I accidentally raised my electricity bill really high using a space heater
I had a ridiculously low electricity bill for the longest time.
I was paying no more than $80 a month for my two bedroom house.
At the same time, my sister was paying double in a similarly sized house in a neighborhood just 10 minutes aways from mine. Granted, she has a five person family in that house, but that doesn’t necessarily account for a rate that is 100% higher than mine. I noticed that her electric bill went down in the summer compared to the winter where it was much higher. That seemed strange to me. We have basically the same central HVAC system with air conditioners that have the same SEER rating and BTU capacity. The furnaces are both gas fed and fan forced, which baffles me even more. Why is her electricity bill shooting up so high during the winter months if she’s running her furnace at the same temperatures as mine? I discovered the real reason on accident last month when I bought a space heater on clearance and brought it home. If it hadn’t been 50% off, I would have never bought the space heater. My central furnace is fairly good on its own, but I wanted to try direct radiant heat in my bedroom on nights when it gets close to zero degrees outside. After a month of using the space heater every other night, my electricity bill shot up by 80%. I was shocked and had no clue that my space heater was so energy inefficient. I told my sister about it and she mentioned that her family uses three different space heaters in the house. That’s when I realized my sister’s electricity bill is so high because she is using space heaters in addition to her central furnace.