Definitely not energy efficient.

I got my electric bill for the past two months.  It's SO SUPER COOL that they bill me two months at a time.  I SO LOVE IT.  Except, it sucks, and I hate it.

Everything in this house is electric.  EV. RY. THING.  Me?  Yes, I'm electric too.  Washing machine, dryer (do you KNOW how much effing electricity it takes to dry clothes?  Like, a million.  Yes, a million.)  stove/oven, heaters, everything.

So, my electric bill was about $750 for two months.  While that's not too incredibly disgusting (consider my $1600 bill from Southern California Edison -- during the summer months when I NEVER ran the air conditioner -- for one month of electricity) it's still pretty damn bad.

Right now, though, there's nothing I can do about it.  It's the dead of winter, so that means no way no how is any construction going on in this place.  No installing a wood-burning or pellet-burning stove.  No installing a gas stove to heat the living room.  No adding a propane tank or running gas lines.

No, we just have to suffer through until spring.  Except I want to rip my hair out in frustration.  How in the hell am I supposed to conserve energy in a place like this?  Why is the house even set up like this?  Why were the people who built this place SO DAMN WEIRD? 

Comments

[Nicole]

I have nothing to offer, save this:

"it's electric boogie oogie oogie!"

now you can at least dance through until spring.

[Sarah]

Could you perhaps put the children into storage and you and Bryan then just live in one heated room until spring?

See? I'm much more helpful than Nicole.

[Dotty]

I remember my grandparents pellet stove. That thing was niiiice.

[C.Flicken]

I'm still stuck on the $1600 bill from Southern California Edison. WHAAAAAAT? I would have had to sell a child to pay that, what are those people thinking?!

Is there any way to close off rooms and live in a smaller area until it warms up? Sucky, but cheaper!

[Andrea]

Ouch!!! One thing you can try is getting that plastic that goes over the windows. You'll have to convince your littler kids not to poke holes in it, but it should help with the heating bill. (And, frankly, the cooling bill if you have AC.)

[fuzzypeach]

Yeah, plastic on windows is good. Also: get ye a clotheline! If you don't have one already. There are all kinds you can get... collapseable like an umbrella, retractable... or old fashioned. We have an umbrella-type and I kind of wish we had the old fashioned kind... it doesn't let all the stuff get as much sun as I'd like. It's just now been warm enough for me to use it, I love it. My favorite chore by far.

[sarahgrace]

Oh...I can sooo relate to this one, minus the billing every two months... That sucks! We live in CO and everything in my house is mostly gas, and gas is super high out here... my last months bill was $300. Ridiculous, and we've done everything we can think of, outside of getting a wood stove to reduce the cost, and my house is still cold! So yeah...I hate energy companies. Period.

[krystyn]

I would cry if I received that bill -- holy mackeral. I can't even imagine. It gets horribly hot and humid here in the summer and my electric bill still stays under $200 even though I live in an old house with crappy windows.

I know! You should move to Florida. There. Problem solved.

[Nikki]

How the heck is your bill so high? We moved from WV to CA (weird, huh) and our houses in both states were totally electric with heat pumps, no gas. Our bill in CA is around $200/month in the winter and summer months, not on an equalizer payment plan, and our bill out there was about $60 per month on an equalizer payment plan.