Community Chat

[Allegheny]

@wismiss

I agree.  We keep the register closed in our bathroom this time of year because it just gets too cold from the AC.

Our basement is unfinished and giving us access to the dampers in the duct work so I can close or limit the air flow to certain rooms that way also.  However, I try not to get too over zealous with some of my wild ideas because I'm not sure if I might be compromising my HVAC system.

[SahmIam]

About $400 here. We get hit with sun ALL DAY on 3 sides all summer. It's brutal. That said, our heating bills MIGHT hit $100 once the heat is gone so... it evens out in the end.

[MoJoV]

Our bill here in the Chicago burbs was about $100.  Our house is what I call roomy,not small nor huge. This house is a trilevel.  The family room downstairs is very cool and when you go upstairs to bed at night its very warm. We purchased a small window unit for our bedroom and turn down the central air when we are upstairs sleeping. It works for us.

[chickenbutt]

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wismiss wrote:

In addition to other recommendations you may want to try this.  It has worked for me.

Close the registers in the rooms you are not using.  This will increase the flow of cool air to the ones that are opened.  Because you get more cool air this way, you can increase the thermostat's temperature to a higher number.  

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(bolded by me)   I do this in my house!   I have four bedrooms.  The bird's room doesn't need a/c at all.  One bdrm is kind of just a storage place, so it doesn't need a/c OR heat.   The bathrooms don't need a/c.

There are a couple other areas that don't need to be cooled so I not only cover those (I use those magnetized things) but I put something on top of them to block it completely.  If you don't do that, the air will stil push through.

In the winter I have another entire system that applies.  Of course the bird's room needs heat, but that other bdrm doesn't.  I close/cover some vents where I don't want the heat.  I think that makes a big difference.

Before I was home all the time our utility bill would get up to $400 during peak times.  I started doing a lot of things to save and now the highest it will get is the one around $200, or maybe a little more, in August.   Otherwise it ranges from about $70 to just over $100.   That's not bad for a fairly large house.  

The way I see it, with numerous different things - every little bit makes a difference.  

[minkbunny]

You know, I used to close the register in the guest room when it wasn't being used - the door was open into the hall so it didn't get too cold or anything.  However, we had a new blower motor fan (or whatever it was called) installed just last week on our central air and the repairman went from room to room with his gauge to check on the temperature at the vents and he said to always leave every vent open - he also said our vents were nice and clean   Little did he know I had just cleaned them when we upgraded our register covers to beautiful brushed pewter scrolled ones ( bought one new one each week ) to replace the standard builder's grade ones we had.

[Bridgegal]

SE PA here.  We pay $130.00 a month for heat and AC.  All electric and gas.  Another $34.00 for water and trash pickup.  2200 square feet , two story.  We are very lucky to live in this area where heat/AC and gas/electric is soooo cheap.  

[MrsStephenson]

I will never complain again. $512! I thought $300 was a lot! Either way I am SOO looking forward to cooler weather.

[Shorty2U]

Thanks for the replies.

Wow there's a varying rate of electric bills on here. (500 and some for someone? gah!).

I asked last year about a budget and they said 180 a month. It was lower in cold weather now that we don't use the hot tub in Winter (since last year), so I thought if we go on a budget I would wait until they don't have that figured in (as on wait one full year until this Winter to ask about a budget in hopes they would take last Winter into consideration and make a lower budget! Because last year when I asked they were taking the Winter before into consideration thus the 180 amount for budget).

We have the basement vents closed to AC and heat and 1 of our bedrooms too. Still the electric is high. (Our heating bill is our LEAST expensive bill of all bills year round w gas heat).

We did have the AC at 72 degrees but with this bad heat wave I turned it to 74 the past weeks.

And we do have a timer to our thermostat, but we dont use it because I am home all day and no longer work.

[Sunshine]

our electric bill was $425.. My husband just hooked up the portable AC in our bedroom. It feels great in here and we don't have to cool the entire house.

[Lipstickdiva]

The bill I paid towards the end of July was $170.00  Our a/c was on the fritz and was running nearly nonstop trying to keep the house cool.  At one point it ran about 29 hours straight.  I thought it would be higher. That was an actual reading.

Our bill that I just rec'd that is due in 2 weeks was a little over $160.00. Again, it was an actual reading, not an estimate.

I keep our a/c set on 72 during the day and 68 at night because we sleep upstairs and it is warmer. 

I've had 3 different techs from our a/c company tell us NOT to close off registers in other rooms, particularly upstairs.  He said it does not work to force air into other registers.