How do you keep your electric bill low?

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We have a 4000+ square foot home, and different areas are heated or cooled using different methods, if at all. The basement and first floor are the only areas with central heat and air conditioning. Those who sleep upstairs use fans and sometimes window A/C units, but there are also bedrooms in the basement. I sleep in the basement most of the cold months, because my bedroom is upstairs on the northeast corner, and when it’s windy, I freeze, even under a mountain of blankets of various sorts. If it’s too hot in the summer, I usually sleep in the basement, rather than using an air conditioner. We have a porch that wraps around 3/4 of the house, and it keeps much of the first floor shaded during daylight hours. We heat with propane, but also have a wood burning stove that we use in an attempt to avoid using the furnace. Wood for it is cut by us, and comes from either our property, or that of friends. Most appliances are kept unplugged when not in use, if possible, and some others are on power strips, which can be turned off when not in use. I know there are other things we do, but my mind is not functioning at full capacity after this crazy weekend.
 
pensmama87 said:
Our heat is natural gas, but in the summer we set the A/C a bit higher - about 78.
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We also heat with natural gas. We have an auxiliary gas heater in the fireplace, which is in the family room where we spend most of our time in the evening. (We can close off a section of the house that consists of the family room, the kitchen, and the computer room.) So, around 6:00pm, I lower the heat from the furnace to about 60 degrees. The closed off part of the house holds at around 70 degrees. It’s kind of a cold sprint from the family room to the bed, but it’s bearable, and our gas bills haven’t exceeded $100 for any winter month since we started doing this.

In the summer, we move to a smaller bedroom with a window air conditioner. After the sun sets I turn off the central air and don’t have to turn it on again until mid-afternoon the next day. The window AC keeps the bedroom temp at around 66 - 67 degrees. (I like sleeping in a cold room.) Using this method, our electric bill runs about $120 per month.
 
Some Energy Budget Wasters:
  1. Vampire Energy: Devices such as already-charged phones that keep drawing charge even though it does no good waste energy and money. (There is something called a P3 International P4460 Kill A Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor that will help you estimate how much juice a device pulls when it is “off”–that is, plugged in but not in use.)
Yes, falling asleep in front of a lit-up television counts as losing vampire energy.
  1. Running the Oven unnecessarily. (If you own a toaster oven and a conventional oven, do you know the difference in how much energy each one uses and how long it takes each one to warm up?)
  2. Using more hot water than necessary to do laundry (or elsewhere).
  3. Dishwasher dry cycle…yes, it’s convenient. Yes, it also draws a good chunk of juice.
  4. Using incandescent bulbs when LED would do.
  5. Leaving the refrigerator or freezer door open longer than necessary. Keeping your freezer and refrigerator as close to full as possible means less cold air leaks out when you open the door, too. Think about freezing milk jugs full of ice water to fill the empty spaces. Your chest freezer loses less cold air when you open it than an upright does. (These also come in handy when you put a bunch of relatively warm food into your refrigerator all at once…like at Thanksgiving.)
  6. Not knowing if your power company charges less for energy during some hours than others or ignoring the non-peak hours for things like running your drier. Yes, some of us could pay 1/3 as much to run our drier between 10 am and 6 am as if we ran it between 5 pm and 8 pm.
 
as many here wisely say, multi fuelled helps. I once lived in an all electric house and never again

My hob is gas which we buy in cylinders, which helps as it means paying in advance. Most use heating oil which I will not touch. A tankful costs more than the rent .

yes to a fire. Always. My next house is going to be easy to heat as it has a traditional big fireplace with a back boiler, and is open plan

I have never used a dishwasher or clothes drier.
I use very few devices eg no coffee maker or mixer

Many old houses have a pulley hanging from the ceiling; rails where clothes can dry in the heat from the fire…

Old ways are good ways
 
Our 70’s-era house is all-electric, including heat. The upside is that every room, including bathrooms, has its own thermostat. So even in a New England Winter, the bedroom hasn’t had the heat turned on in maybe 20 years. Other rooms are kept around 55. We will turn the heat up in the den when we’re watching TV, then turn it down when we’re done. Bathrooms are only warmed by the heat of the steam when we shower. The exception to all this is when the outside temp hits 15 or so, and certainly when it approaches 0, we have to turn the heat up in the bathrooms and kitchen to protect the pipes. The other exception is that on Christmas Day we warm up the whole house as a present to ourselves.
 
