Heating costs per month - what are you paying?

[Anonymous]

1940 house around 2400 sq + basement and attic. $350 plus 120 for electric. 68 during peak times, 59 during night and when no one is here (but me).

We put in new storm windows (not fancy "e" type but good ones) and that definitely made a difference. Also roman insulated shades for at night plus another layer of cellular shades. It helps with heat, sounds, and darkness in the rooms.

[Anonymous]

Our bill was about $325 last month for our three level, approx. 3500 sq. ft. house. One thing that made a big difference for us was having most of our windows coated. We did it because our southern rooms were getting too hot in the summer, but it's had a terrific impact on our electric bill. The coating isn't at all visible. I was shocked.

[Anonymous]

Our bill was about $155 (gas) for approx. 2500 finished sq. ft. We've put alot of work into improving the efficiency of our home - my top 3 suggestions (for price/performance):

1. Top suggestion: Check how much insulation you have in your attic and use expanding insulating foam around all light fixtures/openings into your attic to seal them. (check with your hardware store about what is safe around light fixtures). Our insulation was too low - we added 10-12 inches for approx. $800, and cut our electric/gas usage in half.

2. Get the silver tape for ductwork and seal all the joints in your ductwork that you can get to.

3. Consider sealing your ductwork system using the Aeroseal system - look it up on the internet. We did this after an energy audit discovered that our leaky ductwork was resulting in the loss of 78% of the heated/cooled air into non-living areas. The result was amazing!!

We also had dampers installed on the trunk lines of our ductwork, so that we can adjust the air flow at the source - this is more efficient then trying to do it at the vents in each room. Now in the winter, we heat the main floor of the house, and let the warm air rise, in the summer we cool the second floor and let the cool air fall. The house is much more comfortable now.

We also did replace our windows, but only after we made these other improvements first. The other improvements named above reduced our consumption by 60-65%, and cost a grand total of about $3000. The windows made no measurable impact (yes, we checked carefully) and cost about $14,000. We would recommend the other types of improvements every time if asked...

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

We paid $425 for a 4-level house of approx. 3500 square feet (a guess). We keep the heat at 68, and run our gas-fireplace every night for a few hours (for pleasure more than for heat). I don't think our house is very well-insulated, though, and we don't have window coverings.