my electric bill is $370. a month is this normal?

Question

Live in Florida 2,100 sq. ft house family of 5. a/c left on at 79 degree's. Is it normal for this sq. ft home to consume $370. ?
(One refrigerator, normal washing and drying)

Answer 1

This is probably high. I live in a 4,500 SF house in MA, where we have some of the worst electric rates in the country. My bill is rarely over $175 in the summer, and I have AC.

Originally my house consumed much more energy, but I converted almost all my incandescent lighting to compact fluorescents, got rid of an energy-hog koi pond pump, put exterior lighting on timed circuits, and disabled one zone of electric heat in an infrequently used playroom. I have also carefully weatherstripped my doors and windows, and I have the efficiency of my boiler and AC equipment checked regularly. Believe it or not, my annual energy costs now run $2,000+ less than when I first bought the place (previous owner was loaded and didn't care.)

You can sometimes find a problem by checking the individual circuits on your electrical panel with a clamp-on ammeter. This is how I discovered my old pond pump cost $70 a month to operate, for example!

It would be interesting to see what your monthly kWh consumption is. I suspect you have about 4 tons of air conditioning, which would consume something like 5 or 6 kWh per hour fully loaded. If the compressors ran 35% of the time (which is reasonable, maybe a little high if you're maintaining 79 degrees), that'd be about 1,500 kWh per month, which would have a value in the $200 range. But that still leaves $170, which is a lot of energy. Also, what is your winter usage like? Do you have electric heat? If not, winter use will give you a decent non-AC base load, so you can at least tease out whether the AC is the issue, or something else like lighting is the culprit.

The important thing is, with not too much work, you can actually figure out where the energy is going, and identify specific items to help you reduce your costs. Good Luck.

Answer 2

Sounds high to me . Advise find out the age and" seer"rating of your ac, if its over 8 years old it probably is grossly inefficient Today you can get 18+seer in an air-air- heat pump system , with "seer" your electrical usage goes down exponentially with each point of seer. Min "seer" requirements for new a/c is 13 now older units may be as low as 9 I believe each increased point of seer increases efficiency about 50% . Do your math$$$$$ Next have your home checked for thermal loss/gain , this is done w/ infrared cameras locating where heat is coming in so that you can insulate to increase efficiency You can also go to Energystar.gov for more info.

Answer 3

Sounds like you have some kids so they shower and do a lot of laundry and such as well as the dish washing machine and the AC.
Try washing with cold water and air drying laundry to start, and get the kids to pitch in washing dishes, your two biggest power users will be the hot water heater and the AC, so trim use on one or both and you will see some instant results.

Answer 4

Sound's pretty good to me. I live by myself in a 900 sq ft house,also in Fla. I set it on 81 when I go to work and 78 when I get home. Bill for Sept.was $145.00.

Answer 5

Not sure about the cost of electricity in Florida, but that cost makes me glad to be in Colorado. Electric bill last month was under $100.00 with a similar size home.

Answer 6

It is probably normal if you like to pamper yourself but if you want to become energy efficient try replacing all light bulbs with energy efficient ones, don't dry your clothes hang them outside, wash in cold water, turn a/c down and have a talk to the rest of the family about conserving energy and money.

Answer 7

I live in Daytona beach in 2400 sq ft house and my bill is 125.00 in the summer about half that in winter and I keep it at 78. I added another layer of insulation in the attic and it made a bif difference

Answer 8

I live in Michigan and our normal bills this year are running around $550.00 for this area.
Is it necessary to have your air on? I have never lived with air, even in Vegas we had our air so high it hardly came on. At night we turned it off, the soft breezes coming in at night were so nice, no air. We had it set to come on at about before noon.

My electric here is $88.00 no air, the ones with air cry all the time. It doesn't bother us. My sons bill is $540.00

Answer 9

what is the normal amount yo have to pay? The rates have gone up. But if it is a spike or you have just recently begin getting a higher bill. one possibility is that you have a leak in your hot water line. this will keep your water heater running more than it should and therefore your bill will increase. good luck

Answer 10

What has it been the past few months? You've got to look at that. Sounds high for your Square Footing.