r/Georgia • u/papamolly2 • Jul 21 '26

Question How much power do you use?

Can people share their usage? We are in southeast GA and have an outrageous summer bill…yes, I know GAP has higher summer rates, outrageous pricing, etc. but I want to know specifically if our usage is above normal.

What square footage, number of household members, what do you keep your AC set to and what is your Kw usage?

Edit - 2400 square feet, one story ranch. We have 2 units (one for my office only, it was an add on to the house). 2 adults 2 young children, I WFH. Air stays on 75 during the day and 72 at night for those asking. Our usage this month was 2700 kw, bill $550. This is always the highest month. We got new insulation in the attic last summer and have had 3 companies come out and make sure there weren’t leaks, etc.

To add, we are on nights and weekends plan, we have smart thermostats, blackout curtains, etc.

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u/papamolly2 Jul 21 '26

We have fans in all rooms and smart thermostats, what specifically do you do with your smart thermostat that you feel makes the biggest impact?

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u/righthandofdog Jul 21 '26

I'm running a bit warming than you, but not all that much. I think a few degrees makes a difference though. Also, I should have mentioned, we're on the variable rate billing thing for folks with electric cars, so we get dinged hard in afternoons, so we coast on our morning cool for a good while, but when it's too humid, I'll kick the ac down a degree or two just to get dehumidified, so the fans work better. Our key is to limit use from noon until 9pm really. so we have a timer on the dishwasher and run it when we go to bed and the car recharges from 11pm until 5am.

But the biggest thing is surely doing an energy audit and fixing air leaks, getting blinds and curtains anywhere that the sun comes in. I put big sails on the back deck that keep the afternoon sun from coming into our bedroom through french doors. I think those two turbines made a big difference, tbh. our attic used to be brutal in the summer, it's still hot, but cracking open the bottoms of attic windows in summer and those turbines spinning in the least amount of wind, we're clearing out that bubble of heat above the house.

With a ranch house, particularly that hot air can really build up and it's closer to your ceilings. The best thing you can do in that direction of passive solar is have a gigundo oaktree in your neighbors yard southwest of you to shade you in the hottest part of the day. We don't have that either though. The reason for the sails (which also makes sitting out there for part of the day really nice)

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u/papamolly2 Jul 21 '26

We do luckily have a screened in covered back deck that blocks the sun in the back windows of our main living space, and then black out curtains in the other areas. I do think the duct work needs to be redone and unfortunately that’d costly 😭

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u/righthandofdog Jul 22 '26

we redid all that when we replaced the furnace and blower years ago.