I rent my home, the owner lives in India and his sister is the landlord/liason. She is off-her-meds bipolar and I am frightened to ask her to do anything with the house unless it's an emergency.

I saw a groupon today for an A/C tuneup, and was wondering if it getting it could potentially cut costs this summer. It's a big, old house, but our costs for heating and cooling are disproportionately high.

I know little to nothing about this stuff.

4/2/2014 1:13:22 PM

a tuneup will do very little towards lowering your bills. You might, at best, break even on what you spend on the tuneup. And i can just about guarantee they will find something that needs to be urgently replaced while they're performing the tuneup.

The best way to lower your bill would be improving the insulation-- which is no small task in an older home. Again that's really in the landlord's responsibility, but unless there's a code violation, a safety issue, etc., they have no obligation to do it.

tl;dr: don't waste your money.

4/2/2014 1:17:39 PM

yeah, I mean I'm not going to shell out any major $$ towards improving the house, especially given the way she treats me. I figured that it was a tune-up would be a waste, but just wanted to make sure. I've lived at this place for almost 3 years and nobody has done any maintenance on the house since I've been there (outside of me doing general upkeep).

Our windows are relatively new (I'd say 5-8 years old). The house is about 3000 sq feet, but during the winter the highest we had our heat set was 66*...and during the day it was set at 55*. We never leave lights or appliances on. Our Duke bills were upwards of $450.

I've questioned them about it and their only response is "check out our website where you'll find plenty of energy-saving tips!!"

[Edited on April 2, 2014 at 1:35 PM. Reason : ..]

4/2/2014 1:33:04 PM

Yeah, well, they want you to help fund their cleanup efforts. They ain't gonna tell you shit other than pay up or get cut off.

4/2/2014 3:09:27 PM

$450 sounds absurdly high... But I've never lived in a place that big. I'm wondering if your unit is sized correctly?

4/2/2014 3:17:08 PM

That is a high bill for that sqftage

4/2/2014 3:20:02 PM

OLD

HOUSE

MONEYPIT

4/2/2014 3:32:15 PM

An AC tune up will usually involve checking the refrigerant levels. If they're low, you'll have to pay extra to get them topped off and then there's the whole matter of why they're low in the first place. Also, they'll clean the condenser coils which is really easy to do yourself. They'll also visually inspect the other parts, but that isn't very reliable for detecting parts whos failure is imminent.

4/2/2014 5:20:06 PM

is there any way they could be raping me beyond the normal Dukerape? Like, the meter is "off" or something?

4/2/2014 7:31:11 PM

They might be raping you on the meter. Figure out when your metering starts (it's on your bill) and one month go note the meter value at the start of the billing period; then, at the end of the period, do the same thing. Do the math and then compare that to your bill.

4/2/2014 10:51:36 PM

$15/day

4/3/2014 10:45:52 AM

Quote :

"Our Duke bills were upwards of $450"

Was the emergency heat running a lot?

4/3/2014 10:53:49 AM

Quote :

"is there any way they could be raping me beyond the normal Dukerape? Like, the meter is "off" or something?"

before wireless meters you would sometimes get a huge "catch up" bill. instead of checking your meter each month, they would make assumptions based on your use history. if you used more than they assumed for a couple months, when they actually checked your meter it would be more than they assumed so that month's bill would include the difference from the previous months as well.

if you are consistently getting high bills then its probably not their mistake. if you call them though they will send someone to check the meter. they can also give you history for that property, which will help tell you if its a new problem or if the usage is normal.

4/3/2014 11:10:36 AM

Quote :

"Was the emergency heat running a lot?"

I don't even know what that is. I live in Cincinnati, so I realize that this winter we had abnormally cold temps, especially during the "polar vortex", but like I said, we keep our heat set VERY low, so I find it odd that we are still on the very high end on the spectrum of average usage among comparable homes (graph provided by them).

Quote :

"before wireless meters you would sometimes get a huge "catch up" bill. instead of checking your meter each month, they would make assumptions based on your use history."

this is actually a "feature" you can opt-in to, and we have not. our monthly bills are supposed to be accurate according to our usage.

4/3/2014 12:06:30 PM

what were your bills for the same time period in previous years?

if you were in cincinnati with a heat pump, you were basically always on emergency heat this winter (it uses hot elements instead of a heat pump. basically a giant hair dryer)

4/3/2014 12:31:55 PM

^. You likely have electric heaters for emergency heat. They use significantly more power than your heat pump.

4/3/2014 1:03:02 PM

heat pumps are super efficient to a point. below that point (i want to say 35 degrees, but might be off by a few), you use electric resistance heat like others mentioned, which is one of the least efficient ways to heat a house.

Even setting your thermostat at 66, when it's really cold outside, it's gonna be running constantly. With poor insulation (common in older homes), it will struggle to maintain the temp in the house.

for what you describe in a 3000 sqft house, being older, and in a colder climate than the southeast, I'm not too surprised. My power bill in VA was around the same for 4500sqft. 4 heat pumps and a gas furnace.

4/3/2014 1:34:30 PM

Pretty much. A heat pump makes heat flow from cold to hot. That's not the natural order of things, of course (see: 2nd Law of Thermodynamics), so it requires an energy input (i.e., your power bill). Basically, the atmosphere is an effectively infinite reservoir of thermal energy, and the heat pump removes thermal energy from the atmosphere and puts it into your house. It's like a refrigerator employed in reverse.

Since the heat pump takes thermal energy out of cold air and transfers it to warm air at the expense of requiring energy input, the greater that temperature differential, the more energy input is required to "make the ball roll uphill". At some point, it's more efficient to just use resistance heat (i.e., electric coils, like a "giant hair dryer.")...so it's not technically just a function of how cold it is outside; rather, it's the difference between the outside temperature and your desired inside temperature. Of course, people set thermostats within a pretty narrow range, thermodynamically speaking, so yes, it practically becomes a function of how cold it is outside.

Additionally, using the heat pump when it's too cold outside can cause humidity to accumulate as ice on the condenser.

Quote :

" the normal Dukerape?"

4/3/2014 7:59:21 PM

...and my power bill was about $40-50 for each of the last couple months, and I keep the thermostat at, like, 72-73...maybe 74 sometimes if I feel like it.

of course, my house is only about 1825 sq ft, and only I live here (plus my daughter half the time). It's also only 2-3 years old, so it has good insulation and efficient appliances, to include a hybrid water heater that I keep in heat-pump mode (i.e., resistance heating disabled). My thermostat is also WiFi enabled and programmed to minimize HVAC usage during high rate times from the power company. Oh, and I have a 5 kW solar system, so I'm hoping that some months will be even lower than those bills as the days get longer.

4/3/2014 8:04:19 PM

Quote :

"during the winter the highest we had our heat set was 66*...and during the day it was set at 55"

If you have a heat pump this is where you fucked up. Heat pumps waste electricity 1) when the thermostat is turned up by more than a degree or two 2) when its really cold like below freezing outside and just running the compressor alone wont get the job done

If you were turning it up and down every day by a range of about ten degrees you are running the electric heat strips (like people are talking about above), but you are doing it DAILY...

Many thermostats do not have a light or warning indicator for the auxiliary heat so don't rely on that to tell you when its doing it either.

4/3/2014 8:11:09 PM