Never mind - found it.

Roughly 3,000 Sq ft
House located in Southern New Jersey
Heating method, The 1st floor Zone, Open source Water Furnace Geothermal System (42,000 BTU) 4 ton system
2nd floor Goodman 13 Seer Air Source Heat pump (3 ton system, don't know the BTU's)
Average Temp in the winter 68 when occupied, 64 unoccupied/overnight (roughly 16 hours a day on the weekdays) 

Month

Bill

Power used

Average Temp This month

Average Temp Last Year

KWH Daily Averages This Month

KWH Daily Averages Last Year

Nov-08	$222.37	1537	51	47	38.3	54.9
Dec-08	$340.61	2365	41	42	73.9	60
Jan-09	$403.78	2810	37	40	90.6	85
Feb-09	$362.06	2513	33	36	78.5	88.7
Mar-09	$360.27	2504	39	40	86.3	75
Apr-09	$244.69	1688	47	48	56.3	61.2

Worth noting that AJ's Mom inadvertantly included average daily household use of 40KW into heating bill. In reality the actual heating usage in coldest months was about $200 even with a vulgar electric rate. Not bad.
j

Sorry if I confused anyone - I only have access to total electricity usage, not broken out into heating/HW and other usage, since this is new construction.

Not pickin' on ya just clarifying:)
J

Sorry - I didn't want to confuse anyone, I did say in my original post that these were total usage. But that may not have jumped out at people. It does look like we're only using about 35-40kWh/day more electricity during the very coldest months than we do during late spring/summer/early fall. That's with no lockout on the Aux Heat and looks like system set for only 1 stage heating. As soon as I can get tech to make adjustments, I'm hoping our 3rd winter here the usage will be lower.

I also found some suppliers offering "variable" rates for generation that could save me about 2 cents/kWh based on this month's rate (paying 12.217 cents now - the other 6 cents or so is all supplier/delivery charges), but I've got to look into how high they can go. Will also have to check into the "Last Resort" rates - seems strange name, but looks like if we use more than 500kWh/month, we can get a break. Thanks for telling me to go to DPUC website!

On the bright side, just had the meter read today, only used 965 kWH this month (Aux Heat off), since avg temp was 58.6, so my bill dropped nearly $100! It's gotten colder now, night's in the 40's again and I don't think it got over 50 today, but later this week it's going to be 80! Doesn't help with heating bill during cold nights, just skews the avg temp (wish they'd put avg night time lows on the bill!), but at least it means that in a week or two we might be able to change from Heat to Cool!

05/18/2009
965 28 34.46 $189.17 58.6

TechGromit - your looks like total electric usage too, can you post what you used during earlier part of 2008? Were you gone much of Nov? That month seems much lower - maybe you weren't running Aux Heat then but still were in April?? Trying to figure out why your April bill was higher than Nov, and what your "domestic" (for want of better word) electricity usage is vs heating.

Maybe our heating bills aren't that bad, though changing to 2 stages and putting outdoor temp lockout on Aux would help. And as DH and my dad keep pointing out, we have plenty of wood - just need to figure out where we can put a woodstove.

You can get daily climate data (highs, lows, heating and cooling degree days) for nearby airports via national weather service. It is a good tool in deciding whether a given month's heating or cooling bills are reasonable relative to weather or if something maybe wrong.

Yes my figures are for total electric usage. The figures show that November was 4 degrees warmer overall than April, the figures from the electric company are averages, it could be colder when the heat is turned down and warmer when the system is turned up.  The new replacement Geothermal system was installed in Oct. 2008, before that it was broken all summer. I disabled the Aux heat sometime in November, and I will not be re-enabling it unless it gets so cold the system can't handle the heating load.

