Heating Cost $5000 ft2 – Milwaukee
edwardh1
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
Cable TV show, couple with one kid buying a new 5000 ft2 home in Milwaukee
whats the typical per month summer winter utility bill on 5000-6000 ft2?
Edited 11/5/2009 6:44 pm ET by edwardh1
Replies
????????????????
Maybe explain your question, better?
I was wondering what the monthly electric bill is,
in Milwaukee for a 5000 sq ft new home with 3 people 2 adults and a kid,
Talk about confusing -- we have three numbers:
5,000 dollars in the title, then 50,000 square feet, and then 5,000 square feet.
Proofread!
sorry and thanks - I did screw that up- i just fixed it.
Any idea what the price per month is?
Well, I live in Milwaukee.
Only 1100 Sq ft, though.
In summer, combined nat gas and electricity is about $80 - 100.
In winter, about $150 - 220, depending on weather.
I'm pretty frugal about the heat and electricty and the house is decently insulated.
So, worst case scenario 220 X 5 is $1100 for the huge house in winter? Is that sound reasoning and math?
russ
I live in upstate NY and I pay $425/mth for gas and elecctric all year, for 2900sq ft.
Don't know how that would relate to you.
I live next door in Mich, house size is close and my highest winter bill topped over 1 Grand!!!!
2x a 2500-3000 sq ft hous?
Whats the mortgage on a 5000-6000 ft2 house?
My mind is just too small. All of this time I have just been worried about how much their water bill is!
Wow, I didn't even consider the water bill. That depends on how big the lawn is, and how many SUV's they wash.
Well ... I usually work w/ units of energy per sqft per year (i.e. Btu/sqft/yr) ... floor area, that is. That is usually my benchmark of comparison ... which is also common in the industry. Not knowing what your energy costs are per unit (i.e. kwh or therm), a rough value might be on the order of say $1-$1.50 a sqft per year. This would be rougly $0.10/sqft/month. About $400 per month. I checked this against some real rough (but realistic) values ... its OK. A LOT depends on 1) cost of energy (gas and elect.), 2) the relative efficiency of the house, and 3) the lifestyle.
That value could double or almost half depending on these factors.
The electric bill will be $320 a month in the summer and $233 in the winter.
Are those approximate figures? ;) You must be an energy psychic. Give you a floor area and you translate that into a complexity of wall, window, and roof areas and air leakage, furnace/AC type and efficiencies and lifestyles ... not to mention weather and utility rates ... and badda boom ... I'd like to hire you to do some work for me.
No, my numbers aren't perfect. I didn't see any reference in the original post as to how the house is oriented towards solar south.So no, the figures are not totally accurate. The summer figure has a variation of +/-3.27%, the winter +/-6.43%. Everything else is based off of "typical" MKE construction.Plus the numbers were based upon the house having a mix of lights, with the total house wattage being divided up as follows:
78% fluorescent bulbs
15% incandescent bulbs
7% halogen bulbs
Funny. Given the information provided, I'd venture a guess at +/- 100-200% and that is a fairly educated guess. To think your value has variations of +/- 3.27% and 6.43% is ... pardon my frankness ... preposterous. You sure that isn't a variation of 3.30%? Variations in weather can easily be +/- 25% of average. Lifestyle variations can be huge as well (which will affect your light use you mentioned).
Surely you are joking ... but I don't hear you laughing. If you joke, you have to deliver the punch line or give us a hint that it is tongue in cheek.
He's not joking, I came up with virtually identical numbers, disregarding sunspot activity and el nino.
What? You must be using some generalized calculator at some website or some such. To think you can do any such calculation with such precision is ludicrous! While such calculators may be OK, to present such precision w/out some kind of documentation is absurd. Common range of residential energy use is easily +/- 125% depending on many factors. I suppose you size HVAC systems on a Btuh/sqft bgasis regardless of e.g. construction, window area or orientation.
While a general calculator is well and fine for rough guesstimates, to present such precision with any confidence is simply incorrect.
