Good to point out that you have to sign up.

Air source heat pumps are great, but NG is still often cheaper if you have it available.

Personally I only use Honduran mahogany, ebony, teak and bubinga in my wood stove. Not cheap but the ambiance is unbeatable.

This is always going to be hard without lots more detail, but in general it sounds like you probably have some opportunities to reduce your bill. I heat a well-insulted 1200 sq ft house with one heat pump, plus heat pump water heater, 24 sq ft of heated tile floor, energy star dehumidifier, energy star air purifier, energy star chest freezer, energy star washer and dryer, one electric vehicle, and a basement drain pump plus usual household appliances, and pay $300-$350, but we’re on a time of use rate because of the EV.

• how often do you run laundry? Two loads a week is different from six loads a week, for example.
• are you on Standard Offer supply or some scammy third party supplier?
• do you clean the air filters in your heat pump and water heater and dehumidifier at least monthly? If not, they’re working a lot harder than they need to. Your dryer too — make sure the whole vent is clean for both efficiency and fire safety.
• are all your appliances and fixtures energy star? Light bulbs here are huge — with LEDs your light should be a couple bucks a month, with old school incandescents it’s probably $10-20.

Call your local library and ask if they have electricity loggers to lend you. Most do, and you can use those to get a better idea of what the freezer, dehumidifier, etc are using monthly.

The odds are very good that the #1 thing you could do to save energy is insulation and air sealing. A couple tubes of caulk to seal cracks around windows and doors is an easy first step. $50 for a sheet of foam insulation and can of spray foam to insulate rim joists can be next. Then look at Efficiency Maine for rebates on attic and basement and everything else.

name checks out

My baseline for a 2300 sqft, 1980 cape on the midcoast was about $65/ mo. Oil hot water, line dry in the summer, 2 teens 1 adult. Have installed 5 heat pumps but they weren't all online until about Xmas. One was, and I wanna say December bill was about $90, but I like to only pay my bill every few months so I'm not really sure what December's share was. Also use a wood stove. Sorry, I'm not at all helpful!

I enrolled in CMPs energy monitor thing, where I can view usage daily. Maybe try that?

This is true, but you need to call them to sign up, otherwise they don’t know you heat with electricity.

And whether or not it’s more expensive to heat with electricity depends on what electric technology you use. With a heat pump the only thing cheaper per Btu is a wood stove. With electric resistance heat there’s nothing more expensive except a wood stove that only burns mahogany.

Make extra potatoes. Use those as a bottom and sidewalls in addition to them on top. Thank me later!

Make a basic but hardy sauce: 1 onion, loosely diced I can tomato sauce 1 can diced tomatoes 1/2 can tomato paste Teaspoon Oregano Teaspoon basil Salt & pepper to taste

In a LARGE pot, add olive oil and cook onions until just browning.

Add other ingredients and bring to boil

Turn to low and simmer for a half hour

Brown 2lbs hamburger

Cook one box elbow macaroni

Mix everything together in large pot and continue cooking for 10 minutes

Salt and pepper to taste

You’re stopping at like the first line.

6 acres in production for vegetables.

Some animals separate from that.

And perennial plants. Doesn’t say how many acres for that.

The farm prolly makes more off perennials.

We live in Camden and used a company called Solarlogix. They were great. Got a few quotes with no major differences, just went with who we got a good vibe from. If you know your annual usage, size the system to cover - with net metering it doesn’t matter when you generate vs use. We didn’t know, and also planned on getting heat pumps. So we did round 1 knowing we’d need to do round 2 after a year or so of measuring usage. I don’t recommend batteries- they are super expensive and with net metering have limited benefit.

For sure, don’t say tabernac up north, it’s like screaming the C word in a room full of women.

Any tips about getting residential solar? Thinking about looking into it.

Lift seemed to be parked, rain caused a sinkhole. No damage

The Bangor Historical Society has the sword he carried at Little Roundtop. There’s a repair to the scabbard where it took a blow. Also the Maine Military museum in Augusta at Camp Keyes has his revolver.

It might seem like a lot but it's not. Look up the amps specification for the heat pump. It might pull 10-15 amps at the peak of its duty cycle. At 220V, that's 2.2 to 3.3 kWh/hour, or 36 to 59¢ per hour of heat (10 or 15 amps times 220V for one hour = 2.2 to 3.3kWh at 18 ¢/kWh = 40 to 59¢).

If it runs half the time that's $144 to $212 a month (rounded: 30 days times 12 hours/day x 40 or 59¢ per hour). If it ran all the time that would be twice that. If an 120btu/hour (roughly 1 gallon/hour) oil furnace ran 12 hours a day at the current state average of $4.50/gallon, that would be $1600.

The only thing cheaper is firewood.

Yeah I can't think of any recent events that would have allowed moisture to get inside the home! Everyone knows winters are dry

I'm just gonna piggyback on here so OP sees it because my shit is very close to theirs.

1990sq ft colonial house 2 adults 1 toddler. 2 heat pumps electric wash/dryer 1 dehumidifier 1 small chest freezer. Only gas appliance is the oven. Electric bill is currently around $220-280/month. House was built in 2021 so modern insulation and windows will play a big factor

Yuuhp, whole thing friggen toppled over

I'm a shepherd. That means I farm sheep. It's not shepherd's pie unless it uses ground lamb or mutton. It's cottage pie. Look it up, people. Be good to your local shepherd.

I think that’s right. Lots of Canadian French swears are religious in nature. Like “tabernak!”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_French_profanity

Ok, I’m not going to argue with you about it.

A sharpened spade could chop right at ice level.

Agree! For the longest time I thought that’s what shepherds pie was, bless my mother but her recipe was terrible for this (though at least she did make homemade mashed for it) many years later Alton Browns shepherds pie recipe converted me and now I’m a fan.

Yup

We have a 2000sq ft 2 story home, plus a small in-law house. We heat with a wood stove and supplement with oil. My moms in law suite is electric heat. Our biggest electric bill was in July with 3 ACs going, that was about $350. With my mom heating her space (400sq ft) with electric heat our bill is about $230-$250. When my husband is drying cannabis, it goes up again as the room needs to be kept at a cool and dry temp.

Electricity Maine?