Tarpeian_Rock said:
Our 70’s-era house is all-electric, including heat. The upside is that every room, including bathrooms, has its own thermostat. So even in a New England Winter, the bedroom hasn’t had the heat turned on in maybe 20 years. Other rooms are kept around 55. We will turn the heat up in the den when we’re watching TV, then turn it down when we’re done. Bathrooms are only warmed by the heat of the steam when we shower. The exception to all this is when the outside temp hits 15 or so, and certainly when it approaches 0, we have to turn the heat up in the bathrooms and kitchen to protect the pipes. The other exception is that on Christmas Day we warm up the whole house as a present to ourselves.
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Love that!

And quite right too!

In a chilly spell here and had there been any oil left in the tank I would have been very tempted today…
 
Our Gas/Electric bill is the #2 monthly expense…so this is something I have spent a lot of time looking at.

I purchased a meter that showed how much electricity was being used…and quickly figured out that BY FAR the 1)Air Conditioner 2)Electric Dryer and 3)Oven were the biggest users of energy. Everything else was quite small in comparison…so I would start with these 3.

The Electric Dryer is the easiest to cut down on or do without. I started line drying everything and the savings were immediate. My wife will stick a entire load of towels in the dryer and it will run for an hour+ drying them all out. YIKES. Unfortunately, my wife doesn’t like crunchy clothes…so I do 2 or 3 loads of laundry…hang most of it and do one load in the dryer of my wife’s stuff and a couple of towels for her. This saves 2 loads of electric drying…and a TON of electricity over a month.

We have a small convection oven that I use more than our full sized one. I use it whenever I can.

In the summer I open windows first thing in the morning when it is cool an set the AC at 74 or 75. When it finally Kicks on, I set it to 72 or 73 and it will run long without cycling (most efficient). If I let it get any hotter than that, the upstairs will never catch up. However, this helps with a couple of extra hours each day that it’s not being used.

I would start with these 3 and probably also swap out all lights to energy efficient ones. Ones that are on often make sure you replace with <10W equivalent lights.

The refrigerator is also a big user, but not something you can really do without in my opinion. Just practice simple tips of limiting the times open, etc…and do the best you can. Effort is better spent with the items above.
 
punisherthunder said:
It’s the opposite with me. Propane prices are so high! They quoted me $4.22 a gallon and I have a 500 gallon tank. To me, a woodburning fireplace is where it is at.
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The price of propane depends on the month you buy it.

I dug through my old bills and on March 22, I paid $2.499 per gallon.

In summer it is cheap, but during peak months it is more expensive.
 
Monte_RCMS said:
The price of propane depends on the month you buy it.

I dug through my old bills and on March 22, I paid $2.499 per gallon.

In summer it is cheap, but during peak months it is more expensive.
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That varies tremendously by location. We live in Amish/Mennonite country where the Amish farms and households are powered year round on propane. They do not use electricity from the power company at all, but they have completely modern freezers, stoves, lights, farm equipment–all powered by propane. I can go to lowed and by a freezer or water heater or anything else that is powered by propane. Every season is peak season here. I’ve never been able to buy propane fir less than $4.25 a gallon. That’s why propane is solely my back up heat source. We make our tank last 2-3 years minimum unless some monstrously cold winter might happen. Our house is all electric. We’ve never paid more than $130 a month, and that’s when we were running heat lamps for baby chicks during a cold snap.
 
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