Utility Bill Question

[waverly]

Our electric and water seem high.  Just wondering what region you are located in (if you want to share) and what you pay for electric and water.  It was about $350 each for 2 months.  So $175 for electric a month and about $175 for water a month. I thought water was cheaper, usually.  This also includes sewer.  We get a separate bill from Nicor, so I don't think it covers natural gas or any other utilities bundled in.  One if from the village though so maybe they are adding other stuff on there?  I thought mostly we paid for other through our taxes though (like road cleaning/ mosquito spraying stuff like that).    

[Susie]

I pay combined natural gas + electric monthly to the utility company, and combined water + sewer quarterly to my town, so that makes it hard to answer helpfully.

[dcn]

This varies so much from place to place. We have lived all over and every place does it differently and has different prices. You’d have better luck asking your neighbors for a better comparison.

[wildrice]

That seems really high, though the electric will obviously vary by the size of the house. Were you doing a lot of watering grass or using water for things other than daily human use? If not, that also seems really high.

I've lived in a few places in the midwest and now live in Baltimore. We live an apartment, but it's 100% electric (no gas) and we pay $120 a month for that. Our landlord charges us $75 for water so I assume that covers it. In the past I've paid anywhere from $30-75 a month for water and somewhere in the $90-150 range for electric depending on the weather and the size of the place I was living.

So $350 for utilities per month seems outrageous to me!

[cabbagecabbage]

Chicago suburbs, small house and 4 people. Electric varies with heat and ac usage but is $100-200/ month. Water and sewer is billed quarterly and averages about $60/month. We also have natural gas which is about $25/month.

[puppylove64]

Rural Georgia, 2900 sq ft, 2 adults 3 kids. Power runs $100-250 month usually about $180. Water includes sewage and trash pickup, usually $80/month. Only gas is fireplace and we just fill the tank annually.

[k3am]

CA/4 people. Gas & Electric runs about $250-$400 a month. Water is $250-$350 every two months.

[countthestars]

I'd call your water department and ask them if it seems high to them. Depending on your water meter type, they may be able to do a real time check to see if you've got a leak. I know Badger meter has a customer portal for some meter radio types.

[waverly]

We do water the lawn, but don't right now since it is October and mostly leaves falling. We have talked to the neighbors about the electric since Com Ed sends us an e-mail every month saying we are way higher than our neighbors. I think Com Ed sends it to everyone though because our neighbors (that we are supposed to be higher than) say they get the same email lol.

I'll double check the other months. Maybe DH got it wrong and it is for 3 months. He likes to tell me things without researching them well. If it is accurate, good idea to call and have them check the water meter/ leaks.

I remember fighting with the gas company on heat when we lived in an apartment building. It was all estimated and I asked them based on what. Basically they made the numbers up because come to find out the gas meter had been broken on the building for like 5 years.

[Deleted]

I work for an electric utility and manage energy efficiency programs. Feel free to PM me if you'd like but I'd check with your electric utility to see if they offer any kind of in-home assessments. I know Nicor does so I'd check because during that visit they may also identify measures that would save electricity and water. Beyond that I'd look at what's in your home and ensure you have LEDs in all your lights, a programmable thermostat to set your temp. I prefer Ecobee or Nest so they learn and offer you a set-and-forget type thing versus manually adjusting. 

ETA I just saw that you have Com Ed. They also offer the in-home assessment program. I'd get one of those to assess your electricity use.

[preppy]

I live in Rhode Island and mine is very similar. The city I live in has high water/sewer rates and that is usually about $160-$180 per month - this is way above any other place we have lived (Boston and CT). We have no lawn so not watering but our kids take daily baths which I think uses a lot of water. Our electrical is about $100 in winter and $150 in summer with AC units running. Our house is about 1500 sq feet with 4 people and 200+ years old and not at all efficient.

[mlkgls]

I agree the water seems high, but is it high compared to previous months or years? Mine always shoots way up in the summer due to watering, but it’s fairly consistent each year. Electric actually doesn’t seem bad, but we’re just now seeing highs under 90.

Installing a smart programmable thermostat had the most impact on heating and cooling bills for me. Maybe even more so than upgrading my entire HVAC system last year. 

