# How much do You pay for electricity?



## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

This subject has come up a lot for me recently and frankly I have been really surprised. Energy prices are really low these days and yet a lot of people are paying a LOT of money imo for electricity 

First thing I noticed is that almost nobody who wasn't able to use their bill for tax purposes had any idea what their annual expenditures were  why am I not surprised? But those that did, whoa what a huge discrepancy in the same area, with some people spending thousands of dollars.

In my area there is no hydro electric, our power is mostly coal and gas. Just to keep the "lights on", as in the minimum bill without turning the power off, it costs around $500/year. That is with essentially no usage.

I am really curious what other people are paying annually, and if they are using other energy sources (wood, gas, propane, etc) because that obviously can make a big difference.


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## backlash (Nov 11, 2008)

Our bill runs around $150 a month in the winter and around $200 a month in the summer.
That works out to $1950 a year.
We have propane heat and everything else is electric.
Propane cost about $1000 a year.


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## Grimm (Sep 5, 2012)

Our bill is about $60 a month except it is about $75 in the winter when we use the space heater in Roo's room. We use gas to cook and heat. The gas bill is $15 with the exception of $50 a month in the winter.


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## txcatlady (Sep 26, 2013)

I am all electric. I had it down to 100.00 but my husband messes with thermostat when he is here. Looks like second month of 300.00. I want a stove or fireplace. He is against it. If we sell and rebuild I want alternate heat and a water well that if possible solar.


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## squerly (Aug 17, 2012)

We pay $0.115 per kilowatt hour and our bill is generally $88 a month. (Christmas kills us as wife runs a bunch of lights all around the house/deck/tree/driveway/etc.) 3,600 sq ft house but we built it with large windows facing the South so we get a large amount of sunshine during the day. Heats the house very nicely during the Winter days. We also have an outdoor wood furnace (The Dragon!) that heats 380 gallons of water which circulates through the floor of the house and keeps toasty all Winter. We live in a heavily wooded area so harvesting firewood is not a problem. (Picture below shows the tubes the hot water flows through to keep the floors warm. Also picture of furnace before it was inclosed in the generator shack.) We run the same hot water (from the outdoor furnace) through a water-to-water HX to heat all our domestic hot water as well. (Picture below shows the network of tubes that directs the hot water through different floors of the home, depending upon what thermostat makes the call)

During the Summer the trees block the sun from getting in and keeps the house cool. We also have 300' of 8" PVC pipe buried 20' under the house slab and a fan pulls cool air (55*) through the pipe and dumps it into the upstairs, keeping the house cool. Costs about $0.15 a day to run the fan and works pretty well.

Everything runs on minimal power so we can run the pumps for heating/cooling off of batteries if we need to. Solar panels keep the batteries charged. Additionally we have LED lighting throughout the home. Everything we did during construction was designed around maintaining heating/cooling without outside power. (Cuz we don't believe we can count on Duke Energy when the SHTF.) 

Click here to see "The Dragon" in action!


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## bigg777 (Mar 18, 2013)

This is a sore subject for me right now.

In PA, electric generation is "de-regulated", meaning we can choose from several different suppliers that choose to sell in our region. I had been with one company for the past year + when I noticed that my bill just jumped and they were charging me 3+ cents more per Kwh. Anyway, our 12 month contract had expired and they moved us to their variable rate at a month-to-month basis. So, I re-upped for another 12 months at 8.7 cents per Kwh in December.

Two weeks ago, I got a letter from these ying-yangs saying that their new rate would be 10.3 cents per Kwh. So, I moved back to Peco and am saving all of 1/2 cent per Kwh.

AEP Energy gets no more of my money!


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## Tweto (Nov 26, 2011)

Our house is 100% electric. The largest bill I have ever had in 10 years was $300. The average bill is $220 for the peak of winter and summer. Keep in mind that this provides heating and cooling, water from 2 wells, and hot water. We use no fuel of any kind! BTW our Spring and Fall bills usually run about $130.

The house is surrounded by fully mature virgin woods on the West, North, and East sides. The South is open. In the summer the house is kept in the shade and in the Winter it has total access to sun light.


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## TheLazyL (Jun 5, 2012)

Furnace is LP forced air.

Stove and hot water heater is LP.
Clothes dryer is LP

Electric bill is $100 - $110 a month. Summer with the A/C on add another $30.

Wife has ADHD so it isn't usual to have a unneeded light on all night (or day) after I have made my rounds.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Thanks for the info, so there is a lot of variation but somewhere between 1-2000$ seems most common, maybe more if it is the only source of heat. Up here in our climate, using straight grid electric for heat is simply not viable, although geothermal is an option.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

How good is your insulation?

