home was a money saving method. I experimented over a couple of years and discovered the weeks I left the thermostat at a single temperature I used less energy than those weeks I did the up and down. I found this was true in both our old 1913 house and this 1950s brick ranch. I do not keep it high enough that I can run around without my shoes, This year I have raised it to 70 from the previous 65 to 68. Back in ancient history 68 to 73F were the temperature range that was considered most healthy.

Thanks maifleur. I've tried it both ways at the suggestion of our furnace tech here for annual checkups. He's a firm believer in setting one temp and leaving it. Where we have about three months of higher bills in winter, it's a little hard to tell but I wasn't clearly seeing a significant difference either way - and my totals weren't high enough to be overly concerned. Maybe I'll begin just leaving it on one setting again, try to pay closer attention.

This is a 1955 MCM, many windows, lots of glass in back but insulated double pane. Single story, long and low. When we were buying it, the inspector came out of the almost-stand-upright dry warm lighted crawl space laughing. He said the construction almost overkill and more like commercial building strengths - no corners had been cut with skimpy materials.

The heat is natural gas radiant in the ceilings. Vintage equipment that they tell me should outlive me. So I don't know. I do feel badly for natural gas users right now though, I know more than one senior who would be clearly in trouble with bills totaling mine this month. My mother would have been one of those.

maifleur, there's no controversy or difference of opinion in the energy industry - overnight and daytime setbacks use less energy. EXCEPT in some cases with heat pumps, because recovery of more than a few degrees can trigger electric resistance heat strips which are the most inefficient way to heat.

It's so uncontroversial, regulated utilities are often required to offer purchase rebates to customers for buying programmable thermostats. The US Energy Dept recommends the same.

If your house's use didn't decrease with overnight and daytime setbacks and you have a gas furnace, the likely explanation is that your house is poorly insulated and has a lot of air leakage.

Elmer, please. The ultimate cost once one receives the rebate or tax credit is lower than without it. Even if one doesn't receive it until several months later, it is still part of the cost of the system and part of the financial aspect of the investment. The only way a tax credit might not be part of the cost is if one doesn't pay taxes or enough in taxes to receive the full credit.