Meagan P
As the cold came so Quickly this year i was forced to put my heaters on early, my house is 100% electric, during the winter months our electric is averaging $500/ month during the cold months. $225/mo during spring and fall when no home heating or cooling is needed and about $300/mo during the summer with Energy star window AC's on. My house is about 30 years old with poor ventilation, crappy doors but Good new widows and roof. The heaters are probably as old as the house too. We rent so any major home improvement is out of the Question, I have been thinking about purchasing a fireplace to help take some of the Burden of the electric bill, but im wondering would it even make a difference? i could use the fireplace to heat about 1/2 of my house (kitchen and living room, hallway and bathroom) and use the baseboard heaters for the rest the house (the 3 bedrooms) so i guess my question(s) would be:
Would a portable Fireplace help or hurt the electric bill?
What kind of Fireplace would be better?
i know electric and Propane would be basically my only options since i don't have natural Gas hookup and no chimney for wood burning.
And we are only 9mo into a 2 year lease breaking the lease would cost us upward of 5k so moving is not an option either (looked into it already)
or is there some kind of other fireplace that would heat my home? i see alot about Gel Fireplaces but cant find much info on them
Answer
Has this house got any insulation in the ceilings at all? Our other home was built in 1974 and was total electric. We never had any heat bills in the years we lived there that were as high as yours seem to be. We had a heat bill of just over $200 one time after 20 days of temperatures that never went above freezing during the day! We had 220 volt baseboard heat too. We used a 23,000 btu kerosene heater on occasion when the power was off, that heated the whole house. We had about 1,500 square feet. Unless there is a basement or crawl space under this house, natural gas or propane aren't an option because you need a furnace with duct work to each room to carry the heated air. There are some natural gas and propane radiant heaters that can be hung on outside walls. You'd have to check the fire code on these. An outside wall location may not heat the space required. the landlord would have to be involved with this because holes are required in the outside wall to run the gas line through. I hesitate too suggest a kerosene heater because they can cause a house fire if not used properly! Ask your landlord about the attic insulation. Is there any at all? How many inches? If insufficient attic insulation, would he have more put in? Make sure you turn the heat down to about 55 degrees in rooms not used during the day. Turn the heat up to 68 degrees when the rooms are occupied. Make sure the baseboard heaters are free of dust so they're more efficient. I would suggest that if you have a friend who's an electrician, that they check this house to see if there's a problem with the electric circuit. The month electric bills sound way to high for these modern times! Also, check to make sure the electric company is charging you the correct kilowatt per hour rate. You should have a different ( lower ) rate for a totally electric home. Hope you find an answer for these high electric bills.
Has this house got any insulation in the ceilings at all? Our other home was built in 1974 and was total electric. We never had any heat bills in the years we lived there that were as high as yours seem to be. We had a heat bill of just over $200 one time after 20 days of temperatures that never went above freezing during the day! We had 220 volt baseboard heat too. We used a 23,000 btu kerosene heater on occasion when the power was off, that heated the whole house. We had about 1,500 square feet. Unless there is a basement or crawl space under this house, natural gas or propane aren't an option because you need a furnace with duct work to each room to carry the heated air. There are some natural gas and propane radiant heaters that can be hung on outside walls. You'd have to check the fire code on these. An outside wall location may not heat the space required. the landlord would have to be involved with this because holes are required in the outside wall to run the gas line through. I hesitate too suggest a kerosene heater because they can cause a house fire if not used properly! Ask your landlord about the attic insulation. Is there any at all? How many inches? If insufficient attic insulation, would he have more put in? Make sure you turn the heat down to about 55 degrees in rooms not used during the day. Turn the heat up to 68 degrees when the rooms are occupied. Make sure the baseboard heaters are free of dust so they're more efficient. I would suggest that if you have a friend who's an electrician, that they check this house to see if there's a problem with the electric circuit. The month electric bills sound way to high for these modern times! Also, check to make sure the electric company is charging you the correct kilowatt per hour rate. You should have a different ( lower ) rate for a totally electric home. Hope you find an answer for these high electric bills.
tips and hints for conserving water and electricity in the home?
