Cherie said:
WOW! We need to look into those suggestions! Our bill has run $300-350 for the last three months. Our house is 2600sf and we run our pool on low 24/7. DH forgets to turn off the small ac unit in his workshop out back. Also, we've have way too many days of 100+ heat, and in our part of Wylie (which is cursed), we FINALLY got our 2nd rain of the summer. So it's been miserably hot and DRY. Cracks in our back yard are 2-3" wide!
We have a lower seer (don't recall how low), 5-ton heat pump, only about four years old :? Our OLD unit was much better on the bill than the current unit.
I have a question though. With all that some of you have done to keep your house cool in the summer, like with the radiant heat barrier, doesn't that also make your house colder in the winter? We cover our two turbines for the winter and that helps keep our house warmer in winter.
We need to read up on the radiant barrier, I guess...
Honestly you're not doing bad at all given your house size, location, running the pool.
A few suggestions
-watch out for the small a/c in the workshop, that sucker is a power hog
-consider backing off the timer on the pool, it only needs to run enough to keep the water clear & filtered, scale back in 2 or 4 hour increments and see what happens.
-your heat pump is most likely 13seer which is not bad. 16seer is only about 20% 'better'. Old a/c units were 7-10 seer. 18-20+seer units are nice but mega-buck.
-your heat pump is probably way oversized. Installers always err on the big side, especially in TX, where some people want to crank it down to 72 while it's 105 outside. Your 5-ton unit is probably short-cycling every 20-30 minutes, which reduces efficiency and raises interor humidity level. Not much you can do here w/o replacing with a smaller unit. Your old unit was probably 3 ton 10seer, (an off-the-shelf size in TX for houses 1500sq ft to 3000sq ft), and although lower SEER, ran much more efficiently.
-add soffit vents ($3 each @ lowe's), IIRC the standard is 8sq feet per 500ft under roof, and wind turbines (about $50 for good quality), one per 500ft under roof, including garage. Passive attic ventilation is cheap, easy, effective, makes the wind work for you. Turbines are great in this part of the county.
-don't cover the turbines in the winter, it can cause humidity problems in the attic
-windows, esp in the sun, are a big energy suck. screens/tint/just closing the curtain/blinds can double the window efficiency.
The radient barrier is marginally cost effective. I got a package deal from Efficient Attic Systems, sprayon barrier & blown-in insulation for about $.60/sq foot. Do not go over $1/sq foot, negotiate, they WILL come down to their 'winter' price. or wait till winter. Payback time is at least 5yrs, don't buy their hype.
Radient barrier will not help in winter - it blocks part of the solar radiation, does nothing to actually insulate the house.
Paying about $.10/kw-hr
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