I've found that you can disregard sunspot activity in most of the northern portion of the midwest. Magnetic declination has been stable at about 3 degrees, which makes it pretty much a moot point.Now if the poster plans on putting in something like a 42" wide entry door instead of a standard 36" door, all bets are off. Especially if he adds sidelights. He can offset the aditional loss through the sidelights by using wooden door knobs though.
I have found that low E windows have absolutely no affect on energy calculations north of the Mason Dixon line.
But your biggest error is not asking if the DW sleeps with the windows open.
How many btu's are emitted with hot flashes?
(And if you think I'm going to ask my DW........)
How many btu's are emitted with hot flashes?
Those BTUs are of no consequence. The BTUs gained by the wife's hot flashes are offset by the energy loss created by the wife giving the husband the cold shoulder.
"Surely you are joking ... but I don't hear you laughing
You live in the PNW. I live in CT.
Either I'm not that much of a loud mouth or your hearing is shot. Or a combination of the two.
Click here to create an audio amplifier between CT and the pacific northwest.
Well I live in a similar climate.. (Minneapolis) and I have a 5500 sq.ft. house..
I keep the house warm and toasty enough to walk around barefoot all winter in a T shirt.
Heating bills in December and January tend to be about $200 a month with earlier and later months somewhat less.. I usually start heating sometime in october and end in May. (those months tend to be around or less than $50.00 per month
This summer The cooling costs were maybe $12.00 but this summer was cooler than normal so I suppose in a real scorther of asummer I could spend maybe $50.00.
My electric costs typically are around $50-60 a month however since I use so many power tools I'd expect when I'm finished those costs to be reduced somewhat.
I can't give you an acurrate water cost since my city collects recycle costs, sewer costs and various other fees and taxes via the water fee.
I was the OP and it was a real question after watching a cable TV house seekers type show-
a builder built Mc Mansion,
big rooms, lots of glass
5000 sq feet
-new
-one couple, one kid,
-snow on the groundwhats the ave utility bill?
$200 a month seems low to me.
Edited 11/7/2009 9:42 pm ET by edwardh1
Possibly, low, yes. But as I pointed out, there are many factors. In 5,000 sqft, I can't imagine heating/cooling all the rooms all year long w/ a couple and only one kid. So, as I indicated in my previous post, $400 wouldn't be unusual annual overall average, but lifestyle may half that and utility costs can affect is as well. Generally $200 is getting off cheap, but if that is truly an average, then the peak may be a lot higher.
BTW - don't listen to Mongo and that other guy ... they are just yappin' their flaps for fun and games.
Edited 11/7/2009 10:54 pm ET by Clewless1
BTW - don't listen to Mongo and that other guy ... they are just yappin' their flaps for fun and games.
Not really "just yappin' my flap". My original numbers are based off of tables for electrical usage in Brookfield Wisconsin, a suburb of MKE. New construction, family of 4 living in a 4000-5000 sqft house. Non-electric heat. Air conditioning but no swimming pool. This house is at the upper end of the range in the sqft department, but there's one less person in the family.
Would have been nice to know your resource. Still, a number so exact isn't worth much, nor is the precision values you were throwing around. Tables of electrical usage (but no gas use?) and the source was ?? While you MAY have had a solid resource for this information, it is common, as you should well know in this forum to explain the whys, wheres, and hows of what is being said. I saw your posts in the concrete counter discussion and you seem level headed and thorough.
Knowing what I know right now (which is admitedly zip) about your resource, I'd be skeptical of the information. Even such information from e.g. the utility themselves is usually at best a rough generalization of what one might expect. It would be like saying ... if you own a Toyota, expect a gas mileage of 'X'. And for you to declare that 'X' has an accuracy of 3.25%+/- is laughable. Again, that is knowing nothing about your resource. Even with a very good resource, the accuracy of the information is only as accurate as the differences between that information and the real world (i.e. the actual house in question) which can be affected very significantly by e.g. weather (=/- 25%), lifestyle (=/- 25-100%), specifics of construction (depending on design, window orientations, etc. could be +/- 10-50%), and the efficiency of the heating system (+/- 5-15%). Combine them all and you have at best a WAG.
