Electric Bill

lambchops · April 2011

Hello,

After living in the slope for the past 10 months, I've been wondering what an average electric bill looks like around here? Obv., everything is more expensive in NYC. But, we lived in the South last year, and even during the summer (i.e. A/C on 100% of the time, in a 1200 SQ foot condo), our electric bill rarely exceed $100.

In NYC, in the winter, in a 550 sq. foot apt., running basically lights, a couple laptops, and a couple hours of TV per day, we hit $100 routinely. This strikes me as absurd. Is 100+ normal, even for an apartment so small?

whynot_31 · April 2011

Make sure that nothing else besides your apartment is on your meter.

This can be checked by turning off all of your circuit breakers, then seeing if your meter has stopped moving. If the meter is still moving, it is powering something in addition to your apt

armchair_warrior · April 2011

alot of times the plugs and electronics are still on even if they are off.

briggs · April 2011

Also, check to make sure the bill is not "estimated." This just happened to us, and we finally got it resolved just a few weeks ago. We moved into this apartment in July, but our landlord won't give anyone the key to the basement and he's never around to let Con Ed and National Grid in to read the meters, so they've been sending us huge estimated electric and gas bills based on the tenants from last year. We were paying over $100 for each...and just received big credits for both.

pragmaticguy · April 2011

You might also try getting another electric company. Con Ed still delivers the electricity but they're by no means the cheapest. In my office in Crown Heights I use a company called Accent Energy. I'm locked into 13.6 cents a k/hr where Con Ed is around 16 cents. In effect, a 20% savings.

mrs. h. · April 2011

How old is your refrigerator? The fridge can be a huge energy user, especially if it's an older model (as a rule of thumb, things that change temperature take more energy than things that move, or so Martha Stewart says).

If it's an older fridge you might still be able to improve efficiency. Keep the freezer full, even if you have to put in bags of ice or plastic food containers full of water. And test the door seal by putting a piece of paper between the door and frame. If it's very easy to pull out when the door is closed, the seal is too loose. You can roll up paper and stuff it into the rubber gasket around the door to make the seal tighter.

That being said, our electric bill has gone up about 20% this winter over last winter, with no increase in usage, so the rates are awfully high right now.

Electric Bill

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