Luckily, our house cools down quickly and also heats up quickly in the winter. We have two central A/C units, one for each floor (I don't use the third floor room except for storage). We have gas and electric, which is good. Our electric is next to nothing in winter (maybe $14-$20 a month) and depending on how much we use the small gas fireplace in the den (which I love using), the gas will run about $25 a month and go up to $50 a month if it's cold and I spend a lot of time in that room, as that means the fireplace has been run a lot (sometimes I run it all day until we go to bed, so that's still a pretty reasonable price). We don't use the central heat at all except Brian turns it on when he first comes downstairs in the morning to take the chill out; it stays on for a maximum of 10 to 15 minutes.
I love sleeping cold so we lower the upstairs thermostat to 71 degrees at night; I'd gladly put it on 65 if Brian could stand it but it would get a tad pricey and he'd be cold! Right now I'm still upstairs so we move it up to 73 when he gets up and goes downstairs. When I go down for the day, I will raise it to 76 but the two bedrooms stay pretty cool during the day as the blinds in one room and curtains in the master stay closed. The master, luckily, with the two sets of French doors and another almost floor to ceiling window is on the north side of the house, and the sun gets to it after 5 p.m. so it stays pretty cool. I usually open the curtains when I come upstairs at night so I can enjoy the light and our gorgeous view of the Mississippi River prior to nighttime falling. And, of course, I've lowered the temp to 71 but it's pretty comfortable up there when I first go up. But I like it cooler to sleep...
During the day downstairs, Brian is like the kid your parents fussed at ("Brian, go outside or stay inside but quit going in and out") but he's hyper and goes in and out of the backyard constantly. He'll spend most of his day if inside in our big "country kitchen" which includes the kitchen and the dining room and is on the south side of the house; he also does the laundry, too, which is in a small room off of that room. That also heats up the area a bit but he likes it warmer than I do. He likes to mess with the garden, water things, etc. so he often takes the radio outside with him and listens to either WWOZ (our fantastic local radio station -- you can listen online, too) but usually a baseball game.
If I'm inside, I'm usually in the front living room/den area, with four big old windows (we live in an historic area so we cannot update the windows to the double-glass insulated type that are in the back of the house where Brian is). I keep the thermostat downstairs set to 73 most of the time and it's quite comfortable. If it gets hot, we will lower it. We spend a lot of time at home and figure the electric/gas bill can qualify as an entertainment expense for us, as we don't go out half as much as most people do. It's the same way we classify spending a lot of money on food -- it's our entertainment budget! If it gets inordinately hot outside, like high 90s in temp, we will usually close the front shutters on the windows -- they're board and batten shutters and they really keep the heat out but, of course, block out tons of our gorgeous light. We still have light from the windows on the side of the room and the window on the front door but it's not my favorite thing to do. Does help if it's blisteringly hot, though, but we don't have to do that very often.
Our electric bill this summer start going up around May to almost $80, ran $120 thru the end of this month and might run as much as $200 mid-July and August though it usually tops out around $180 thru September. The highest it has ever been in a brutal heat wave was $250 for one month in 18 years, which I still didn't consider too bad, as we were cool and comfortable inside. Brian laughs as I always say I would go without food to be cool if I had to.
We could sign up for "average" billing with the utility company where the charges would be relatively stable every month of the year but I like paying next to nothing in the winter season. And it's nice to be able to actually "see" what it runs in the summer, too. We consider ourselves really lucky as our house is insulated very well and the windows are all the good ones in the areas of the house not visible from the street (historic requirement). I love light and hate curtains and drapes so I only have them on windows where they're really necessary. Hence our house is always cheery looking inside and never dark...
Sunday, I came downstairs late (almost 2 p.m.) as I was kind of tired and though it was hot outside, it was pretty pleasant with the sun going in and out behind the clouds. Brian and I sat outside for hours on the deck under the shade of our orange tree and just had the most pleasant afternoon. After a while, he got me a glass of wine and the cat, the birds, the squirrels and the two of us had quite a nice cozy afternoon just sitting and talking. So summer time around here is not always a terrible thing...
Last edited by Crybaby on Tue Jun 21, 2016 1:47 pm; edited 1 time in total
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