Hello to all, This is the second month since we had our geothermal in full operation. Our electric bill from Nov. to December was $315 ($277 electric+ 38 gas combined) with more than 1600 KW usage . After that bill, our installer adjusted our thermostat from "comfort level" to "economy level". The second bill came out for Decemeber to 1st week of January and it is now $290 ($258 electric and $32 gas) with more than 1500 KW usage and it was colder the last month. I guess it's working good. Our old electric bill was $100 per month average ($70 on electric and $30 on gas). So really, the heating cost us $258-$70=$188 this month. Our old heating system was oil which was $3.54/gallon at the highest that time and used approximately 500 gallon.

Is that 500 gallons for the entire heating season ? Also, do you setback your temps at nights. We are finding the most efficient to leave our temps at 70° 24/7. What is the size of your geo ? Is it a dual speed compressor and/or fan speed ? Whats your home square footage ?

Yes 500 gallon using it conservatively, setting the thermostat to 65 degrees as possible. It cost us almost $2000 for the entire winter. We keep our thermostat at 67 degrees most of the time and at night, we set upstair at 66 degrees. Our geo is 3 ton with single stage compressor. Our house is almost 2000 SF. How about you BadgerBoy? how's your bill coming along?

We are in North Jersey and as of now it is in the lower 20's again and it is predicted to be in the 30s for the whole week.

We swapped out our old propane furnace and started up with geo the first of October this year. Our October electic bill didn't show any increase because of the geo. November showed about $35 more electric use. (I'm comparing our bills this year with our average for the last two years). We just got our bill for December usage and it is about $125 more than the last 2 year average. We have a 4 ton 2 stage WaterFurnace in a 1900 sq.ft 50 year old farmhouse. We turned off the electric backup. Our furnace runs full duty (100% of the time in stage 1) at somewhere between 0° and 10° outside temp. Before geo, we used about 770 gallons of propane at currenty about $2.40 a gallon to heat the house each year. So, we're happy with it so far. Waiting to see what the temps next week will do to the run times and stage 2 operation. Its supposed to be in the -20°'s with wind.

oops, first of October LAST year
i'm in northeast wisconsin

Our auxilliary is wired. The electric rate also went up so I guess that another factor. Thats a very good result on your part! your electric is probably cheaper too compare to us here in New Jersey.

For basis of comparison because my home is approximately the same size at 1950 sq ft and 70 years old, I'll throw in my data: 

My Nov/Dec bill (mostly Dec) came out to be 1572 KWh, previous years I averaged around 450KWh, so this shows an increase of ~1100KWh on my electric bill.  I installed submeters and I can confirm that my geo system in that same timeframe actually used 1158 KWh's. 

Now, in that same timeframe I had 1035 heating degree days (HDD) here in the Albany, NY area, so I average about 1 KWh per HDD.  (last year I had 1054 HDD's so not too much of a difference).

Just so both of you can compare I did a quick search of your areas and found weather stations in the approximate locations where you live:

Iron Mountain, MI (I know it's not WI, but this was the closest to NE WI I could find quickly)
In December 2008 you had 1603 HDD's
In December 2007 you had 1450 HDD's

Morristown, NJ (again, I don't know if this is near you, but I looked for stations in Northern NJ)
In December 2008 you had 954 HDD's
In December 2007 you had 932 HDD's

I have found that HDD's is a good way to equalize for temperature difference in different locations.  Of course this does not help to equalize soil conditions, type of loop, etc.

Just more data to digest....

Interesting data Ona....I checked Green Bay heating degree days for December and they were at 1542. We are kind of between Green Bay and Iron Mountain....so maybe we had 1600 HDD's here (it always seems colder here)....and according to my estimate, we used around 1,020 KWH in December additional because of the geo. That's maybe .64 KWH/HDD average if my KWH estimate is good :). oh, our electric rates are about $0.11/KWH. KWH per HDD might be a useful gauge for all those questions of how geo affects the electric bill.