anonymoush
me and my dad are struggling to pay the bills at the moment, and wanted to know if anybody out there knows of any ways that we can cut back on our uses of electricity and water.
we turn lights off after we've been in a room. the majority of the time, we rely on natural day light, and at night time, we have a lamp in the living room which is bright enough to illuminate the whole room.
if we get cold. instead of putting the heating or fireplace on, we grab our dressing gowns, jumpers or blankets to keep us warm.
i hand wash the majority of my clothes (apart from difficult things, like bedding, jeans, jumpers and so on) and hang them up to dry.
we turn off and unplug all electrical appliances that aren't in use.
because it's just me and my dad, we don't make many dirty dishes in a day, so what ever we do use, we leave till the end of the day and wash them all together.
i've started to shower every other day (instead of every day) and use dry shampoo and baby wipes in-between showers to freshen up, and have managed to cut my shower time down to five minutes,
and i know this doesn't sound pleasant, but we have the "iff it's yellow, let it mellow" rule for our bathroom (which does get flushed and cleaned and attacked with bleach at the end of every night without fail!)
noting seems to be working to cut down the bills. please can anyone offer any help?
i forgot to add that i rarely use the hover, and sweep the house instead. take more time, but uses less electricity...
we don't have an AC cooling system, and we don't have sprinklers for the garden (our garden needs very low maintenance, luckily enough) and as for cooking food, we normally have microwaveable meals or just snack on crisps, biscuits and sandwiches (me and my dad aren't very big eaters)
thank you so much to everyone so far who has offered some help and suggestions :) xx
Answer
It sounds like you're already doing everything you can to conserve water and electricity.
One suggestion I would make is if you have an electric water heater, do your hot water tasks at one time, then go to your electrical service panel and manually trip the breaker for the water heater. The breaker is usually a 220 volt breaker (double height). Reset the breaker about an hour before you need hot water.
Another big energy user is the refrigerator. Get a thermometer and check the inside temperature of your refrigerator at the top (heat rises). If it is significantly lower than 40 degrees F, you can squeak the temperature control a little higher. Check the refrigerator temperature over the next 24 hours before making any further adjustments. This gives the temperature time to stabilize. The temperature must be below 40 F. If your freezer has an independent temperature control, set its temperature to about 28 degrees F.
In general, use any electric appliance with a motor (dishwashers, clothes washers, dehumidifiers, air conditioners, etc.) only when necessary. AC motors consume significant amounts of electrical energy.
Lighting usually accounts for only 10 to 15% of the average electric bill, but if you haven't already replaced your incandescent bulbs with fluorescent, do so. In the area of lighting, another cost saver is LED lamps. LEDs are even more energy efficient that CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps). The down side is that they are still quite expensive.
I honestly don't know what else to tell you. It sounds like you're already doing everything that can reasonably be done to save water and electricity.
It sounds like you're already doing everything you can to conserve water and electricity.
One suggestion I would make is if you have an electric water heater, do your hot water tasks at one time, then go to your electrical service panel and manually trip the breaker for the water heater. The breaker is usually a 220 volt breaker (double height). Reset the breaker about an hour before you need hot water.
Another big energy user is the refrigerator. Get a thermometer and check the inside temperature of your refrigerator at the top (heat rises). If it is significantly lower than 40 degrees F, you can squeak the temperature control a little higher. Check the refrigerator temperature over the next 24 hours before making any further adjustments. This gives the temperature time to stabilize. The temperature must be below 40 F. If your freezer has an independent temperature control, set its temperature to about 28 degrees F.
In general, use any electric appliance with a motor (dishwashers, clothes washers, dehumidifiers, air conditioners, etc.) only when necessary. AC motors consume significant amounts of electrical energy.
Lighting usually accounts for only 10 to 15% of the average electric bill, but if you haven't already replaced your incandescent bulbs with fluorescent, do so. In the area of lighting, another cost saver is LED lamps. LEDs are even more energy efficient that CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps). The down side is that they are still quite expensive.
I honestly don't know what else to tell you. It sounds like you're already doing everything that can reasonably be done to save water and electricity.
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Title Post: Best way to heat my house?
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Rating: 100% based on 99998 ratings. 5 user reviews.
Author: Unknown
Thank FOr Coming TO My Blog
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