Summer AC Bills Are Eating Condo Budgets
20 posts across 6 communities in the last 60 days; 45% from r/povertyfinance.
“Holy hell! It's set at 67!? WTF! It's almost impossible to get that low in the summer.”
“I’m in the triangle in a 2 br apt with Duke Energy and my highest bill has been about $140 (with AC on those 100+ days). Wonder if there’s an issue with your meter reading”
“Make sure your partner still makes money if youre quitting a job to pursue it. The summer fucks me here (texas), the winter will fuck you there, save accordingly when its busy season. Have places you can set up (breweries are best). Make your food better than what anyone else in…”
Several users are facing significant financial challenges, including unexpected pregnancy costs, substantial business losses, and high utility bills. There's a clear need for accessible advice and support to navigate these difficult situations.
SOURCES (60)
“Does the electric company have a prepay option? They have it here in AZ. Its call M power. If you owe a huge bill, a portion of the money that you pay each time goes to the bill owed and then the rest is applied.…”
“A friend of mine told me there were months last winter where her heating bill was higher than her mortgage. This is in upstate NY where the houses aren’t cheap and we have an energy monopoly from a Canadian company that price gouges the fuck out of us!”
“Holy hell! It's set at 67!? WTF! It's almost impossible to get that low in the summer.”
“My central air went out a couple of times last month and i was running the house with two window units for a while. Well my electric bill dropped 200.00 Is this related? submitted by /u/soldieroscar [link] [comments]”
This may be a dumb question but I am trying to figure out what’s going on with my electric bill. Why did I see such a big spike over the past couple…
“Have you asked for different prices on that water heater? there may be someone who can do it for less. Can you find a cheaper phone?”
“Not OP, but how so? I have a family of 4 and live in a small rental house, in a four season climate. Electric runs $300-$400 a month for my household and gas $50-$200 a month, depending on the season. Water and sewer run us about $200 a month. That's $650-$800 a month alone.”
“This is pretty basic but I'd been told for years not to flip my ac/heat unit up and down, to set it and leave it. I finally did set it at 72 and didn't touch it and it's made a pretty big difference I think. During this huge heat wave my bill hasn't been over 200. Not sure what it would have been but I know I had some way over 200 last year.”
“Moved to the exact same type of apartment as I left- 2nd floor 1 bd (this one slightly smaller) in state with hellish summers. Both old buildings in different ways. Went from S(W)-facing window to W-facing window. I have a washer and dryer in this one that I only use at night with free electricity. I maintained 80 dollars in the summer in my last apartment around this time, worst was around 100. The first bill i got here was 230 not even for a full month. The AC ran constantly and was not changi”
“I’m in the triangle in a 2 br apt with Duke Energy and my highest bill has been about $140 (with AC on those 100+ days). Wonder if there’s an issue with your meter reading”
“Weatherization is a different program from LIHEAP - different agency, different money, so it isn't tied to your state's LIHEAP application window. Won't touch the $810 you owe now, but at $250-270 for a 2 bedroom you'd probably be a priority case: the federal rule (10 CFR 440.16) makes states put high energy users and high energy burden households near the front, along with elderly and disabled applicants. Renters qualify too - the provider just needs written permission from your”
“Agreed, $30k as an emergency fund for the house is plenty. A/C in most homes is 6-7k, a water heater is $2k, roof could be $10-20k. If any of those break on you or need to be replaced you won’t have to stress too much.”
Does your PG&E offer any deferments? I’m assuming that your electric bill?
“I'm in TX and electric being like $300-400/mo due to the heat is not uncommon. I can see $600 with others added, including internet, water, etc.”
“Make sure your partner still makes money if youre quitting a job to pursue it. The summer fucks me here (texas), the winter will fuck you there, save accordingly when its busy season. Have places you can set up (breweries are best). Make your food better than what anyone else in your region is doing.”
“These are the right question honestly a lot of utility companies have hardship programs but it depends heavily on location and if theres anyone vulnerable in the house”
“Is the electric bill considerably cheaper in the winter? An old AC being run too hard is the likely issue but that seems pretty high. You should look to see if your city does energy efficiency audits - they do them free in mine.”
“No, I was only made aware of the issue this past Friday at 4pm. Normally, the welfare agency and the utility company deal with each other directly and I don't even see a bill. Neither party ever informed me of the cut to assistance, or the outstanding bill.”
