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My husband and I just closed on a house in Nassau county. I wanted to know, please, about how much the utilities will run us. The appliances are all going to be electric and we will use oil for heating. The house has 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms. It's going to be the two of us, a pre-schooler, a toddler and a live in nanny (M-F only). Any estimates will be appreciated...
LIPA: $150-$200/mo ($150 for us - 2 kids, 3bed/1bath)
Oil: depends if you go with an independent vs. contracted (more expensive price per gallon) and how your insulation is... we had to have our heat on 24/7 for our infants and it avg'd out to ~$250/mo. in oil refills during those winter months last year. Our insulation is horrible and have old windows - apparently the plastic sheets aren't much help. Good thing is it costs next to nothing for non-winter months here and even with A/C, the electric bill isn't hit that hard.
Assuming you use the oil burner for hot water, $200 sounds about right for LIPA ($250 in summer with A/C..as low as $150 in winter). Electric hot water bumps that up quite a bit.
Water isn't much...$10-15 a month.
Heat/Oil probably varies the most depending on your usage. Before we bought a pellet stove, we used 2.5 tanks in the winter (275 gal tank).
We are about the same demographic as the OP with 3 adults and 2 toddlers in the house.
unfortunately every house is different. Are the windows new? How much isulation is in the walls/attic? Also the occupants make a difference. Since the nanny wont be paying the utilities, will she be courtious and not waste electric, and keep the heat at a reasonable level? There are way too many variables. Unfortunately, you wont know until you are living there for some time. Good luck with the house.
Ok since we are at it....
I will be moving into a 2 story 1500 sqft with 5yrs old boiler (oil heat) and 5 A/C 's.
Cooking is Electric. House has vinyl sidings, no idea how good or thick the insulation is. House sits on a slab. There is attic in the house and the inspector said that you need to lay some planks in there in order to walk so I'm guessing its not finished. 2 Zones heating, I like to keep the temperature at 68 at least during winters. Roof is new, not sure if it helps, windows are newer, i'm sure that should help....
What is the average bill per month I can expect over the entire year ? I am budgeting for $350 to $450 for LIPA + oil.... please tell me it should be enough !!
LIPA has been between $100 to $150, but I haven't been running AC 24/7. All the the appliances were replaced with energy star and I installed Gas for the Dryer/Stove. I expect a much higher bill in August b/c I have been running AC. I suspect it will be closer to $100 in the non summer months. I do have an old energy start hot water tank though. I love to rig-up a solar panel to it at some point. We are conservation-minded.
Oil - I haven't used much. I actually turned the damn thing off in July and I have a 3yr old at home. If you want to save money use CODFuel.com. My aunt was paying like $4.50 with a contract and I filled up for like $2.09. And she can barely pay her bills each month. Deflation is your friend.
For some reason my water bill has been strange. I was billed for like $70 and the the next month .69 cents. I have to call and figure out whats going on there...
Gas has been cheap. I was billed $9 for 22 days for dryer/stove.
I'm in Suffolk, but with 5 bedrooms, efficient windows, decent insulation, electric heating, electric stove/range, 3 wall Air Conditioners, pool pump that runs for 4 hours a day, 2 adults, 4 kids (3 teenagers), and various TVs, computers, game consoles, miscellaneous gadgetry.
During the summer months with the AC's and pool pump going on a regular basis, our LIPA gets into the 300s. During the winter months it's doesn't break 200.
We used to live in an older dutch colonial that had oil for heat, and we would go through 300 gallons of oil a month easily during the winter. The insulation was terrible and you could feel drafts everywhere.
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