While your resource may or may not be a respectable source, the fact that you didn't reference it, made it sound like you somehow knew exactly what this guy's energy bill would be. A lot like asking me what a new car might cost me and you coming back and saying it would cost me $18,321.
Of course it's an estimate. With such a vague question how can one give a specific answer?The original question was "whats the electric bill for a family of three living in a 5000sqft house in MKE." How can I be expected to address house construction considerations when no additional information was given?I went on the Brookfield WI utility site, they have a breakdown of sqft size for a family of four. Estimates for natural gas use, oil heat use, electric use, etc. Totally generalized for generic new construction, 2x6 walls, Low-E IG, etc. Under "Family of 4 in a 4000-5000 sq ft house" are the numbers I posted in post #13. The electric is just for "electric", not electric heat. Are they accurate? Accurate for what? They're generalizations!After my post #13 Dam Inspector and I started having a little fun, all my other posts after #13 were chain-yanking. I thought the absurdity of providing specific numbers like that for a such a general question would have been apparent.I post numbers off the utility site, and you infer that I'm irresponsible for doing so. Yet you post a guess of $400 a month and that's good? This is getting pretty ridiculous. It was a vague question by the original poster. No specifics. I gave the most accurate answer I could find.Best, Mongo
Finally ... some explanation ... wow. Thanks much. All I was asking for. When you quote something so specific as e.g. $326 a month ... it is not 'apparent' that it is an estimate or generalization. Quite the opposite. A little over $300 is [obviously] an estimate.
While I well understand your point, not everyone reading this would come to the same conclusion that you were no more than generalizing with values so specific as you posted w/out so much as a hint at the source or that the values were in fact 'generalizations'. I hope you can appreciate my point of view as well. I never inferred that I thought you were 'irresponsible' simply that your apparent precision(which IMO was much more "apparent" than your intended generalization) was absurd.
My guess of $400 a month was well accompanied by a caveate of the degree of generalization it was ... making it well clear that it was indeed a best guess WAG based on my experience and that lacking a lot of other details, huge variations to the value could be expected.
A Mc Mansion it's not!
It's a carefully crafted double timberframe (white oak timbers inside and Black walnut timbers outside) with SIP's as insulation except for the foundation which is ICF's
16 inch thick walls and 22 inch thick foundation..
Great attention was paid to energy efficency and sealing every possible source of leakage.
The actaul HVAC is carefully thought out to maximise energy use. In floor radiant heat keeps the feet warm (the coldest part of the body is the feet {because they are the furthest from the heart}and if they are warm the whole body feels warm) and makes excellant use of that energy right up to about 10 below.. around that time forced air comes on as a supliment to offset the loss through windows ((a total of 107) while those windows allow great deal of light in (thus reducing the demand for lighting) there is no way they can be as efficent as 16 inch thick walls and 12 inch thick foam ceilings.
Further forced air quickly rises off the floor and collects around the ceiling. My ceiling 28 feet above me is within a 1/2 degree of what my feet are because I don't use forced air as my main heat source..
Unlike tradional homes which have a stud every 16 inches the SIP's are 100% foam with no studs in between. (sort of the way thermos bottles are made) Each stud has effectively no R value and there are many places in normal stick framing where studs are doubled and even tripled. That's why the very best most efficent stud built wall can only achieve an 80% efficency factor.. So R13 becomes R10.4 in reality etc.. Now add the inefficency of fiberglas insulation* (the most common insulation) and it's easy to see why homes that large in cold climates like Milwaukee or Mpls. may cost as much as a thousand dollars to heat in the coldest month. Most of my neighbors with similar sized stick built houses have bills around those numbers. ( one neighbor who has foamed his stick built house only spends around $400 in the coldest month)
The flaw with fiberglas as an insulation is it's tested in labratory conditions (same as every other insulation)* however fiberglas's R value decreases greatly if wet. In addition because air flows freely through fiberglas (it's what furnace filters are made from) So you get heat from the interior side of a wall rising and cold from the outside of the wall falling within the stud bay. That cycling of air actaully causes heat to effectively be scrubbed off and sent out.
* Labratory conditions are 0% moisture, no air movement and only a 10 degree differential between interior and exterior conditions.. In real world when there is moisture present and 90 degree differance between exterior and interior walls the effective R value of insulation drops to close to zero..
