Why does my electric bill go up in the winter?

Nick Seiner, from Southwest Electric Cooperative, helps us answer why your electric bill likely goes up in the winter. There are a few season specific factors that drive up energy costs, plus we discuss a few household tips that could also be affecting your bill.

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Guest - Nick Seiner 0:03

I'm definitely the energy nerd when I go to my friend's house.

Host - Harrison Waters 0:06

Yeah. You're out there doing audits for 'em right there. Yeah . Hello and welcome to season three of the Power for Your Life Podcast, where we talk about staying safe around electricity, how to save money, you using energy efficiency and the value of your cooperative membership. I'm your host Harrison Waters. And we have started the season off right with our guest , Nick Seiner from Southwest electric cooperative. He's here to tell us , uh , why our electric bill is higher in the winter and some tips on how to keep your heat in and the nasty cold outside . Take a listen. All right , Nick, introduce yourself. Tell us where you're from, what co-op and, and kind of your job role.

Guest - Nick Seiner 0:48

Sure. Uh , Nick Seiner , um, I work at Southwest Electric Cooperative. We're just north of Springfield and we serve all the way from basically Springfield to lake of the Ozarks. Uh , my role there , uh , I've been there for a little over 12 years. I handle our energy efficiency. I handle a lot of our communications to our members and then , uh , also some economic development as well.

Host - Harrison Waters 1:11

Okay. So mixed bag of doing a little bit of everything there. That's it. Awesome. Okay. Well today that , topic is energy efficiency. Um, you know, we had just completed our winter hopefully. Fingers crossed, knock on wood. Um, you know, but I'm sure you get questions, people asking, why does my bill go up in the winter? Why, do they pay more for it? What's the quickest way to just say, Absolutely. Yeah "This is the reason why." Is there any?

Guest - Nick Seiner 1:36

You are right . We get those questions often. Um , and the kind of easiest way to get your head or around it, because a lot of people will say, well, listen, I haven't changed anything. You know, I haven't changed my heating. I haven't turned it way up when it got cold. I keep my house, the same temperature, you know, year round . Um, the easiest way to , explain that , um, is that obviously as the temperature drops outside, you know, your house , uh , is losing heat faster. And so your heating system has to work harder. And so the more cold days you have, the colder it gets , um , you're going to see a rise in energy. And that, is across the board, whether you're heating with electricity with , natural gas or propane or wood, it's going to use more of that energy. And so , uh , you know, it's across the board , it's not just like on your electric bill, if that makes sense.

Host - Harrison Waters 2:28

Yeah. And I think one of the biggest things was recognizing that in the summer, you know, it's 90 degrees outside. You want your house to be 70, there's a 20 degree difference.

Guest - Nick Seiner 2:38

Yeah. Yeah.

Host - Harrison Waters 2:39

But it's zero degrees and you want it to be 70. How, how much work does your HVAC have to do to make up for, you know, zero degrees outside.

Guest - Nick Seiner 2:49

Absolutely. Yeah. That was , that's a great way to explain it as well. So , uh, you know, yeah. I mean, your air conditioner is only having to bring your house down 20 degrees from what the temperature is outside. If it's 90 and you want it to be 70, well then if it's zero degrees outside, you're it has to, you know, bring the temperature in the house up 70 degrees. So in theory, I mean, that's more than three times the amount of work it has to do when you contrast it to the air conditioning side. So, yeah. Um, with that, as one, one question we get a lot to is just not understanding why, you know, the heating bill is so much more than the air conditioning bill and that's, that's the best way I know to describe that.

Host - Harrison Waters 3:29

Yeah. I think the other thing too, is I often get off work and I get home. It's already starting to get dark outside. In the summer it's not the case. I've got like two or three hours to run around and play with my kid . So, you know, you get home, you're flipping on lights earlier. You are indoors more, cuz it's cold. I mean, there's so many, especially now how many devices are we, you know, I'm sure multiple people have extra fridges in their garage and, you know, a freezer out there and they've got gaming consoles. So I'm sure that doesn't help in the wintertime does it?

