Family guests & electric bill

[polyhymnia]

My brother & his girlfriend visited from Dec 16 - 19th. My mom arrived on the 17th and leaves tonight.

We live in a small 2 bed condo and have electric heat. We usually keep the house at about 55-58 degrees when we are home and drop it down to 50 when we are at work or asleep. So we really only have the heat on from about 6-10pm.

I recognise that this is colder than most people keep their houses. So when we had company I did show them how to adjust the heat and offered that they could turn the heat up to 62 if they were chilly.

Apparently my brother and/or his girlfriend interpreted this as "turn the heat up as high as you want and forget to turn it down again". They stayed in our office and I went in there a couple of times to get things while they were here and they had the heat at EIGHTY DEGREES. It was so hot in there. It's a small room!! The heat was high enough to slightly singe a blanket that was leaning against the heater. A FAVORITE blanket of mine that I have had since I was 4. They would forget to turn it down too so it was probably on all day and night.

My mom keeps the heat at a reasonable 58-62 but she has been home during the days while we are at work so it has been on more than previously.

SO - we got our electric bill on the 22nd. It was for the period through Dec 20th. It is usually $30 in the summer, $50-ish in the winter. This bill was $90.

Is it possible that four-five days of guests who used a lot of heat would raise our electric bill by $40???? I know nothing about how this works really - maybe that is possible, but SERIOUSLY?? YIKES!

[Starr]

Sounds possible to me. But really even 62 isn't that warm. I would take it as a lesson learned that when you have guests the heat, and bill, are going to go up.

[Ruthiegirl]

It always surprises me how much it costs to have houseguests. Heat, hot water, food...the more people you have, the more energy you use.

$40 for extra electric heat sounds high, but not impossible. Especially if they had the heat cranked to 80 degrees. The heater must have been working hard to maintain that temperature.

[polyhymnia]

Originally Posted by Ruthiegirl

It always surprises me how much it costs to have houseguests. Heat, hot water, food...the more people you have, the more energy you use.

$40 for extra electric heat sounds high, but not impossible. Especially if they had the heat cranked to 80 degrees. The heater must have been working hard to maintain that temperature.

Thanks, that's helpful. I just have no idea of what is reasonable or not - we are trying to decide if we have a leak somewhere and need to have something looked at or if it really is just houseguests that spiked the bill like this. We nearly doubled our kwh usage according to the bill. There were also more showers being taken, most likely - DP and I usually shower at the gym several times/week and now we had three people each taking showers every day. Also we probably ran the dishwasher an extra two times from usual too.

The heat was only really high in the office/bedroom they were staying, the door was kept closed all the time because they are allergic to cats and we have 2 so it was the "cat-free zone".

I was shocked by how warm the rest of the house was too, that heat was at maybe 70-75 most of the time. I would walk in from work in the afternoon and it was so hot, I would change into a tank top. Yikes. I am really looking forward to having my nice cool house back!!

[polyhymnia]

Originally Posted by Starr

Sounds possible to me. But really even 62 isn't that warm. I would take it as a lesson learned that when you have guests the heat, and bill, are going to go up.

Thanks. I guess I thought 62 was warm enough since that is what we always kept the heat at when I was growing up. Bro & his gf live in Colorado so it's not like they aren't used to the cold... Oh well.

[Ruthiegirl]

Originally Posted by crayolaab

I was shocked by how warm the rest of the house was too, that heat was at maybe 70-75 most of the time. I would walk in from work in the afternoon and it was so hot, I would change into a tank top. Yikes. I am really looking forward to having my nice cool house back!!

Yah, I hate over-heated winter houses. I have a constant nose bleed when the heat is cranked. I was at a holiday music show last week. The auditorium was soooooo hot! My nose started bleeding and I looked over to the kid sitting next to me and his was bleeding too! The two of us sat there plugging leaks till the show was over. Blech.

[lmonter]

Yes. Add in the costs of washing extra dishes, showers and extra laundry (assuming you washed towels/linens before or after their visit), and yeah, it adds up.

When painting our house for us right as we moved in, my dad turned on baseboards everywhere to help the paint dry (November in the north, so yeah, it's chilly). He forgot to turn off the stupid baseboard in the entryway next to the front door - i.e. where cold air almost always is. We about had a heart attack when we saw the $100 jump in electric usage. So we chalked it up to being stupid and trusting my dad. He hasn't been allowed near a heater or a paint can in our house ever again (although we heat with the wood stoves now, but still).