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Duke Energy bill through the roof
I'm so confused with our Duke Energy usage. We have no gas--just electric.
Yes, it was cold during February, but to put it in perspective, our heat is set at 64 degrees and we are FREEZING in our house, plus I would say probably 7 or 8 evenings in February we had our wood burning stove heating the house. I haven't done more laundry than usual and I almost always wash our clothes on cold.
We got our January bill and it was $220. We got our February bill and it's $322.
Why does it keep going up so SHOCKINGLY much?
I looked through the bill and there are these things called "riders" that seem to be going up the most. Our rider in January was $75 and our rider in February was $120.
Am I crazy? I am going to call Duke today and try to have them explain it to me, but I feel like our bill is way bigger than it should be.
Re: Duke Energy bill through the roof
We used to have the same problem. We used to keep our house even colder than yours (58 degrees!) b/c we have a giant house and granted yes, it can take awhile to heat up. We decided to bite the bullet and have insulation put in (just on outside walls) and I can't even begin to tell you what a difference that made. We have seen our gas & electric bills continually go down since then and we are now able to keep our house at a very comfy 68 degrees.
Last month our bill went down surprisingly, even though we raised our heat. We've since raised it about 4 more degrees this month so I'm hoping that it won't affect our bill too much. Now that we have the insulation, it stays consistent w/ the temperatures, we don't have to run a space heater anymore, etc. so all of those things helped a lot.
Also check to make sure that they aren't estimating your charges; we had that happen a few times (and we have no idea why b/c our meters are radioed in on the outside of our house; Duke had no explanation why they did it) and it def made our bill go up a lot. My parents have a wood burning stove and what they do is use that when they are home (evenings & weekends) to heat the 1st floor. During the day & night they keep their furnace set around 62 so it doesn't kick on too often. Maybe that would help? Using the wood stove?
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