Guest - Nick Seiner 3:59

No. Uh, you know what ? We see a lot when people will upgrade their old refrigerator in their kitchen to a new energy star one, they take the old one and put it in the garage and it comes to their, you know, their beer fridge or their extra food fridge. And so you're actually not helping, you're actually adding , uh , more energy usage when you do that. But, and you're right. Everything we use today seems to need to plug in or charge in some way, shape or form. And so, yeah , uh , overall we're just getting more and more energy usage.

Host - Harrison Waters 4:31

That's my favorite is that you said you get this brand new energy efficient fridge. You're bragging to your friends. It just , it uses half the energy, but the other one's plugged in the garage to your point. It's , uh , it's probably, I think whenever I go to friends' houses and see the fridges out there, it's hard for me not to be like, Hey, hold on, you shouldn't have three fridges out here. So

Guest - Nick Seiner 4:49

Yeah , I'm definitely the energy nerd when I go to my friend's house.

Host - Harrison Waters 4:53

Yeah. You're out there doing audits for 'em right there. Um , speaking of that, like how are some ways, what should, what should , uh , our members look for in regard arts to, you know, quicker, simple ways to find ways to reduce their bill in the winter?

Guest - Nick Seiner 5:06

So, yeah. Um, the easiest way, really, especially for someone that, you know, you just don't know a lot about this. You don't know a lot about saving energy or energy efficiency and you don't want to take all this time to go online and try to research it all yourself. Easiest way I know, and the, just the simplest way for our members , uh , to start figuring out what they need to do to make their house as energy efficient as possible is to have a home energy audit done. And , um , most of, if not all of the electric cooperatives in the associated system, do the home energy audit program , um , that is an awesome program. Uh , it , uh , first of all, on the upfront cost , uh , we do a cost share with our members , um, and most , uh , electric cooperatives offer it for a reduced price. So that's a great upfront advantage of having it done. And then we contract those out with , uh , certified energy auditors. They're certified with the state of Missouri. They'll come out on site , do a full inspection of the house, kind of a head to toe inspection, if you will. Get up in the attic, check it all out, obviously check out the main levels of the house. Uh, if you have a crawl space , make it down in there, check all your duct work, check for any energy efficiency opportunities in there and check your heating and cooling system. Your duct work again , uh , for how leaky it is. Um, look for , uh , attic , uh , insulation levels in your attic. Uh, same thing in your crawl space , if applicable, or basement. You'd be surprised how many basements don't have any insulation as well, but it , um, so once they've completed the audit, they also , uh , they also, when they're on site , they do, what's called a blower door test. And this is how they measure how leaky the home is. In other words, by leaky, how much air flow is it just freely flowing through it . And that is air that you've paid to heat or cool. And it's just leaving the house. And so , um, they're gonna try to locate all those places of air leakage for you . And then once they've completed the audit, they will provide you with a full list of recommended measures to do to your house. Um, thing I like about how they structure that list is it's in order of the most cost effective thing. So the first item is gonna pay you back the quickest. The second would , you know , and down the line. Um , so it's been a great program. We've done it for many, many years. Uh we've had a lot of members take advantage of that. Um , but the really cool thing about it is we will, electric cooperatives will provide you with a rebate for completing the measures that the auditor recommended. Um , it's like , so it's 50% of the cost of the measures you've done. Of course it's capped at a maximum rebate, but still you're gonna get a big chunk back from us for actually completing those. And then really the true payback is when, for the life of your home. From that point on your house is gonna be basically as efficient as you can get. And so to kind of wrap it all up again, that is gonna be like the easiest way for our members to not have to do all this work, try to figure out all this stuff on your own to have this basically handed to you, "Hey, here is exactly you what you need to do. And , uh , that'll make your house about as efficient as you can get it." Um , in addition to that, of course , um , contact your local electric cooperative. Uh , they're gonna have people just like me on staff. That's gonna help walk you through all those recommended measures or just, if you, for some reason, do not want to have an energy audit done. We're gonna be able to help talk you through some of the things you can do.

