Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
Sounds like you should do an energy audit.
It'll cost you $80 to 100 bucks but that money could be well worth it if it could identify where your money is going for your electricity usage.
It could be that you have a massively inefficient HVAC system, which would suck as that's a very expensive repair especially if you go hybrid, but it could also be something as simple as not having sufficient insulation which depending on the layout of your home could be fixed with a friendly visit from a local foaming company, or adding some window treatments and some appropriately placed shade trees.
If it does turn out to be your HVAC, you could also look into a ductless mini split as an add-on to cool the hottest most commonly used rooms in the house. Those can be installed DIY or mostly DIY and if you have a single problem room making that one addition could result in a dramatic decrease in your electricity bills.
I know where the losses are, the house and windows are from 1980 and there is a sunroom on the house that are just huge heat sinks. We are just waiting on funds to correct that stuff. We had some awesome shade trees but they were Ash trees and fell victim to beetles and disease so we had to have them removed so they didn't fall on the house.
We added a radiant barrier when the roof was redone in 2016. The ceiling penetrations were all sealed and all the can lights were replaced with sealed LED fixtures.
The ac is a newer variable speed high efficiency one with new ducting that was installed 3 years ago and other than needing a minor room rebalance made a big different in our electric bill.
How is your insulation between your ceiling and the roof?
A radiant barrier helps but it's not going to be a match for fully functioning r22 batting or anything.
And you might want to consider replanting shade trees now that the old ones have been removed. Once it's the same height as your house it puts out as much equivalent cooling as a window air conditioner, and during the summer that's money in your bank.
And honestly, since you live in Texas and you're paying $285 a month for electricity, looking into some sort of solar might be well worth it.
If you have a larger property like my dad did down near Austin, you could probably do a ground mounted solar install and save a lot of money on the installation which is where with current rates the majority of the costs go to installing solar.
Its got some older fiberglass in the attic but it needs to be replaced as well since it is mildly compacted. Trees are in the plan too but that is waiting on the soil to recover a bit and the temps to drop off. Solar is a long term goal for cost and backup power but that may be a next house thing depending on how long we stay here.