Podcast episode (single-speaker monologue) explaining unusually high electricity bills in fall/winter. The speaker attributes spikes to HVAC systems running backup/auxiliary/emergency heat as primary heat (e.g., heat pumps using heat strips or dual-fuel systems where the gas furnace runs continuously) and recommends scheduling HVAC maintenance to identify and fix the issue.
Chapters
What is going on with my power bill lately? This winter season, fall season is out of control. It is more than it's ever been. What's happening? That is the question for today. What is happening? Well, with inflation, of course, everything has gone up. But when you go into cooling season, into heating season, if you have not had a maintenance done, you could be running your backup heat, your auxiliary heat, your emergency heat as your primary heat if everything isn't checked out and good to go. We have seen this in more than one situation in which the homeowner thought nothing was wrong. Everything's fine, I got heat, it works. The heat's running. When I need heat, it has heat. So I didn't think there was a problem. So we come out, do a maintenance check, everything. It turns out the backup heat has been running the entire time. It could be as simple as a heat pump and only heat strips are working. Or it could be a dual fuel system where you have a heat pump and you have a gas furnace, either package or split, and your gas could be running, could be running all the time versus your heat pump and your backup heat being the gas. So that's something to pay attention to, make sure is good to go in your system. But we have found it in most occasions on a maintenance, a scheduled maintenance is something that has been found. So. So make sure if you're experiencing those very, very high light bills and you're, you're not used to them, something could be going on with the system itself.