All of that does not come cheap and since McMansions are about building as cheaply as possible the owners pay the added cost of such inefficency..
My apologies for jumping in here. It's a 5,000 sqft house for 3 people ... I still call it a McMansion well built or not in my book. While I'm certain there is somewhere a 5,000 sqft house for 3 that is well used, I suspect that would be by far a rare exception. The new Fine Homebuilding has a great comment in the front section about the tendency to overdesign and that good design will minimize space through more efficient design concepts.
While commendable that the builder/owner went to some extra expense/effort to make the construction energy efficient (as anyone should that can afford a 5,000 sqft house), the shear size of the house IMO is a waste of resources to begin with (assuming that it is in fact oversized for the use). I grew up knowing people who raised 6 kids in under 2,000 sqft of house. Those kids grew up well adjusted and productive members of society. I fail to see the 'need' for oversized houses where the occupants don't know what to do with the spaces.
That being said, and based on your addtional details about the house, my guess at the energy costs could easily be down around the $200/mo range. There are still a number of missing elements including details about the utility costs and the occupant/life style, but with only 3 occupants in an oversized house, I'd say you'd be at the relative low range of energy use scale (e.g. compared to an 1,800 sqft house with the same 3 occupants).
Well this was designed not for the two people who occupy it now but for 6 people (2 seperate familes) to live in reasonable comfort..
The fact that it's not currantly occupied by 6 people has more to do with a learning curve than anything else..
My eldest daughter wanted to move in but her husband had too much pride.. they struggled for almost 2 years making rental payments and then bought a house. One that has them more than tapped. (the only reason they can get by is the cars I've bought and paid for for their use)
My youngest daughter too was expected to live here as well which would have brought total occupancy up to 8 She has to learn some tough lessons herself but I know that she will be coming back as soon as she learns them..
So 8 people in 5500 sq.ft? I don't think that's a waste when you consider it would be 3 seperate families..
No problem. Didn't mean any offense. You know the situation better than I. As such my comments weren't directed at you, just general comments.
I understand and appreciate the chance to clear the record..
No offence taken.
$200 still seems low to me - I live in coastal south carolina with 2900 ft2 and have an old heat pump - my JAnuary total bill is $230- all electric no gas. In off season the bill just my wife and I are $110 or more.My home and I doubt the TV home is not SIPS, or any special building method.
Yes it is much more expensive to have a home built that is tight and efficent. Most homes aren't In fact 99% of all homes are stick built.. less than 1 % are built with alternative construction methods.. such as ICF's or SIP's
The payback is now when my heating bill for November will likely be around $100.00 and December around $200. Plus even greater payback as the price of energy continues to rise.. My grandchilderen will be seeing the benefits long after I've taken my dirt nap. Considering the age of most Timberframes is well in excess of 500 year and the average age of a stick built home in America is slightly over 54 years there are also savings in contruction costs over the centuries..
Now that savings wouldn't pay the premiums on the extra effort to insulate and seal the home if I had to pay others to do the work for me.. In effect I'm a pioneer (even though the technique and method are well established)
One other consideration.. Minnesota is blessed with an abundance of electrical energy and thus making it cheap. The cost of electricity on the east coast is far higher.
House is a bit bigger but ours varies from a spring/fall low of around $350/month ($250 electric/$100 gas) to a mid-winter maximum high of around $700/month ($175 electric/$525 gas).
Heated SF = 5700 +/- plus garage radiant (700 SF) plus outbuilding electric (360 SF). I've only been heating the garage to50 degrees max.
Energy costs are relatively high here - central NJ w/5300 heating degree days and 900 cooling degree days.
Jeff
Edited 11/9/2009 11:32 pm ET by Jeff_Clarke
gulf coast, 1200 sq ft, all electric 4 ton heat pump. highest bill ever $57
braggart!! .... but I'm jealous, too. And a tidy size house, too. That's good. While in some areas bigger is better ( ;) ), in house design it is not. 1,200 sqft I could think of ways to keep it warm w/ the misses that doesn't use the furnace ;)