“Texas Energy rates have decreased over the past few months. If you're stuck in a bad plan, now is a good time to consider switching. https://preview.redd.it/a6q963qk2njh1.png?width=1086&format=png&auto=webp&s=0501a64bf21cf9c071401ffaccfebd0477aa57c6 https://www.reddit.com/r/energy/s/4nfVQPzgt5 submitted by /u/TexasPowerGuru [link] [comments]”
“My electric bills compared. Total for electric last year was $4,381.41. We were only grid tied in March. $874 so far this year. This is also not counting incentives. submitted by /u/thefudd [link] [comments]”
“so last month I was having AC issues- the temp in my apt was a resting 92° for nearly 3 weeks. I had 5 maintenance requests created, and only the fifth one fixed the problem after I stood in their office until an HVAC certified maintenance worker was fixing it. Worker came to tell me the issue was my heating and cooling were running at the same time. I expected a raise in my electric bill of maybe $50-$60 tops, which would’ve been annoying but doable. I expected too much because my bill is $613”
“Do any of you track utility costs closely enough to notice when a specific piece of equipment starts running less efficiently, or is it something you only catch once the bill jumps? Just curious how deep people actually go on this versus treating it as a fixed cost you don't look at closely. submitted by /u/huncho_dot_dev [link] [comments]”
“He bought it with his own money. We’ve told him that the if he’s cold he needs to wear something other than just boxers. He will do it for like a week and stop. He’s also bad about not shutting it off. The ac is running more than it should be. I’ve thought about shutting the central off but we would have absolutely no way of cooling upstairs. That room hits 79 degrees on days like today where it’s almost 90 out. It’s gotten up to 86 if it’s really muggy out (3rd shifter) The window is too small”
“i work from home, so running the ac during summer heatwaves is non-negotiable. but between rising electric rates and local grid brownouts, keeping my home office cool is getting super expensive. our old unit is on its last legs, but looking into high-efficiency heat pumps, the hvac replacement costs are out of control. it feels like you'll never actually save enough on your power bill to make up for the crazy upfront price tag. are people just band-aiding old, inefficient units until they ex”
“I have green mountain and was just very surprised when my bill more than tripled. I live in TX in a 1 bed 1 bathroom apartment. submitted by /u/Daniel_Vela [link] [comments]”
“Yup absolutely. For a rental unit unless central air is required for some reason window inverter units are the way to go. And since the tenant is paying the electric bill the more power debate doesn’t matter regardless of the results.”
“That's crazy. I live in PA now and my electric rates today are around what they were for you in SoCal in 2014. My bill in the summer is $150-175 with window units.”
“The typical price for minisplit install in my area is $6000+/head. Where I live now is less expensive than California. Our quote 3 years ago was $35,000-40,000 for a five head install. One head isn't going to cover a house with multiple bedrooms.”
“No, nothing special. You can use the original house circuit as-is, with a regular 15A breaker and a regular outlet. On max power, that AC draws about 11A, which is under that circuit's limit, even with constant use (which limits power draw to 80% of rated limit—so a 15A can support a 12A constant load safely by code). Of course, you can't share that circuit with other heavy loads if using the AC. So it's one AC per circuit (breaker), and no other loads such as a vacuum cleaner and ot”
“Take your $3000 and offer to put in a few mini splits for free. For $3k you can cover the house and save in energy costs. Central AC in my area can cost 20-30k”
“I can see you've not had AC replacement costs quoted recently, but $10k would be an absolute deal.”
“Hi all! I just moved to a 788 Sq Ft 1 Bedroom 1 Bath apartment on the third floor and my AC bill came up to $300 and says I used 1500kwh! I came from a 1500 sq ft 3 bedroom home and paid about the same there for my electricity. I also keep my AC around 74-78. Also checked the windows and doors for drafts and so far nothing major but went to Home Depot to pick up a weather strip just in case! When I brought this up to the apartment leasing manager, she gave every excuse under the sun why this is”
“switching it to your name might be easier for the budget billing option, but i'd double check if section 8 lets you do that first.”
Call your electric provider and ask for the low income rate.
