Owning an all Electric Home in New England/Mid Atlantic

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verizonbear

verizonbear

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 27, 2010
Messages
351
Location
Glen Burnie
Hello all , my search for the perfect home contnues, I did find a foreclosed 1800 square foot townhouse that needs some substansial cosmetic work that I willing to contract out, it's systems and bones are ok. However it's ALL electric! heat, water heater, dryer and range. Maryland gets cold in the winter. It's only me that would be living in the house. I can easily work with the off peak demand time of day based billing service by the the electric company. The unit was built in 1985 and has newer double pained windows and adequate insulation. I would value some imput on the what the cost of winter utilies.
 
Don't they do an energy survey of the house and give you an exact estimate of the energy needed to heat and cool the house when they sell it?
Over here is compulsory and the house are classed just like the appliances but I don't know how it works over there.

If you're doing a lot of works, why don't you think adding solar collectors to assist the electric boiler? The investment isn't that big and the savings are substantial. Also for cooking and drying you could consider having a gas pipe installed, that would leave the electric only for heating. Is the current setup heat pump or resistive based? If it's the latter, switching to a hight efficiency heat pump or condensing heater (or a combi-boiler maybe), would more than halve your utilities! But the cost of a new heating plant could be very high!
 
Phil

What kind of heat does it have the heat pump or the old electric furnace or the basboard heat with the baseboard you can set down the temp in unused areas but stil not as good as the heat pump. On the hot water heater you could put a timer on it or you could put in a tankless waterheater.

Try to find out from realtor the past monthly electric bills.
 
It is a heat pump, the unit is 4 stories , there is a baseboard unit and a fireplace on the first floor. I did not know they make electric on demand water heaters?
 
ALL ELECTRIC HOME IN MARYLAND

You can get copies the last several years bills to get a rough idea of what the house may cost to run. On demand tankless electric water heaters save almost nothing and need a 125AMP circuit to operate properly, they are costly to install and can be very troublesome to own. Heat pump water heaters make much more sense, I just bought one for my partner in December and between rebates from BG&E and the stare and federal tax credits it knocked the price down to less than $700. Air source heat pumps work very well here in Maryland and if you have or get one of the new ones that use the new refrigerant they still produce 75% of the heat at o degrees that they do @ 45 degrees outside temperature. On my partners home I completely locked out the expensive electric back up heat 3 years ago and it still keeps us warm.

 

And the very best thing about about an all electric home is you have an ALL ELECTRIC KITCHEN YEY and if you are not mechanically inclined or don't like regular electric cooktops you can get an induction cooktop I have had one for 24 years now and it never ceases to amaze me how well they perform. Feel free to get in touch with me directly if you have other questions John. 
 
I Have All Electric Here...

...Portland doesn't have the high electric rates that most of the east coast has. But I still get a really significant savings on my monthly bills by keeping the main thermostat fairly low (electric resistance furnace here), and warm the area I'm in with a ceramic space heater or two. I've been less than happy with the on-demand water heaters at work, so I have a high efficiency tank model set at 145F here (I like a truly HOT wash in my dishwasher). For bedtime I use an electric mattress pad. My overall utility bills are usually lower than my mother's bills, who uses natural gas to heat but doesn't do much conservation wise. Both houses are similar in age, square footage and (sadly lacking) insulation.

 

None of my measures make me uncomfortable, and I keep my overall electric below $200 even during cold months ($192 was my highest and we dropped to some teens temp-wise then).
 
And, if you are worried about winter bills, you can ask to get on a budget billing where you pay the same amount all year to avoid peaks in the winter. If the dryer is located near the water heater and you install a heat pump water heater, you can use the dryer unvented during the winter(with proper auxillary filtration to catch the lint) and recover the heat from drying the clothes to heat the water and condense the moisture as a bonus, not that it is usually a problem in the winter, especially for one person's clothes drying output.

When I lived in a total electric condo in VA decades ago, I turned the heat down at night and used an electric radiator in my bedroom with the door closed. I had a space heater to warm up the bathroom before I showered in the morning and managed to keep my winter bills reasonable even with a resistance heat electric furnace. I also covered the single pane sliding door with a clear vinyl shower curtain that went from the floor up and I never had a cold draft from that glass door.
 
Thanks everyone for all the advice, The unit is a foreclosure not sure if the local electric company ( BGE) would be able to pull prior usage. The unit does have the polybutylene pipes that are first on my list to replace, since that will cost about 4k if I decide to buy one of hvac water heaters for sure
 
POLYBUTYLENE PIPES

My partners house also has this piping and has had no problems in the 21 years that the house has been standing. I would check the history of plumbing problems in this neighborhood to see how much of a problem this really is. BG&E should still be able to give you electrical use history and that of other similar houses in your neighborhood if thier are other similar homes.
 

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