I get billed an average, but I see a monthly usage. It's the usage I want to see go down.
Truly, though, we had quite a chilly October. Usually I put my winters on after Helloween or even mid-November, but the way the weather was shaping up I was tempted to put them on early/mid October. I'm pretty sure that would be why.
bobzilla said:In reply to z31maniac :
Winter temps for us are 67, summer 72. Total electric. We do have vaulted ceilings in the living/kitchen/dining room. But we have no respite from the wind in the winter. Our tree line is growing but it's pretty flat here and it gets super windy and cold. We also have now replaced two old leaky sliding doors with new insulated Pella's, the extra 8" of blow in and the new furnace. I think next year we are planning on some insulated siding as well as the vinyl siding is 14 years old and looking icky and has zero insulative properties.
Our largest winter bill was last year during a two weak 0- sub 0 month. That was harsh. IT was $410.
It’s good you put the temps in so we understand why the bill is high. A more accurate picture would be to break it down into a per square feet cost and factor in amount of sq ft of window. Then average temp and finally per therm cost
Let’s assume 2000 sq ft and 21 windows total of 325 sq ft ( windows are a bit of red herring because they really don’t offer any insulation but there are good and bad windows)
So your $410/ mo cost you $.20&1/2 sq ft month.
My house in the cold months typically runs around $200/ mo. For a cost of $.03&1/2 sq ft now temps in the minus 20 and thirty are not uncommon with wind chills in the minus 40 happening.
It would be lower if I didn’t have 105 windows and spent a weekend weather stripping and tightening up the house.
On the other hand my heat is natural gas which is lower cost although when I designed this electric heat was competitive so my water heaters are electric
RevRico said:I've really wanted to do this for a long time, but it doesn't make financial sense for my house, and that bothers me.
If I ever get lucky enough for a tree to fall through the house though, I'm doing the foam insulation where I have to and blowing it in everywhere else.Aside from the ridiculous moisture levels, my biggest complaint about this place is the lack of insulation. I'm afraid of needing to redo it every year in the attic when the roof leaks, and also giving the mice, snakes, and other animals that feel like they get to live here rent free a nice place to live.
It's not as bad as it was though, when we first moved in, until about 93, we had a wood burner and electric furnace. Our electric bills were $400-500/month in the winter in 90s dollars! Getting the pellet stove and eliminating the electric furnace dropped them down to the rates they've been ever since, $175-200, pretty much year round. Even with 2 air conditioners running all summer this year we stayed under $200/month.
The blow in foam can be ordered with an anti pest additive by some installers. Ants termites etc take a few bites and die so they don’t ever get a chance to build nests.
As far as rodents like squirrels bats etc. a few company’s offer to throw in mothballs as they spray the foam. One guy sprays the first layer followed closely by someone tossing mothballs while the foam is still wet every few inches and then the second layer goes on fixing the mothballs in place and keeping the smell sealed. If a rodent starts a nest he’ll be driven away when he hits a mothball.
SkinnyG said:First gas bill is in since the insulation and the high-efficiency furnace.
So, um.... The bill is higher than same time last year. Figures.
The other possibility is temps or costs were higher this year than last.
mtn said:I think that we have about 16" blown in in our attic--but our attic is small, as it is only a 4 bedroom house that is really the size of a 2 bedroom house, 2 story. It was put in about 1 year before we bought our house.
Our electric has never been over $110 in the summer (and that was this summer with a pregnant wife); our gas has never been over $110 either--and everything we have is gas. I suspect that we could easily get our electric down to about $90 max if we put a window unit in the bedroom upstairs as we just don't have enough vents up there to cool on the hottest days so I have to pump the AC way down to 65 for about an hour before we go to bed to get the upstairs comfortable. Again, pregnant wife.
Now is the time to buy that window A/C prices will be as cheap as they are going to get. My local Home Depot has them at $90 when they were $157 two months ago.
frenchyd said:The other possibility is temps or costs were higher this year than last.
I'm just looking at the GJ energy used on the bill, not the dollar. The dollar isn't something I can change, but the GJ I can.
Oct '17 says average temp was 9°C, and I used 6.6GJ of energy. This Oct. was average temp 9° and 8.1GJ. It could be the average was 9° this month, but a wider temperature swing.
In reply to SkinnyG : my energy bills come with a number to compare temperatures hour by hour for the entire month. If you save your receipts like I do you can see from year to year what the temp was at 9:00am on the 5th of the month or any other time/ day so even though temps might average near the same for highs/lows the time under or over the curve can really change the costs.
Or like someone else said, they may use last years temps but this years costs.
November's bill came in.