Host - Harrison Waters 8:42

And I will say, so I'm an Ozark electric member. And I had my house , uh , I got the home energy audit and I tagged along cuz I'm , I like energy efficiency as well. And , uh, he did the blower door test on my, on my home and quickly you hear like a whistle sound coming out of like my master bathroom area. And I go like , go down the hallway and hear it and it's whistling. I mean, it sounds, you know , pretty evident. And I look down there and where the jacuzzi tub was put in, there was a softball size hole of where they cut for the pipes, but the two pipes didn't fill up very much space at all. And so I realized, I, you know, even in zero degrees winters, I was just cooling my bathroom and that was a dead giveaway there. So I actually, because of that audit, discovered that gap which it , you know, air's gonna find its way. So I, instead of having 70 plus degree temperatures to my bathroom, I was letting in zero degrees. So yeah, that was an enormous, enormous eye opener for that. So ,

Guest - Nick Seiner 9:41

Um , yeah that's a very, very common thing that is found on these energy audits. Um, and it's understandable. Uh , it's just much easier to install the plumbing for your tubs , uh, when they just cut a big hole in the floor and can run those pipes through there real easily. The problem is, that's okay to do that, but the problem is usually it is not sealed back up. And so, yeah, you just got that air just free flowing through that. And in addition to , uh , losing , uh , you know, the heat in your house, you lose heat in your tub when you're taking a bath, you know? So , um , you got cold air coming right underneath the tub. So anyway,

Host - Harrison Waters 10:18

Is there any other - I know, like for me, you know, I have space heaters in the home and of course I like try and pay attention to like how much we're using 'em it's like, okay, I can quickly heat up this room for an hour or something like that. But what I found was, you know, like electric blankets, they're pretty efficient. Like when you look at the watage of using that space heaters, like get that warmth right on you. And it, it can , it can make you toasty pretty quick. I've, I've told, you know, people, if you could come across something like that versus heating a whole room, and I'm sure people misuse space heaters for 15 hours or something like that. Um, but I'm just trying to think of other quick tips. Certainly the , the home energy audit, will you uncover all those other areas? What about just, I don't know , staying warm in the winter, what's the fastest ways or , you know, some easy ways to , to do that.

Guest - Nick Seiner 11:05

Absolutely. Um, so there's, there's quite a few things , uh , but some of the most common one is , uh , first of all, quit running around the house with shorts and cut off t-shirt and no socks on. Um , yeah . I tell my kids all the time, just put on some socks, you know? Um , so that's really, that's a freeway to warm yourself up, you know, put some sweats on. Uh , but I would like to touch on the space heater , um, you know, electric space heater , uh , deal that you had brought up , um , you know, yeah. That's, they are intended to be more of a quick supplemental heat for , um , a room that you're just gonna be in for a little bit. Um, they're definitely not intended to be your full-time heat source for the house. They , um, can cost you basically anywhere, depending upon, you know, your , uh , your rate that you're paying. You're gonna be looking at between , uh , 90 to , uh , more than a hundred dollars a month if it was running, you know, 24 hours a day for an entire month , uh , for one , uh , electric space heater. So , uh , yeah. So if , if you're running your main system that whole time, and you're still running electric space heaters, you can see how quickly they can add up to your normal bill. So yeah, I would definitely recommend that , that you try to find something else for your full-time main heating source other than , uh , electric space heaters. But going back to the example, you , you know, those electric blankets are great , uh , because it's gonna warm you up, but you're not way wasting a much of energy trying to warm up an entire room when really what we're trying to do is warm ourselves. Yeah. Um , so that was a great point. Um , the other thing , uh , is to look for , um , honestly, it's , uh , it's, it's not thought of very much, but , uh , windows just simply making sure that they're all closed and locked. Uh , a lot of time we just forget to lock 'em . And so with , uh , the temperature differences, expansion and contraction, and the just normal vibrations throughout a house, those windows can kind of jar loose. And before, you know, it, you've got a , a little gap that you don't even know about could be in a room that you seldomly go in and it's just letting you know, heat out of the house , um , 24 hours a day. Right.

