Cost of cool
1After seeing the responses from the poll regarding thermostat settings I began to wonder how much does it cost to stay cool in the summer where you live. For me, the bill was $198.00 for June. That was setting the thermostat at 77 for central air and 66 for the mini split in the bedroom at night. Outside temps were in the mid 90’s most every day with a few 100+ days.
How much are you paying?
- 3 comments, 4 replies
- Comment
With (relatively) mild PNW climate and AC from a geothermal heat pump, our total (all-)electric monthly bill in summer is usually less than $75. (June 2025 bill is $69.17).
@macromeh I am jealous. I love the high desert weather of central NM but it does get very hot and dry in the summer. Geothermal is awesome! I ran evaporative cooling for many years that worked well until monsoon season which coincides with the hottest months. The humidity from moisture flow from the Baja negates the effectiveness of evaporative cooling and just adds more moisture to the heat.
KRULL! A SKULL! BRETT HULL! AWESOME!
@accelerator Yeah, when we built this house (1997), with rebates/incentives from the local electric utility it was only about a $4K upcharge to do geothermal vs. air sourced heat pump. (Of course we also needed the space to put 600 lineal feet of heat-exchange piping 6 feet underground, but that wasn’t a problem.) Definitely worth it - would do it again.
@accelerator @macromeh
I’m envious of the geothermal
I honestly do not pay that much attention. I know that it is way hotter here than it was when I lived in monterey. It was about 80° at 8:00 this morning. Give or take a few. And up there it was chilly all the time. My apartment up there was about the same size as this one, it was all electric and a little bit older. This one has electric and gas. That one had only small wall heaters that I didn’t run constantly. This one has forced air heating. It has a heat pump. So I pay less money here to keep my apartment at 71 degrees in the summer then I did up there in the summer when I had no air conditioning. And the less money includes both my electric and my gas bill. Put together.
Joe Cool says that the only cost to being cool is the chicks flocking to him.