Nov 2017: Average temp 2°C, 32 billable days, 0.44GJ average daily, 14.1GJ of energy used
Nov 2018: Average temp 5°C, 30 billable days, 0.37GJ average daily, 11.0GJ of energy used
Also not a fair comparison.
It was colder on average last year this time, plus two more billable days last year, so yeah there would be more energy used then.
We'll look again next month.
December's bill is in.
Dec 2017: Average temp 2°C, 29 billable days, 2°C average daily, 0.52GJ average daily, 15.0GJ of energy used
Dec 2018: Average temp 5°C, 28 billable days, 2°C average daily, 0.47GJ average daily, 13.2GJ of energy used
I dug a little deeper, and I don't know where the gas company is getting their 2°C average daily temperature. Another website showed last year's temps from +5°C to -19°C, and this year is +9° to -10°C, so I don't know. I'm going to stop analyzing it.
I meant to update here as well. We got our first month's complete bill. We averaged 2*F cooler than the same month last year, and we used 400kWh less. Made me smile. It ended up saving us $90 on that one months bill. that's almost $1200 a year in savings. At this rate we'll have paid for the insulation and HVAC replacement in 4 years.
So our latest update as well..... colder this month than this time last year. Cut 1300kWh off our bill, about $190 lower. This thing is going to pay off fast!
So, checking the gas bill for over a year now, there is negligible improvement at all. Monthly temp goes up or down a tick, and the gas bill goes down or up a tick from the year before, so Pffft. No improvement.
My guess is the 1978 windows are the biggest issue, and replacing those next year (as planned) will be a noticeable difference.
I'm going to assume there's plenty of air leak, along w/ the original windows not helping either.
Hopefully you get it all sorted!
SkinnyG said:So, checking the gas bill for over a year now, there is negligible improvement at all. Monthly temp goes up or down a tick, and the gas bill goes down or up a tick from the year before, so Pffft. No improvement.
My guess is the 1978 windows are the biggest issue, and replacing those next year (as planned) will be a noticeable difference.
I added blow in insulation to my house at about the same time you did, and I remember when I read your thread I thought "that's not enough insulation."
I don't know anything about your house, but I have a 1400 square foot house, I kept half of the r30 insulation that was present and blew in over 160 bags of insulation. I wound up with about an r60 per my calculations, but I have seen significant heating bill reductions.
Windows can be a loss, but correct air sealing in the attic, and correct amount of insulation will have the largest effect. (unless the windows are obviously not functioning properly)
blow in cellulose has a little air stopping quality, much better than fiberglass, but air leaks will still cause huge heat loss. Did you do any air sealing prior to blowing in the cellulose? I spent a solid month air sealing before blowing in the insulation and it took my knees about 2 years to heal.
I am aware r60 is a little overkill for my area (PA) however I was hoping to improve the comfort of my house primarily, the energy savings were not my prioroty.
That being said, the energy savings are greater than I expected. I have no solid data for before and after because I have too many variables. My house is heated with an oil fired boiler, so its relatively easy to see how many gallons I burn per year. But the variables: I moved in 2015 by myself, kept the house relatively cool over the winter. I insulated in the fall of 2018, but I now have a wife and child so we keep the house warmer, my boiler also heats the water, and we use significantly more. Not accounting for all the variables, last winter I burned about 60% of the total annual oil I used to burn prior to insulating. This is way more than I expected to see. This fall the furnace runs far less frequently, so I'm sure I will continue to see these savings.
I would recommend getting a few books on insulating from the library (how I learned,) it will help you identify where your large losses are and good techniques to approach the easy fixes. Modern high efficency houses are really interesting, but really expensive to do correctly.
SkinnyG said:So, checking the gas bill for over a year now, there is negligible improvement at all. Monthly temp goes up or down a tick, and the gas bill goes down or up a tick from the year before, so Pffft. No improvement.
My guess is the 1978 windows are the biggest issue, and replacing those next year (as planned) will be a noticeable difference.
I can say that after 1 months of watching ours it made a noticable difference. Although, I'm not sure which the insulation or the new HVAC unit. What I DO know is that after our first snowfall (3") the only bare spot on the roof was in the corner where the fireplace sits and we had been running it. So I know that we have definitely stopped some heat loss.
Now I'm monitoring for the added insulated siding we put on this summer. YAY!
SkinnyG said:So, checking the gas bill for over a year now, there is negligible improvement at all. Monthly temp goes up or down a tick, and the gas bill goes down or up a tick from the year before, so Pffft. No improvement.
My guess is the 1978 windows are the biggest issue, and replacing those next year (as planned) will be a noticeable difference.