Host - Harrison Waters 13:13

Yeah. And that lock seals it really well because I've noticed a few of mine, like, without it locked, it, it looks like it's, you know, it's , it's certainly closed, but when you push that lock down , it clamps down on there. And just any of those air gaps that, like I said, that outside, air's gonna find its way. It's gonna cool down your house. I've I have dealt with that for sure. And then my favorite to point about my kids, you know, he runs around wearing, you know, shorts and a t-shirt it's like put some sweatpants on you , like put some socks on, we have hardwood floors. So it's, it's pretty cold on those floors, you know? So you bet I I've told him that. Um, you know, I know that , uh , when it's winter, there's, there's a lot of small tips in , in regards to, you know, when using your washer and dryer and , you know, cooking, cooking a larger meal all at once versus, you know, spreading, spreading that out. Um, I'm just trying to think of anything else that people might be curious about, about their bill, kind of another reason why, why it's going up , um,

Guest - Nick Seiner 14:14

Yeah, with , uh , the, the , what I would consider the major appliances, that's gonna be your , uh , an electric oven , uh , electric clothes , uh , dryer , uh , dishwasher , um, with the dishwashers , uh , really where they use the vast majority of the energy that they use is in the heated , uh , drying cycle. Um, if you, you know, if you're okay with it, click that, click that off. There's , there's always an option for that. It's probably gonna be just a default to on, but it uses a lot of energy when it's drying the dishes. Um, so, you know, give that a try. Um, you know, you , you might, if you , if you can think of it, just pull the dishes out and dry 'em off, but if not, they will , they will dry naturally. It just takes 'em longer , um, on a closed dryer. Yeah, absolutely. You want to make sure that you've got , um, you know, a full load in there. You don't , uh , running a full cycle for just a few pieces. You know, you're gonna use a lot of energy and drying just a few pieces where if you make sure you wait until you got a full load , uh , which is no problem at my house, we always have full loads of laundry, but , um , yeah, that definitely would maximize that energy usage. And then , um , on your, when your cookie food, you know, in the, in the oven , um, if possible, yeah, cook multiple dishes in there, you know, if you've got potatoes and , uh , whatever a green bean casserole say , well, if you can try to cook 'em at the same time, so you don't have to separate that and run it for a lot longer period of time.

Host - Harrison Waters 15:43

So it's funny how in the summer, I'm the quickest to close the oven back and be like, do not heat up the house. And in the winter, I'm the exact, I was like, open the, that up. We've already spent money on that, that 350 degrees, let that roll out of there. That's it. Where could members go to, you know, learn about their, their energy use and all that? I know there's an app out there that if you're really into this or curious, you can see day to day , how much if you're cooperative is utilizing that app. Correct?

Guest - Nick Seiner 16:12

Yeah. Uh , most of the electric cooperatives , um, in, in the associated system have some type of, of mobile app, a smart app or smart hub . There's different terms, but check with your local cooperative on that. Um, so at Southwest, we do have a mobile app. You can get on there every day , check your usage, or even better. You can just sign up for text or email alerts where every day we will just send you what you've used the previous day automatically. Um, so you can kind of , it just, it just keeps it a little more top of mind where you're actually a little more aware of what you're using you, you will be surprised at just simply being more , uh , more aware how over time, you're just gonna probably start use a little bit less energy. Um, so those are great tools. Uh , but , um , you know, so we kind of went over some of the quick tips and then I think, you know, if you're looking for a true long term solution over time is to really the best place to start in my opinion is to get the energy audit done to your home. It's so it's , you know , you're not spending thousands of dollars to have this done. Um , most co-ops charge anywhere from about a hundred dollars, maybe a little more, 150, somewhere around in there. Um , so great value up front before you go out and you spend, you know, a thousand dollars on insulation or , uh , actually this just came from one of, one of the things that's very misunderstood is , uh , you know, I've got some old windows, I just wanna replace all the windows in my house, you know, because they're , they kind of feel a little leaky , um, that is actually cost us to be one of the worst investments for energy efficiency , because of the extreme, upfront costs now of windows. They just cost so much. And it really, the savings you get back is just, you would basically never pay for the windows if you're doing it solely for energy efficiency. So , uh , that's one thing that we've learned through the energy audits , um , cuz they, again, they cost test all of the measures that they, that they recommend their software is , is awesome at doing that. And so , uh , that's, that's one of the surprises that a lot of people think, you know, I know I need new windows, so I'll have this energy audit done to try to get the help with , uh , the, the rebate whenever I replace 'em and it's cell of them if ever recommended.

