What’s your usage? Mine was $75 but I don’t have electric appliances

There's a ton of variables to your question. How big is your apartment? Is your heat electric? Is your water heater electric? On page 3 of your DLC bill, what's your kWh price for distribution/supply/transmission? Is your supplier DLC?

Wow that's a huge difference.

According to Duquesne Light it was 1,067 kWh between Oct 26 and Nov 24. I don't know if their "Similar Homes" estimate is credible, but they say those use 688 kWh.

My main usage is for central heating. I get the feeling my apartment is poorly insulated, and my central heater isn't good. Bit of a double whammy.

That’s probably it. Heating is always gonna be expensive though, I have a gas furnace and my gas bill was $230ish last month while it was set on 68 degrees most of the time.

My total usage was only 282 kWh

Yeah it's DLC. Distribution said 1414 kWh @ $0.0719 and Transmission 1414 kWh @ $0.0129. Supply had two prices, 309 kWh @ $0.0694 and 1105 kWh @ $0.0883.

My apartment is 600 sq ft, and you're right about heat, I mentioned in the other comment I'm pretty sure my central heating is the culprit. But damn.

Oh I see. So since I don't have a gas bill your combined gas+electric ends up being similar to mine. That makes me feel better.

Are radiators a lot more efficient? I noticed Pittsburgh seems big on radiators, but I had never seen one before moving here.

I couldn’t say anything about radiators, I’ve never lived in a house with them. They were at my elementary school when I was a kid and I remember them being able to keep the room warm pretty well. Couldn’t tell you about the cost though.

Electric heat is very expensive.

Radiator heat is wmazing

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Why though?

I've never had one before. Or met anyone that did. It's just not a thing out in the midwest.

$260, but my kid runs an electric radiator non stop so I wasn’t too surprised.

when we lived in a two bedroom apartment, our electric bill was sometimes $400 or more because of the heat (3-5 years ago). we had an incredibly inefficient system but we were responsible for the bill so the landlord was not bothered to do anything.

My last bill was 160 - 2 BR end unit townhouse

$59 for a 1 bedroom unit with a dining room, but I’m on the top floor of a building and get sufficient heat transferring up/over from the units below and beside me that my unit stays warm without running my own heat aslong as the external temps are 30+ … did have to run it heavy this past weekend though so we will see what the next statement looks like.

It used to be with the price of gas it was cheaper to heat with it. Also a lot of older homes in Pittsburgh were built before forced air heating was a thing, so they use a gas boiler + radiator system (which was probably converted from coal to gas back in the day).

I haven't done the math on if gas vs electric is cheaper recently, but both gas an electric recently went up by like 50% because reasons.

An electric heater is pretty much 100% efficient, that's just thermodynamics. The real thing to consider is cost. And it's not inexpensive to switch from say electric to gas, or vice versa, so you're generally stuck with what you have.

Also $75. 1BR with washer/dryer, etc.

$126 on budget

Forced air heating dries the air out more, so radiant heat provides a more comfortable heating solution. It can be more efficient as well, especially in older houses. My house has no insulation, but has forced air. I imagine my ducts are very cold and I probably lose a lot of heat just from that.

Search /r/personalfinance for any variant on "electricity bill high" and every single one is " ... ok, I do have a radiator"

DLC just emailed me that my next bill (in 13 days) is projected to be $467 for my 1 bedroom apartment. I do have electric heat, but this seems a bit ridiculous. I’m not sure if there’s any action I can take besides not resigning my lease. I’ve been there 3 years, but the highest before this was about $300, which I also think is pretty high. Quite frustrating.

Like $120 or something, and we're not even living in the goddamn house yet