Cookie

We pay $270 every month on a budget account with Nova Scotia Power for our 4 bedroom, 2700 sq ft home. We also run a pool over the summer months. No oil.

Most of our heat is from our ETS system (storage heating) and we get a special deal that has off-peak tariff that greatly reduces the kw/hr. I set the timer on my dishwasher to run during the night and do the bulk of my laundry at the weekend.

http://www.nspower.ca/en/home/reside...gycharges.aspx

We have a Woodstove (ETS and electric baseboard heaters) in the basement and 1 cord of wood has lasted us 4 winters! We also have a propane fire in the living room. Our deck BBQ is also hooked up to the main propane tank. 2 refills lasts a year or so.

woodworm

thank you for asking this question... I had no idea people really pay that much for heating their houses (we are in NS and we pay $60 electricity per month and wood is free, we have a 2200 sqft 3BR house)
We are just in the process of planning the building of a new house, and we are discussing building a so-called "passive house", which is supposed to bring our energy costs down by 90%, so this thread is helping me in justifying the extra cost in construction.

Animal

No idea on costs of the pool pump yet. We moved in at the end of summer and closed the pool nearly straight away

I imagine my OH will sh*t when she sees the costs of it

MillieF

Gosh what an Interesting idea. I am currently paying mega bucks for heating as the house we have moved into is very poorly insulated...which we knew when we moved into and will be sorting in the spring.

Maplease

Happy to help Good luck with the build.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I am now looking forward to 'the change' so I can have free hot flushes

Bellanova

We live in Nova Scotia and to say we get ripped off here is an understatement!

We just built a brand new house and we 'thought' 'hoped our power bills would have been smaller than in our older bigger home
.
We just had our bill for Dec/Jan and we almost fell over it was $1025 for two months!!!
We have a time of day metre that allows us cheap power between the hours of 11pm and 7am, but little did we know that Dec, Jan, Feb they push up the prices because they are the coldest months! Bloody rip off.
Our old house was 3,000 sq ft and this one is 2,000 sq ft We have no wood/oil just electric.

Anyway we had our electrician come and set up our boiler properly to only come on at certain times when its cheaper to run so fingers crossed we won't get stung like that next year.

Mind you a friend of ours just got their bill and it was $2,700 for 3 months so maybe I will just keep quite lol

Animal

Our last electric bill had a $99 charge for delivery !!

Thieving bar stewards

ArthurBrit

Not familiar with NS, but here in MB the power company (MB Hydro) offer rebates for renovations that will improve the energy efficiency of your home. Perhaps your local power companies do the same?

Without being too pesimistic the idea is anything that MB Hydro has in excess they can then sell it on to Ontario or the states at a higher rate, so it's good for them (profit wise) to reduce the dependancy from us Manitobans

jimmydean

I live in NS and they are just incredible prices to pay...... Our house in 20 years old but was over insulated when built..........

iaink

You dont pay for the power in Ontario, you pay for the delivery.

Dont get me started on the "debt retirement" either! We already paid off that debt once, as tax payers

Bellanova

Same here actually, its insulated to R200 standard which is over and above minimum code............... NS Power are just thieving bastards, end of!

And the worst thing is there is NO competition either so they can charge what they want.
Basically we have to be more careful and treat it like gold lol play them at their own game

Animal

I forgot about that extra payment actually. I had that argument/discussion with a guy at work asking why the f**k should I pay for a companies debts but he seemed all happy with it ?!

magnumpi

We leave the heat on 24/7 set to 71f

Gas forced air, 2,000 sq foot 3 bed detached. Our feb gas bill was $86.

jimmydean

I would have gas in a heartbeat ........... very efficient and inexpensive...... Not available to many residents of Canada though

I know the infrastructure costs are high but efficient home heating is one of those areas I thought would have been well advanced in Canada.unfortunately not...competition hardly exists at all and the oil suppliers call the tune mostly from what I see here

ArthurBrit

Depends obviously where you are.

Gas is relatively cheap where I am when I compare rates in other provinces but it is just as cheap for electric where I am and I would almost say in new builds electric is prefered obviously in older homes where you have a 60A or 100A supply it's not that practical to replace with the 200A panel so older homes tend to stick with gas.