40-year-old homeowner says economy doesn’t add up: ‘I’m making the most money I’ve ever made, and I’m still living paycheck to paycheck’
fortune.com
“There's this wild disconnect between what people are experiencing and what economists are experiencing,” says Nikki Cimino, a recruiter in Denver.
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I'm in this same boat. I get letters from the power company all the time about how I'm using more power than anyone around me. The heat in my place has been kept around 62 all winter, occasionally allowed to get colder. It's a pretty modern build for a house too. I actually used my PC to heat just my bedroom over winter which should be far more power efficient the heating every room. The letters I get try selling me how I need to or could be more efficient like genius ideas like "turn down the thermostat"... its already nearly almost off, just enough to make sure pipes don't freeze.
Only thing that really changed was they installed a new smart meter last fall, of which I had no say.
In Canada those so-called smart meters turned out to be sending incorrect data (or no data at all) AND causing fires.
Best of luck in getting the powers that be to check them tho. :/
Maybe you're getting incorrectly billed, have you checked the meter readings? Smart meters don't have a great reputation.
My bill also shows I use way more electricity than similar houses. My best guess is they have a heat pump or gas heat/water heater. Whereas I have forced air electric.
I recently installed an emporia energy monitor. It's basically a kill-a-watt meter that you connect to the circuit breakers for full house monitoring. And while I see some areas that I could improve to cut my bill, no where near enough to get to what the power company is saying similar houses are using. Saving up for a heat pump now as I think that's the best thing I can do to get my bill down. And as a plus I'd have central AC instead of having to use window units in the heat.
I'm convinced those statements are wrong in some way. Either not comparing houses of similar size or unoccupied units are skewing the numbers. Or they just tell everyone they're doing horrible to try and sell energy efficiency stuff.
When I compare using figures from my thermostat via beestat.io my house is in the top 40% (uses less energy than 60% of similar homes in my area).
Yes that actually makes sense. Gas is used in most homes, and is considerably cheaper than resistive electric heating. Probably you can get a subsidy for the heat pump.