is a $500 PG&E bill possible for a 5-person household or is something wrong?

Question

We live in California, there are 5 showers taken at the house a day, 10 loads of laundry a week. The heat is turned up to 75 degrees for about 16 hours a day and turned down to 60 for the other 8 hours of the day. If this does not seem weird to you could you give us some energy conservation tips. Thank you

Answer 1

It is cheaper to leave the thermostat at the same temp. Leave it at about 68 all the time. It will cost you more money to change the settings because the furnace has to work harder. Limit showers to no more than 10 minutes per person. When doing laundry I always do a shorter wash, and use cold water for everything...my clothes get cleaner this way.

Answer 2

Check the temperature of the hot water and set the heater to 120F.

If no one is home during the 16 hr period, turn down the heat or get a programmable and set it to turn down the heat automatically when you are gone and back up prior to your return. Also 75 F is a little high, you can also be comfortable at 68F if you were more than shorts and tee shirts.

You don't mention cooking, but if burners or the oven are left on when not in use, you bill will show it.

If these don't help your bill, then you should investigate things like insulation and the like.

Answer 3

$500 isn't bad at all based on the usage you described. I am guessing that it's a 50/50 split for electric and gas. Working in home construction and having some experience, I assure you that a 15 degree temp difference is too great. Think about it, your house cools to 60 at night, in the morning your furnace is stressed out and working to pull the temp up to 75, your furnace not only is trying to heat the air in the house, it also has to heat the surfaces in the house such as floors, walls, furniture, etc. In theory your temp difference should not be more then 8 degrees; otherwise you’re not really saving anything by backing the temp down at night. 75 also seems a bit stuffy for winter, I live in Texas now, and even when we lived in Colorado (cold state), we kept the house at 68-70 in winter, and anywhere from 70-75 in the summer. In today’s ultra air tight new homes, many homes now have 2 furnace and ac units, 1 for upstairs, and 1 for down. If your house has 2 such units, heat rises, and cold air is heavy so keep the heat on the 1st floor higher in the winter, and an upstairs unit may not need to run as frequently, and vise versa during cooling season. One other thing, remember when told as a child to "turn off lights when you leave a room" if your not turning off lights and you have every light in the house on, try for a month to turn off excessive lights and I guarantee your bill will go down at least a few dollars. If you insist on having lights on, might think of investing in some compact florescent bulbs which you can buy at any Kroger or Home Depot, or even LED bulbs from C Crane (www.ccradio.com). If you want to spend money to save money, if your washer and dryer are older, it might be worth taking a look at the new energy efficient front load washers, and a new dryer. If you have and electric dryer and it seems to take forever and its not old enough to get rid of, look at replacing the heating element, sometimes as a heating element ages it stops heating up as quickly or as hot as it used too and therefore the dryer runs longer. As it stands though $100 per person, per month for energy doesn't seem too excessive but I guess if you evaluate your lifestyle, and really pay attention to little things like leaving a light on that uses excessive energy, you might find room for improvement, and end up keeping more of your money instead of lining the coffers of PG&E.

Answer 4

Heat like heater or heat like air conditioner at 75? If you've got the heater set to 75, then you should buy some sweatshirts; you'll save a bunch of money. We usually keep our heat at 65 but we have a newborn and the doc recommended 68 during the winter and 72 for air conditioning. (It's georgia, the weather here is odd)

Answer 5

I live in calif. & think $500 is high. Try turning the temp down during the 16 hours, and turn off light switches when not in a room.

Answer 6

Compare this bill with the last bill. I know of one incident where PG& E charged so much more - it turned out that the meter reader was not reading the meters but just writing in a number. PG& E would not have brought this to our attention - good thing we brought it to them.

Answer 7

Yes, that's so possible. 60 degrees at night is WAY to low. Come on, you live in Caliornia. I'm from Texas and 70 is cold to me. If you are not home during the day turn it up to 80. Also, try setting your tempature at certain times. If you have a two story, it's always better to have 2 units.

Answer 8

That's pretty damn cheap for five people with the cost of fuel now. Can I move in?