“For context, I live in a upstairs of a duplex and me and my fiancé live up there my fiancé works swingshift at a factory so she’s not even home often and I work almost every weekend and i’m home occasionally on weekdays for the past few months, my power bill has been excessively high, somehow using 54 kW a day and sometimes even up to 80 kW a day when I’m not even home for most of the day I do have a pretty good computer that has 1000 w power supply but I turned that off whenever I’m not using i”
“Legally I think they can actually generate a cap of 125% of our daily rent. That equals about $98 for us, so slightly under the $100 budget they gave us. But I think they would be right to listen to our individual situation and give us a little more per night under the circumstances and just knowing that if it ends up in court, they’ll be owing a lot more than an extra $60 or so per night.”
“Thanks! It’s only 6am in Phoenix atm but I’m going to call on some free legal advice later on today. This has definitely been a pain.”
“After receiving some MASSIVE electricity bills this year, I’m going all in on efficiency updates for my house (new windows/doors, extra insulation in the attic, and probably a geothermal heat pump). Most of these upgrades are needed anyways; the windows, doors and HVAC are all 30 years old. Solar is unfortunately not a good option for me as I don’t have good southern exposure on the property. I am curious if it would be worth it to also add a powerwall that I could set to charge during non-peak”
“It's the connection cost to access the grid. That's the big part of the charge.”
“My power is about $220-$240 in the summer, more like $170-$190 in the winter. Water is right at $140/month, but I live in a place with its own water plant, and the majority of that is fixed fees for connection/non potable for sprinklers, etc. Only about $50 of my water bill is water I used, the rest is fees.”
“Me living in a 100yr old 980 sq ft house house in Minnesota -- OP's bills seem to align with my own peak summer bills.”
“What jumps out here is that it's DTE. FUCK DTE. 1,500 sqft house, all new windows put in before we moved in. AC at 70 because toddler with eczema flares from heat. Purposefully live like vampires. Run a single load of laundry once a week, rationing showers for the adults so baby can have short baths every day. LEDs everywhere (not that it matters, we live in darkness to save money). Only thing left on is the fridge and everything else gets unplugged when not in use. Baby's air purifier r”
“Is there anything that jumps out here? In Michigan, 32 billing cycle, summer was on average 85F but have hit mid 90s on a few occasions. Home is 1983, 2500sqft, run AC at 74F all day/night. Normal appliances, no computers, smaller LED lights. Insulation/soffits/baffles done in 2023. 2 adults, 1 toddler. submitted by /u/ProofOwl3632 [link] [comments]”
“I live in N Tx and our energy bills had us twisted every summer. Call them and have them switch you to whatever plan is the most feasible for summer. They had us on some wildly pricey month-to-month bs. Call them!”
“I just checked my prospective energy bill; $57 even though I’ve been running the AC at least 8 hours a day and one of my fans 16 hours a day (I give it a break when I run the ac). It’s is a small 5k btu one though, and it doesn’t have a temp setting, just a low cool and a high cool (which is what I set it on).”
“Insane. I'm in WA and my electric bill is usually about $70. That's with a home lab and a 10 bay NAS.”
“I'm in South Florida and this is double my energy usage to keep 1800sqft at 77 degrees.”
“My fiancé and I are renting a place. This is our first Louisiana summer here. I wanted to get advice on how I can lower my electric bill and see how other people manage their A/C unit during the summer. Electric Company: Cleco House: 1,250 sqft trailer (no trees around for shade) / 3 bedroom 2 bathroom This was my latest bill: RESIDENTIAL CUSTOMER CHARGE $12.00 TCJA BILL CREDIT (FIRST 1000 KWH $0.00082 CR PER KWH) 1000 $0.82 CR TCJA BILL CREDIT (ALL OTHER KWH $0.00069 CR PER KWH) 1308 $0.90 CR E”
“Is this normal? I just moved to Tampa Florida I live in a 2 bedroom apartment my girl and I and a 5 year old This is the most I’ve paid for electric in my life. I’m asking around and ppl here just say “rates went up” or tampas just expensive but this is insane. My bill broken down is Daily Basic Service Charge $14.40 First 1,000 kWh $95.69 Above 1,000 kWh $16.80 Fuel Charge First 1,000 kWh $32 Above 1,000 kWh $6.69 Storm Protection $8.31 Charge Clean Energy $4.71 Transition Mechanism Storm Surch”