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Q. We follow your column weekly and enjoy reading and implementing your suggestions when possible. We have two heat pumps and two programmable thermostats (one for the upper story and the other for downstairs) in our 3,000 sq. ft house. It is all electric and we have lived in it for 15 years with updated heat pumps installed 10 years ago.
We have always been careful about keeping the temperature around 68ºF degrees during the day and 64ºF at night and could deal with $200 plus electric bills. Our bill last month was $580! We have turned down the daytime temperature to 66ºF and kept the night at 64ºF degrees. We have installed many fluorescent bulbs. More could be done with insulation on this 22 year old house, I'm sure.
My primary concern are the heat pumps and thermostats. Could they be inspected to see if they are working properly? Should I call the people who installed the thermostats? It seems like the heat is running constantly and we are still cold! Paying almost $600 for the privilege of being cold seems a bit of a stretch. Of course the electric rates have gone up tremendously, but why should these past two months suddenly be so high? Yes, I know it's been colder, but doesn't this seem over the top? Last month we were gone for half the month. I turned down the heat to 60 degrees and turned off the water heater. Our bill for the month was $350 and we were home for only 2 weeks. Any suggestions? I'd appreciate anything.
A. Trust me-- I feel your pain! Let's go at this with some methodology. I hope you have retained copies of your past electric bills. If you can, pull out last year's or even the year before and compare the units used (don't look at the dollars because all we can do is work on those units used which now cost a whole lot more than they used to). If the units used are somehow higher now for some reason then looking to the cause is the thing to do.
Yes, you should have your air system serviced annually and all of its specifications checked for accuracy, filters changed (quarterly) and thermostats checked for calibration-- even a thermostat that is gone out of level can throw things out of whack.
If you can assume that the heat pump units are doing as best they can, the bad news is you say they are ten years old so their relative efficiency to what is now a federally mandated minimum efficiency is probably pretty low. Minimum SEER rating is now 13 and you can go up from there. SEER is an efficiency rating that is computed with a formula that compares the amount of electricity going into the system to the amount of heating or cooling coming out of it. Yours may be lower than 10 given the age of t he units. Even working at their best they may still be working against you.
Your point about attic insulation is spot on. The code for this area is R38-- the value assigned to the insulation quality-- according to the 2003 International Residential Code. I'll be bet for a couple of reasons that you don't have anywhere near that even if a good amount of insulation was initially installed when the house was built. Insulation-- especially fiberglass and especially blown fiberglass-- settles over time reducing the R value. Increasing that will be money very well spent.
There isn't a whole lot you can do about sidewall insulation enhancement without contemplating a wholesale siding replacement with added insulation underneath. You can, however, really take a hard look at the windows and doors and weatherstrip and tighte n where you can. Basically a window is a hole in the wall with no air blowing through it but heat can radiate out of the house through the glass. New Low-E glazing and glass with rare gasses between the panes really help but if you don't have them it'll cost you tens of thousands to upgrade-- but folks do.
Changing out incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) will really help over the long run. Watch using high wattage spots and recessed lights with high wattage bulbs-- they gnaw away at your pocketbook.
Get a timer for your water heater and set a schedule for large hot water usages (showers and such) and program the heater to turn on about a half hour before and to go off about an hour later. Laundry and dishwashers don't need such hot water anymore and dishwashers now heat their own water and while were on the subject of dishwashers, only run them when they are full and use air dry instead of heated dry. Don't dry partial loads of clothes and air dry when you can.
I could go on and on about the degree of obsolescence we have lived with in our aging housing stock and we lived with it because we could afford it. But now we are confronted with conservation not as an altruistic goal but as a hard reality of dollars and cents.