The question you should be asking is why Febuary's bill is lower then January when it was colder in Febuary. This was around that time the forum started to dabble in setbacks, before it was assumed that Geothermal systems run best at one set temperature, I believe this forum proved otherwise. I started using setback on both system during this time. I also shut down the upstairs zone and used space heaters in the master bedroom/bath since once temperature drops below 30 degrees, the Air source heat pump runs and runs and doesn't make it any warmer than 65 or so. I beleive it's more efficent to just run a resistance space heater in one room, rather than run an ASPH constantly. The upstairs zone get enough heat from the downstairs to pervent it from dropping below 58 or so. (Setback for downstairs 64)   

We've been around the block on this one. TG has an open loop geo which performs differently than closed (particularly in the coldest months of the winter). Disabling an auxilliary coil indefinately is not a great idea in many cases particularly closed loop applications. Many thermostats including the IAQ by Honeywell permit you to interupt the operation of aux. coils above certain outdoor temps.
It's a good idea to consult your installer before modifying system operation.
j

Closed loops suffer from the fact at as the winter season wears on, the temperature of the loop drops. Open loops do not suffer from this disadvantage, the water from the well stay constant year round. Disabling Aux heat puts additional stress on a closed loop, making the EWT from the loop fall faster during the season. I guess with a large enough loop, this wouldn't be an issue, but it would proably have to be a sizable increase in size of the loop, not worth the investment.  

 

My usage for two coldest months this winter - 12/18/08 - 2/18/09:

02/18/2009
2299kWH 30 days 76.63kWH/day $428.59 avg temp 27.8
01/19/2009
1566kWH 19 days 82.41kWH/day estimated
12/31/2008
964kWH 13 days 74.18kWH/day estimated
12/18/2008
1774kWH 31 days 57.23kWH/day

So total (beginning and ending with actual readings) was 6603 kWh for 93 days. Subtract baseload of 40kWh/day, heating usage was 2883 kWh. Over (close to) this period, HDD at airport nearest my house were

12/20/2008 299
12/27/2008 274
1/3/2009 280
1/10/2009 348
1/17/2009 330
1/24/2009 336
1/31/2009 318
2/7/2009 234
2/14/2009 270
2/21/2009 252

so total HDD 2941

How do I translate the HDD data into something like an expected kWH usage for heating a 2700sf house?

I'm not going to modify anything, but want to know what to ask for/look for when the tech comes out. I think I should really ask for t-stat to be set for 2 stage, and probably a lockout temp on the Aux Heat. Anything else?

Mama,
I had suggested to you that your usage was not far off. That is what we can accomplish given the information you have offered. We can not suggest thermostat modifications without knowledge of zone control (1,2 or 3 stage). There are many things we don't know (and that you may not think to tell us) so we try to speak generally.
(This is off track for this thread, so let's resume on yours.)
TG,
You hit the nail on the head re. closed loops. Open loops are not quite constant but they certainly maintain much higher EWTs.
J

I would like help on the other thread - you brought up modifying the system on this thread.

I was responding to engineer's post about HDDs. This would be a really good way of comparing system usage (that's why you asked for it in original post). i just now got them for my area, but I'm trying to figure out the mathematics to apply engineer's statement " It is a good tool in deciding whether a given month's heating or cooling bills are reasonable relative to weather or if something maybe wrong."

I don't really know if my heating bill is "reasonable" for the house size, t-stat setting, HDDs, and system size that I have. If I could figure that out, then maybe I'd be able to figure out whether my system needs to be modified or not. I think the two settings I mentioned should be changed - I'll take any other suggestions on the other thread where I've posted my current settings.

Now, Kip's usage should be total too (I hope!), I'd like to know his baseline usage. Those bills sound really high to me, but maybe his log home is leaky and his HDDs are higher. Nobody's responded to his question as to whether he should be concerned.

If you get a higher than normal electric bill for a given month but HDDs were higher owing to an abnormally cold month then you might be annoyed but not worried about your heating system's performance. If the converse is true then time to start investigating.

Of course high energy bills can be caused by unrelated things like a college kid home for the holidays doing (or getting you to do) 10 loads of laundry and taking two 20 minute showers per day.