We were thinking about moving into a 2700sqft one-level Texas home, built 2003, which has combination gas/electric for heating and cooling. Current owner claims that the electric / gas bills will be: Hottest summer month : $300 electric $30 gas Coldest winter month : $50 electric $300 gas. This winter gas bill seems high, what is your experience? Average month total gas and electric to be $150-200. I’m looking for feedback from those who have gas/electric setups and their monthly bills. Do the numbers the owner provided seem correct? What has been your experience in similar size Texas homes with a dual setup?
When he says 'electric', is he including water, wastewater, and trash pickup in that $300? If so that seems a little low to me (especially if it's a good size yard), but then our A/C is about 10 years old...
There is no way he is including wastewater, sanitation and the other costs that make up the total bill. My bill was: Electric: 92.00 (for sure more than last year) Water Service: 7.00 Wastewater: 12.00 Solid Waste: 15.00 Drainage/Street Service: 11.00 Ask him if you can see a copy of the bill or how much the city adds on for the other costs. Have an energy audit done to the house to see if there are improvements you can do to drop it or if he has already been ahead of the curve and the house is good to go. If so, it will be less than you expect but not as low as what he says. His electricity alone costs that, not the bill.
I'm all electric. My July bill was $175 for water and $275 for electricity. And then there were all the extras.
sorry, didn't say --- water, wastewater(sewage) and trash are separate and was stated as $75-90 / month. I thought the reason everyone liked gas heating was the lower cost in winter vs. electric heating.
I use gas in the winter to heat and it is really cheap compared to my friends who use electricity. Then again, I am pretty insulated and sealed. I make use of ceiling fans to push the heat down as well.
Our 12-month average use, normalized to a 2700 sf home: Austin Energy -- $221 (electric, water, wastewater, trash, etc.) Texas Gas Service -- $83 Total -- $303/month I have no idea whether that's a good guess or not.
I assume that you close vents to unused rooms. Do you have a programmable thermostat? Those are pretty good numbers for a house that size, I think. Are you well insulated? How is your fiber intake...nevermind, wrong forum.
my house is about 2200 sq ft., but it's old (60 yrs). electric bills in summer are 290 (that's w/o extras, just electric). biggest gas bill this past winter was $162. we keep the house fairly cool in the winter. my house is pretty inefficient at this point. i've got two units and both are on programmable thermostats. if the house doesn't have them, they're super easy to install. as for closing vents, i've been told countless times not to do that. i had the insulation and duct work in this house redone last summer and they told me closing ducts can mess with air flow and actually make it more inefficient.
Those numbers are probably in a range of possibility. There are several factors that will vary though like how well insulated the house is and how wisely they use energy. I have a 2000 sq foot house in the D/FW area that is gas/elec and at peak times in the summer I spend roughtly $30 gas/$200 elec. In the winter peak times are more like $180 gas/$65 elec. I know that you used to be able to call the utility company and they would tell you an average yearly cost for any address. I did that when I bought my place, but who knows what electric company this guy may have since everything deregulated. You may want to try calling the one that used to have your community. In Dallas area it is TXU.
For a 2100 square foot house built in 2003 hottest electric gas is like 300/35 and coldest is like 80/80. I own several sweaters.
My electricity bill was $525 last month and $487 this month. I am truly at a loss how it gets that high.
By "energy efficient AC" you mean a system and not a unit, right? If you have a two-story home and multiple units you might save some money by waiting until late in the day to run the upstairs AC.
I use units and have timers on them. I also have it on "energy saver" mode most days. At night when sleeping I have only the bedroom unit on and turn the others on standby. They turn on about two hours before I wake up when it is not yet hot so they don't have to work too hard to cool the rooms down. This helps out a lot as all are energy star. My house is small enough that a standard system would be counter productive and much more costly. I may do the mini-duct system in the future. But for now I save a good amount of money and have a very comforable climate to live in. Ceiling fans are a major help in this. I strongly suggest properly placed and sized ceiling fans for everybody.
I'm in a 1500 SF house built around 1980. My bill from the City of Austin includes Water, Wastewater, and garbage. The lowest bill is usually in February and it's about $100. The highest is usually in July and that one is $200. Average for the year is about $125. My gas is through Texas Gas and it is typically about $15, but ranges from $10 - $70.
