Can an electric fireplace help lower my electric bill?

electric fireplaces $200.00 image

shana

I live in colorado and just moved into a house with electric heaters along the bases of all the walls. I can tell just by looking at the heaters that they are old and I am assuming that they are not very energy efficient because of their age. I read that an electric fireplace cost roughly 8 cents an hour to use. My electric bill has been over 200.00 for the past 2 months now and I have done everything I can to lower it. The heaters are the only thing really that are out of my control and I am pretty sure they are the reason my bills have been so high. Any help would be great.
All of the windows are brand new and I am doing the zone heating right now. Only using the heaters if I am in the room. No one thinks that the age of the heaters could be affecting the amount of electricity they are using? Surely something that is 20 or 30 years newer would be more efficient?

Answer
An electric heater is an electric heater, you get so many B.T.U.'S per Kilowatt hour. Doesn't matter if it's a baseboard or portable. Jesus, if it's been costing you 200/mth and it isn't even cold yet, you better tie your bootlaces and get ready for the Dec. Jan. Feb bills. They are going to be at LEAST twice as much as you have been paying so far. Only thing I can think is that it's an old house without a lick of insulation in it. I'd say dress warmly and use a portable heater or fireplace in front of you and turn the heat down in the rest of the house.

**If you are using 200.00/mth right now, that means you are using 1538.46 kilowatt hours with Colorados price of . 13/kw. At that price, you should be able to run 11-1500 watt heaters, 24 hours a day for a month. I realize you are not only using it for heat but that's the kind of power you can use for that much money. SOMETHING is wrong and it's not that your heaters are old. (makes no difference.) I'd suggest you shut down your main breaker and then go outside and see if your meter is still running. If it is, one of your neighbors is stealing power from you or there's a drain that shouldn't be there. Your bill is uncharacteristically high for Colorado at this time of the year but the power is going somewhere....

Sellers lied about their electric bill! What can we do?

TKANDAG

My husband and I just bought a vacation home in the mountains. It IS electric heat and we were aware of that. We did ask the sellers to give us an amount of how much they paid per month. We were told $40.00 and at the most $60.00 when it was being used. The house does have 2 fireplaces and I admit, they help out a lot when heat it kept in the 40's, low 50's. We got our first bill and it was $130.00 for 15 days for a few days of being in the house! I called PPL, was told they are not allowed to provide information on the previous owners but told me their usage amount would have put them in the approx range of $200.00 per month! I feel so foolish for not calling PPL 1st before buying and my husband & I are usually very thorough. I do have an email from our realtor telling us how much it was. I am so upset that someone (sellers) would flat out lie about something like that. We now have vacation house that we want to use, winterized, and the bill is still 77.00 for about 3/4 month. It's estimated to be 120-140 w/house being practically SHUT DOWN!

Should we contact a lawyer? Is it even worth it? We didn't strap ourselves but the extra money for electric is coming out of our "cushion" or possibly savings. We asked for every detail ahead of time so we could budget. Shame on us for thinking there were honest people out there!

Any suggestions?! Please be serious. I don't need a teen commenting on something they know nothing about.

THANK YOU!
Ya know, I completely agree! We should have asked for bills. We were actually going to and they were so slooooow w/the regular paperwork, they were holding up settlement (costed us a mortgage rate to go higher in 1 day), we would have locked in and obviously did then when we realized they were not quick movers. There were so many hold ups on their end, we decided to just ask for utilities via email/text. We'll probably have to sell it. $60.00 vs. $200-$250 is a big difference. We never had electric heat so we had no idea. I heard if you're reasonable and cautious it can work to your advantage.

Answer
Nothing to do. Your fault for not checking into it. You really though a house with electric heat in the mountains where it gets really cold could possibly had an electric bill of $40? I would have called BS on that the second I heard it.

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