In Which I Get My First “I Have to Pay For My Own Heat Now” Electric Bill

How high do you think it’ll be?

I don’t get monthly electric bills, so it took two months of having electric heat installed in my one-bedroom apartment for me to learn how much it would cost me.

(According to the types of internet forums that show up when you google “landlord installed electric heat,” I could expect my electric costs to jump up by hundreds of dollars, so I was a little nervous about getting that first bill.)

The Cost of Having New Heat Installed in Your Apartment

For service from September 15 to November 15, during which I kept my thermostat at 65 degrees (except when I turned it up to 70 for the fifteen minutes before I went to bed) and only turned on the heat for the room I was currently in, I was charged $27.33.

My electric bill is generally closer to $16, so I haven’t quite doubled my energy costs.

I expect that my electric bill will go up a bit more over the next few months, first because it’s getting colder, second because I’ll probably start wanting to keep the heat on at night, and third because I may have to heat both my bedroom and my living room overnight so the pipes don’t freeze. (How cold does it have to be before pipes freeze? I should search for answers on internet forums.)

But $27.33 isn’t bad.

Also, 65 degrees now feels comfortably warm.

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