Host - Harrison Waters 18:31

Yeah. That makes sense. You're if you're only, you know, trying to seal those air gaps there and there, but yet you've got a softball size hole somewhere else that can never even compete with a $10 fix to be thousands of dollars for windows, cuz yeah. To your point windows, I will say speaking from experience the home energy audit, it highly recommended if you are into this. I mean they are gonna come up with things that are quick savings that at the top of my list was the amount of work to insulate the pipe outta my water heater that would save $20 a year, took five minutes. And so you look at that and say, wow, how you know , how is , how did I miss this? Or , you know, you just don't know unless you do this for a job and you're always looking for those, those inefficiencies, I guess. Um , it , it's great to have an expert come out and that is absolutely one of the benefits of the cooperative system is having that at , you know , uh , available to us to, to utilize so well, Nick, I tell you what I really pretty shade it , you coming in and, and giving these these tips. Is there anything else that you recommend for anybody you wanna say?

Guest - Nick Seiner 19:35

Yeah, like I said, so we kinda went over some of the quick tips and then a little more of the long term outlook if you have the , the home energy audit and also don't forget , um, that , uh , most , if not all the electric cooperatives are gonna offer , uh , other rebates in addition to the energy of the , uh , home energy audit , uh, gonna have a lot of , uh , rebates for heating and cooling systems. Uh , a lot of us offer water heater or uh , heat pump, water heaters , uh , rebates. So there's, there's a lot of long term solutions out there as well. Um, that I would encourage folks to check into

Host - Harrison Waters 20:10

Good deal. And when it gets one warm , a little bit warmer out, maybe it'll be the best time to go out and get those changes. Cause I know you don't wanna do that blower , uh , door test when it's cold outside, otherwise you'll be shooting some of your warm air out . So , uh , I made sure to do that when it was pretty close to like, you know , 70 degrees I think.

Guest - Nick Seiner 20:26

Yeah. Uh it's you know? Yeah. To your point, I mean, it's , uh , you're , you may waste a little bit of energy doing the blow door when , if it's cold out, but you know, there's no time like the present. Um, and so just to , yeah, if, if at all, if you think that's , uh , sounds like something you wanna do, I strongly encourage you to do it.

Host - Harrison Waters 20:43

Absolutely. So contact your cooperative to learn some more information. They're always there to help trying to find the best ways to help you lower your bill and to stay warm during the winter months that are hopefully over with

Guest - Nick Seiner 20:56

Ha yeah. Cross our fingers, man .

Host - Harrison Waters 20:58

All right . Thanks Nick.

Guest - Nick Seiner 20:59

You're welcome.

Host - Harrison Waters 21:02

Well, that's our show. Thanks so much for tuning in. As we kick off season three, keep in mind every cooperative does things a little differently. So reach out to yours to find out how much a home energy audit would cost. You also don't put off scheduling your home energy audit. It turns out a lot of home energy auditors like to perform lower door tests in hotter or colder temperatures in order to determine where that air loss is many auditors use thermal cameras, a along with their blow door test to take INFR images that show the cold or hot air infiltration that helps people see the issues they're having. Once again, a big thanks to Nick Seiner in Southwest Electric Cooperative. And if you have a great idea for a podcast or someone you'd like to hear on an episode, reach out to us@membersfirstataeci.org . Once again, I'm your home host Harrison Waters. And until next time , thanks for listening.