Submitted by _ogg t3_10m9wni in philadelphia
Hello, I live in a ~700sq/ft row home apartment in CC with 2 crummy mini split ac units that provide heat in the winter. The last 2 months electric bills have been 180$ and 170$ and they’re usually 30-40$ running AC in the summer. Is this normal? Edit: temp is kept at 68 degrees
A modern heat pump/mini split system can be vastly more efficient than restive/space heater, during mild temperatures (above freezing) they are especially efficient. Not saying op and your expirience are invalid, but people should be aware that resitive is not always better than heat pumps. https://www.ezacandheat.com/heat-pumps-vs-resistive-heaters-which-is-more-efficient/
When i saw the word crummy in his desc i assumed it was much older unit. I once had a AC/Heater portable unit and that thing sucked electric i switched over to two of these smaller space heaters but i always keep them on the low setting or turn one off. Also i wonder whos OP elect supplier..
Cool thank you. I’m new to using electric, had basically free steam radiators previously
No prob! Unfortunately it’s a lot more expensive than gas heat
Typical. I used to live in a 400 sq. foot studio and my electric bills (including heat) were about $200 per month and still it was too cold, like about 58! I had huge windows. They had switched from radiators. I moved out that year. I will never move to a place with electric heat. Inefficient and too expensive.
I am not OP but I took a look at my bill and it lists “electric residential service.” We have both radiators and an electric heat pump system. Assuming this is the “R” rate you mentioned, how do I get “HR”? Just give PECO a call? Thanks!
Was trying to reply to u/sgtketchup but it looks like I may have responded to the wrong comment.
It looks like it doesn't matter anymore, after some research currently the R and RH rates are the same, likely due to last year's energy price increases.
Thanks for looking into it!
You should look into their Peak/Off-Peak pricing program. You have to opt-in and pay attention to not use excessive power at certain times, but it can really drop the monthly bill.
Instead of paying the flat $.0985 or whatever it is now per kWh 24-hours a day, my last bill was broken down like this:
And that is just for weekdays. On weekends/holidays, they drop the peak pricing entirely - so it is just Off-Peak from 6am to midnight.
The trade-off is that the power you use from 2-6pm is a lot more expensive. But if everyone in the house is at work/school then it isn't an issue. Get a smart thermostat to let turn the heat down during those times. Save big power-eating tasks (laundry, dishwasher) for nights or weekends.
We have a decent sized renovated house with lots of open areas and our power bills in the summer were brutal (winter wasn't as bad with a propane boiler feeding radiant heat). Changing to the off-peak program cut the average bill by 70-80%.
Thank you for actually posting rates. Half these discussions are usually "my bill was $X" and no breakdown of how that was achieved.
Sure. I didn't just want to talk final bill amount because there are a lot of factors there that would just muddy up the conversation (size of the houses compared, new build vs older house, etc). Plus we have that gas boiler and also solar system so that affects the final tally anyway.
How do you opt in to this?
https://www.peco.com/SmartEnergy/InnovationTechnology/Pages/TimeOfUsePricing.aspx
If I recall, it took a full billing cycle + the remainder of the month I enrolled to take effect.
sounds about right
One thing that can help is to make sure you are on the RH Residential Heating rate code, it gives you a slight discount or something in the winter. Your bill will indicate if you are currently on R residential vs RH.
Not trying to be funny but an electric blanket is a great addition over having the whole house be warm. If you want to get crazy the Japanese make this kind of table that you sit under that has a heater in it so if you're working by going to computer you can have your body warm
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Yea them things are not effecient for heating. You might be better off just getting some space heaters with Thermomastats. Something like this on the low setting....
Mini split heat pumps are much more efficient than electric space heaters, so don't do this.
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Yeah, sounds about right. I live in a small place with electric heat and after the first bill I insulated as much as I could, got a space heater, a humidifier and a bunch of fleece and hunkered down. Electric heat is crazy
Sounds way too high to me. You mean heat pumps? Those should be decently efficient at the minimum, in many cases those will actually be the most efficient way to heat your apartment.
I'm in a similar apartment with baseboard electric heat, should be less efficient, and my bill is around $100 or even a little less for now during the winter.
About 1500 square feet two bedroom apartment (EDIT: now that I think about it, it was smaller, probably 1100-1200 range, actually), electric heat with poorly insulated windows, the place on 70F for a month and ran about $700-800.
And that was over a decade ago, now could be even more.
Every next place I looked for had to have any other kind of heat but electric (don't care for AC - how we say in the old country: "it's better to sweat seven times than to freeze once").
1100sqft apartment. Winter months are the most costly time of the year for us since our entire apartment is on electricity. Colder months we see bills above $200.
Fall and spring without heat or AC it falls to like $50 a month. Even during a heatwave running the AC constantly our bill never goes above $150.
Electric heat is just very expensive
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Our place is about 800sf, with electric heat, and we paid about $200 last month :-( We are luxurious princesses and keep the heat at 69 during the day (nice!), 63 at night.
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You probably have an older split system than newer heat pumps. We heat about 1200sqft of a century old row house at 68 and the bill is about $150-200, including cooking and other usage.
The bill looks right if your system is not up to date. And if you are a side, top, or corner unit your bill will also be higher. I suppose you either rent or own a condo so changing the external unit would not be an easy option.
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Glad I found this! Just got my new bill. 650 sq. ft. 1 BR here. Gas heat, and my PECO bill is $187.00 😮 And then the $110 plus Gas bill on top of that! It’s outrageous, IMO, esp. because this place is always cold! I do have a question, if anyone is knowledgeable… There are 2 apartments in this house. Is it AT ALL possible that some of the second floor apartment’s electric is on my “electric grid”, or whatever the professional term is? And how would I find out? Thank you in advance. Appreciate ANY help. 🙏🏻
About $3.50.
Heat pumps on mini splits aren't really designed to be a primary heat source in the winter, they're designed more for shoulder season heating (think high 40's and up). If you have another source of heating, it may work more efficiently.
Any newish heat pump will work extremely well in the weather we get. Temperatures haven't gotten cold enough to where a heat pump doesn't make sense I don't think.
Get some space heaters. We got some decent ones from wayfair that look nice and haven’t jacked our electric. We have a gas furnace and it’s already really expensive to heat our house since the cost basically doubled in the last year but with the heaters we’ve kept it mostly under control.
baldude69 t1_j61u77f wrote
Yep electric heat is crazy expensive. Uses like 3x the electricity than if you were cooling your entire house with AC. I would turn the heat down a bit and use a space heater selectively to help save on electric