Are your windows drafty? On a windy day if you hold a lit candle around them does the flame flicker? If so then new windows will make a significant difference. We have lake views. Big, really big windows. My neighbor replaced all his older single pane windows ( in good shape ) and installed triple pane very high end windows. Once he got the new windows sealed up properly. ( poor workmanship on the part of the installers). He expected last year's heating bills to be lower than the year before.
Well maybe, adjusting for the different winters he figures he saved almost $5 a month. But he needed to figure the cost of fuel and numbers of therms different each month to get that. It wasn't hundreds of dollars cheaper per month or even the whole winter. He did say he will save on drapes fading etc. so maybe that will be his justification for the tens of thousands of dollars he spent.
Do you also happen to have a programmable thermostat? This is in Kansas, so YMMV.
When I was living in an apartment about half the size but newer than my house, it had an old janky thermostat and in order to save some sort of money, I'd just turn it off when we left for work and then back on when the first one got back. I'd average around $180-200/month during the peak summer/winter times. That would last 3-4 months and was a pain.
Now in a house that's much older and much bigger, I put in a Nest 3rd gen; my most expensive bill was $199 in the first month or so of moving in, prior to having the nest. After that, the next expensive was $175 during one of our hottest months of the year.
I've also done my best to turn off and even unplug any appliances I'm not using, mainly the Keurig and any other smaller appliances I tested w/ my Kill-o-watt. I've also went and got thermal curtains for all of the windows, including fancy faux-wood blinds to help keep heat in/out. I also just recently got cheap door drafts for the garage door in to the house and the utility closet. I've even went and spent the $3 on the foam outlet and switch inserts, because hey it might help! I also had a plethora of baby-proof outlet covers and used those along with the foam cutouts for the plugs, just for that extra draft protection.
frenchyd said:Are your windows drafty?
OMG yes. That's potentially 2020's project. Though I am gonna pay the man and not do them myself. If I'm going to ruin my body and spend the money I save on more physio, I'm gonna pay the man. I'd rather ruin my body doing something I like.
OK stupid question time. My attic insulation SUCKS. It is old and compressed down to about 2". I really need to do something. The problem is that the PO added boards to most of the space and we store a ton of stuff up there. I can pull them up and fill in between the floor joists, but that's only 6" or so. Can you have either insulation or storage but not both?
In reply to pinchvalve :
My attic is the exact same; a PO had plywood laid throughout the majority of my attic which makes things easy when working up there, but a pain insulation wise. They did leave board off of half the house give or take; the master bed/bath, guest bath, and most of the kitchen. There are nearly mountains of insulation on that side.
The insulation is pretty decent below the boards, though; it just technically prevents you from throwing more down on top of it (likely the same PO did have three large rolls of R11 batts, so I just unfaced them and threw them over the boards as I have no way of removing them. I know This Old House has an episode for attic insulation and creating a pretty big area for storage as well. It's on Youtube if you get bored at some point.
Work started today. Triple-pane windows for the best R-value. Watching the guys work, I am SO glad I'm not doing the work. Good job to "pay the man" (which, in our case, became an opportunity as our mortgage needed renewing and property values have gone insane).
November's gas bill came, it looked like we burned less GJ of natural gas over last year.
December's gas bill came, and we burned more GJ of natural gas over last year. 1° difference in average temp.
Big whoop-de-do here.
That was a lot of money to spend on new windows to have zero improvement.
Bourbon would have been cheaper.
SkinnyG (Forum Supporter) said:November's gas bill came, it looked like we burned less GJ of natural gas over last year.
December's gas bill came, and we burned more GJ of natural gas over last year. 1° difference in average temp.
Big whoop-de-do here.
That was a lot of money to spend on new windows to have zero improvement.
Bourbon would have been cheaper.
My house was built in 1978 as well and when I bought it 13 years ago I...
Replaced every window and sliding glass door with dual pane, nitrogen filled, UV protectant units.
Re-insulated the attic with blown high R Value material.
Replaced all of the duct work with modern, low loss materials.
Installed a new high efficiency furnace.
Had I put the $17,300 cost into an S&P 500 index fund, I'd be way, way ahead of my energy cost savings but I have no regrets.
I'm in Southern California and close to the ocean so it's rarely really hot or cold but...
The house is quiet and feels solid...the AC & heater run much less often...I can be comfortable without being wasteful of resources.
I'd never buy myself a Rolex or some other decedent item but efficiency is good "Um' Kay" even if it doesn't justify itself economically...it's about the win-win of being comfortable while being kind to the environment.
You created jobs - you signaled that there's money to be made developing superior home building materials and techniques - you're a berking hero, a hero I say. 
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