Well Im not sure what "skyrocket" means to you, but yes I agree with what was mentioned above. The more volume of air, the more your have to heat and cool. Vaulted ceilings and other trends of today are estimated to be a dying trend since energy costs are only going to continue to rise unless some other technology takes the place of the energy production we know of today-IE gas, coal for electric generation. Maybe in 10 years 8' ceilings may be the norm again.?? Don't get me wrong, it looks nice to have a 2 story foyer or a great room with a 2 story ceiling, but it's not practicle. There are only so many dead dynosaurs that are now coal that we can burn?

Last home: 3200sf, two story ceilings in family room and foyer. cost to heat $300+ per month for natural gas. Double pane windows. Family room on the north.

Current home: 4,000sf, 11 ft family room ceiling, smaller 2-story foyer. Low-E windows. cost to heat averages $100+ per month in winter for natural gas (and the prices have gone up since the previous house). Family room on the north. Passive solar on the front.

Cameron

Our new home is twice as large as our last home and the bills run the same. The great room is cathedral, peaking at 28ft. The MBR is cathedral, peaking at 22ft. The rest of the main level has 9ft ceilings. The lower level ceilings are 10.5ft.

We have a two story great room (17' ceiling) with 8'3" ceilings elsewhere, except the master bedroom which is sloped (8' lowest, 11' highest). The upper portion of the great room connects to the upstairs hallway, so that is where some of the heat goes. The thermostat is in the kitchen. With just the first floor heat on, the great room's temp will be 2-3 degrees lower than the kitchen. It's not a dramatic difference considering the size of the room (18Wx19Lx17H). The heating guy messed one thing up. There are two vents in the ceiling. These were (stupidly) put on the second floor zone rather than the first floor zone. As a result, they never augment the heat in the great room, as they were supposed to. I refuse to turn up the second floor heat just to get those two vents going. I'm going to look into having them wired to damper and a separate thermostat (the master bedroom is that way).

Our house wouldn't have cost much more to heat without the high ceiling in that one room. If that space didn't have a high ceiling it would have ended up as another room on the second floor, so the volume of the house wasn't increase by having this high ceiling. Does that make sense?

But you are increasing the total volume of the house. Lower ceilings will definitely lower your energy bill, there is no way around it. It's the volume.

"I feel that if my home is well-insulated with efficient windows and hvac equipment, energy bills should be quite the opposite."

That doesn't make sense. The opposite of what? What are you comparing? If the house is well-insulated and efficient, it will still have a higher energy bill with high ceilings. The energy bill won't go down by increasing the ceiling height.

Where are you located? My house is about that size and it cost about $2k to heat last year. Now, we keep it cold (55 at night, 65 when home, 68-70 when guests are over). We are in southern Maine. Our friends who keep their house at 72 pay about $600 per month for the winter months, whereas we pay about $400. Our house is slightly bigger and better insulated.

Like someone said in another post, very tall ceilings are a waste of energy on space you can't walk on. That makes sense. Our ceilings are 10' and we didn't want to go any higher because we didn't see the need for it. Why cool and heat space you can't walk on? Our new house is much move energy efficient than the present home and just making those important upgrades, our utility bills will be so much cheaper than they are now in a much smaller house, with low ceilings, but no insulated windows, no top of the line EE heating/cooling unit, foam insulation, etc.

Skyrocket compared to what. Depends on what your are comparing it to.

Our previous home was a 20+ year old basic 1000 sf ranch. The utility bill for my old home was over 100.00 more for the same period last year than my new 2500 sf 1 1/2 story home w/ 16' ceilings in the foyer and great room. Not only was it the same period but the average temp last yr was 82, in my new home it was 96.

My new home has a lot of "wasted space" and a lot more sf but because it was built better it is a lot more energy efficient.

Thanks for all the great information! For those that were wondering what I mean by having skyrocketed bills: I currently live in a 35 year old ranch house with no insulated walls, very little insulation in attic and original windows. My current monthly energy bill at its highest has been around $270. If I can stay under $300, that's cool with me. I am in southern Louisiana, so cold weather is the least of my worries!