How many square feet?


Our house is electric heat, 2450 square feet. When it's 32*F (0*C) and with light wind, Using the wood stove saves over $100 each month, getting the electric bill under $200... a little over $6 a day.


B.O.L. cabin is 280 square feet, very well insulated. Under the same weather conditions, It costs about 25 cents worth of propane a day to heat it.

Oh... our electricity is .089/kWh


Grid power is around $25 a month (whether you use it or not) to keep the power lines and stuff in working condition. 

Natural gas used to be about $15 a month for the base charge, but since they've been replacing so many gas lines underground it's been raised to about $23 (whether you use it or not) but we don't have ours hooked up.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

$115 or so in the winter months and around $160 or so in the summer.

Electric stove and large hot water heater, gas heat and dryer, powerful central air unit (I hate hot summer days).


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## Jim1590 (Jul 11, 2012)

Right now paying about 12 cents per kwh. Another dime per kwh for distribution and some fees on top of that. Average bill right now for the last few (just moved in over the summer) is about 140 a month.

I have oil hot water and heat. Power is used for fridge, dishwasher, w/d, stove, bunch of LED bulbs, fishtank and the usual other things. Keep tying to make house more energy efficient but does not seem to make much of a change in the bill!


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

Yeah like everything else electricity is expensive here, at the moment we're paying .32 cents per kwh. $480 meter reading and upkeep fee per year before we use any power. Power costs us about $5000 per year but we have two households here so really only half that per household. My daughter runs a small poultry hatchery so that is where most of the power goes.


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## ZoomZoom (Dec 18, 2009)

Costs:
Usage = 6.3 cents per KW
Distribution = 1.9 cents per KW
With taxes and everything else all included, just under 9.4 cents per KW.

We average a little over $150/month for the year.

This is an all-electric house with a pair of wood stoves used in the winter.
We have about 3400 sq/ft under heat and A/C. 
There's 8 refrigeration devices (fridges or freezers) and always a bunch of electronics running (I work from home and have a couple teenage kids so it comes with the territory).
We have a 5-ton heat pump which doesn't seem to draw much. The only thing that kicks the electric usage into high-gear is the heat strips in the air handler when we need to switch to EMER heat.


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## ClemKadiddlehopper (Aug 15, 2014)

Here it is $115.00 just to look at the power lines. We have to pay back the bad debt the power company ran up years ago. After that, I don't have too much of a bill as I have wind, solar and propane to take up the slack. If I didn't have those up and running it would range $300-$700.00 per month depending on what kind of operation one is running. Farms are going bankrupt because of hydro alone.

Hydro is expected to go up 40% in the next 3 years. It is killing residential, farming and business alike.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

Ours just went up to 8 cents per kwhr, the "hooked up" charges are about $80.00 per month , and in November we used about $100.00 worth of actual electricity, December, Jan and Feb we will use a bit more.

We heat with wood, so no electric draw there.


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## Hooch (Jul 22, 2011)

My last home was about $40 to$50 in summer n fall, spring n winter was usually in the $60 range. It was electric home. I mainly used my wood stove for heat. I did have a plug in heater but only on work days if I didnt feel like fiddling with my stove after a 12 hour day. It had electric wall heaters but I removed them. Scarry old n expensive to run. Since I was a block away from the ocean, my air conditioning was open a few windows. 
Otherwise, I was easy on lights, used alot of cool solar lights instead n basically kept the power bill low. 
When I move soon to my lil farm, im going to work on setting it up to be off grid eventually. it almost already is but I have a few things to work on.


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## Gians (Nov 8, 2012)

About $800 a year for electricity, use a balanced payment plan so each month is about the same with no big surprises. The heat is gas. It's an older home with no wall insulation.


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## Outpost (Nov 26, 2012)

Here's our breakdown:


Member service charge = 26.00
Delivery charge (KWH) = .03819
System benefit charge (KWH) = .0032
NH Consumption & BET taxes (KWH) = .00082
Regional Access Charge (KWH) = .018
Power (KWH) = .11614
Last month, total'd around $190.


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## Moose33 (Jan 1, 2011)

My bill averages about $65 a month. It's just me the dog and the cat. I do make a conscious effort to keep my usage as low as I can. During the winter it is dark before four in the afternoon. My winter bills can go as high as $75.


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## squerly (Aug 17, 2012)

Moose33 said:


> During the winter it is dark before four in the afternoon.


Wow, I don't think I could live with that very long. When does the sun come up?


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

We pay about 14 cents per kwh.


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