[tres3]

TN.. we currently pay about $30/mo for water, old town in TN our water bill was regularly closer to $80. Our electric has gone down significantly too... now about $250/mo in summer old house closer to $400/mo. The houses are the same size but our ceilings are lower in the new house and we have huge 70+ year old trees keeping the house shaded.

[illgetthere]

That seems really high for water. Our total utility bill was around the same for last month, but only $45 was water/sewer. $6 for the gas minimum (heat in winter) and the rest was electricity. We were still in the 90s last month though

[ellipses84]

Our utility bill has seemed high lately. I questioned my husband about what he’s been setting the thermostat at lately and he swore he hasn’t touched it, but I knew it had been changed. Tonight I busted my 3 year old standing on a step stool messing with the settings on our Nest. Anyone know if I can childlock it 😂

Really though, I’ve noticed water and electric go up this year compared to last. Our utility company / state is really pushing time of use plans and avoiding use in evening hours. They are autoswitching everyone’s plans unless you opt out to a different plan and the analysis they sent us said that would be slightly more expensive for us based on our history.

[goldengirlz]

If your water bill seems higher than usual, you may have a leak. We had a cracked pipe in our crawl space once and didn’t discover it until it caused significant damage.

Our utilities are a fortune in Northern California but water is a precious resource here.

[Covergirl82]

One thing to keep in mind is that some electric companies have now "tiered" their charge rates. We have Consumers Energy (in West MI), and electric costs more during "peak" times of the day...basically, when most people are home and awake (something like 6:00 - 9:00 am and 3:00 - 8:00 pm). On top of that, if we go over a certain amount of electricity each month, we get charged a higher rate for anything over that threshold.

I've started to run the dishwasher after 8:00 pm (or even overnight) and I do laundry on the 1-2 days a week that I WFH.

We have a 3,000 sq ft home (about 1,000 of that is a finished basement) and we've been able to keep our bill below the point where the rate jumps up, except for one month last summer.

We are on a well and septic, so we don't have water bills. (Our well and septic pumps do take electricity to run, though, so our electric bill is higher than it would be if we didn't have a well and septic.)

[waverly]

Thank you. I did a deeper dive into the past years spending specifically the shopping categories and the utility categories, and it seems like the $350 was more for 3 months rather than 2. DH was wrong which I had suspected. It looks like he paid them 5 times a year, so he was a bit sporadic, and it was supposed to be 6 times a year.  And some payments he did were way less than that. 

ellipses84 , I feel like you should be able to child lock it from the app. We had to do that to ours after DS turned ours up to 90 just to see what that did lol.

[Deleted]

I live in the Philly burbs. Our SFH is approx 1700 sq ft plus a partially finished basement. We are on electricity only, no gas. We do budget billing for electric and pay $250/mth year round. Our water is billed quarterly. It varies throughout the year because we have an above ground pool and have to add water frequently during the summer. I just got our current bill and it is $155 for July/August/September.

[Gato]

We pay $45-55 a month for water.

Electric really depends on the season, from $70ish in the summer to $175 in the dead of winter.

We are in Portland, Maine.

[madringal]

My gas and electric are combined and we pay $217/month. Water is about $36/month. NW Indiana.

[CrazyLucky]

Rural NC. Water is about $35/month. Electric is very consistently around $200, except for the hell of August. Our heat is electric, so there's no big winter/summer difference. We also pay $52/quarter for trash and recycling pick up.

[mich1]

I live in WA in a 2800 sq ft house. Just 2 adults here. Our water bill runs about $250 every 2 months. The biggest part of it is the sewer charges. Electric runs anywhere from $50-100/mo. House has gas heating and hot water, and during the winter our gas charges range $30-100/mo.

[SusanBAnthony]

Water- ~30
Gas: 20 in the summer and 150 in the winter (all gas appliances, gas heat)
Electric: 50 in the winter, 75 in the summer. Would be way higher if we ran AC full time but we only run it if it's super hot.

We have very low utilities here. This is a 1600 sq ft house. In OH we killed ourselves to lower them in a more mild climate and paid 1.5x more.