I strongly advise you to use Low E windows. We're sitting out in the middle of an open meadow south-facing in North Carolina. We did passive solar to help with the winter (sun is at an angle) heating and the sun warms the stone front porch and radiates through all the single French doors on the porch (5). The dormer windows above the porch allow the winter sun to warm the core of the house. Our HVAC is dual-fuel. It's a heat pack until the temps drop below 38 degrees, then it's natural gas.

In the summer (sun is straight up overhead), the 8 ft deep front porch keeps the front of the house shaded. The dormer windows don't get the sun at that angle.

We minimized windows on the west side and put our garage there to help insulate the house. We have trees on the north side and the ones on the west don't help in the summer until 5:00pm. You've really got to watch out for the heat from the west in our area and I assume you'll have the same situation down there.

We keep our A/C on 74 degrees on both floors all summer long and we get cold! I think my husband said our electric bill was $125 last time with 95-100 degree weather.

Here's a photo to visualize the layout for passive.

{{gwi:11389}}

We're in new construction 2400sf ranch on a basement. We are entirely electric and in last months brutal heat our bill was $156 !!! I was pleasantly surprised (it was our first full month).

We kept it at 76 during the day and 74 in the evenings. 80gal HWH and dehumidifier running constantly in the basement.

I'll be shocked if you can't keep the bill lower than $300. You're climate is not as mild as we are, but still should be well under your budget.

I just read an article about home size stabilizing in the USA; it's now a median of 2400 sq ft w/9-foot ceilings (new homes). The guess is that, as energy costs begin to approach those in Europe, homes will stay the same size or even shrink.

High ceilings are practical in hot climates; low ceilings better in cold ones. Very high ceilings are not "cozy", making a room feel like a hotel lobby. Lobbies and other public spaces are built that way to accommodate crowds that generate heat and odors.

Be careful that what you build looks and feels like a home, and not a public building. Be aware of the need to carefully plan your HVAC to keep every space comfortable.

xavier, I live in S. La also. My electric bill has been between $200 - $300 since summer started. I think it actually went below $200 last month! Our new house also has a wrap around porch and that too will help with our utility bills.

I live in a 1400sf 45 year old ranch in Central TX with no insulation in the walls, blown-in insulation in the attic, original windows & 8ft ceiling. My summer elec. bill averages $300 per month with dryer, furnace and range natural gas. A few years ago we installed a high efficiency 15.5 SEER compressor. It runs all day long and has a hard time maintaining 74 degrees (74 in this house is comfortable) when the outside temp is over 96.

The new house is almost 3500 sf w/ 12ft. foyer, 14ft. cathedral livingroom and 10ft. in the rest of the house. We haven't moved in yet but the AC is up and running. The house is positively cold at 78. We have two zones and they maintain 78 perfectly and the compressors run infrequently. This is with workers in and out all day and the attic still needs blown-in insulation. I can't wait to see my first bill!

We live in Wisconsin and have a 19' ceiling in our living room that also has a loft. The 19' ceiling has had a minimal impact on our heating/cooling bills. We have low e windows, extra insulation, lots of windows for passive solar gain, 3-1/2' overhangs to block out summer sun, insulating window coverings, a set back thermostat, zoned heating/cooling and a ceiling fan. A well designed house with high ceilings can be energy efficient. Whether high ceilings are cozy or not is subjective and a matter of personal preference. Personally, I love the high ceilings in my living room and the loft and love the way our family lives in the open space. Whether it's wasted space depends upon your family too. We didn't need another 400 sf of finished space, so to have put rooms above our great room would have been a waste. And I sit in our living room every day and enjoy the high ceilings so something that I use and enjoy every day is not a waste for me. Our gas/electric utility calculated the home heating rating for our home, which is 2.6 (calculated as Heating BTUs per Square Foot per Heating Degree Day and 2.6 is considered to be excellent). Good luck!

kellyeng, I'm glad you said what you said. "our house is positively cold at 78".

Can 78 be different in different houses? because we set our new house at 76 and I'm sure it feels colder than 76 did at the other house.

Silly question, but that's how it feels. :)

A dry 78 will feel colder than a humid 78.

It depends a lot on how hard your A/C is working. If you have too big a unit, it won't run enough to dehumidify. I've noticed that problem during transitional seasons when the A/C only runs a little. Here in FL, it's almost always humid. I also wonder how accurate the average thermostat is? This morning, it is 76 outside, but feels much warmer than the (air conditioned) house does at 78. Just to make things interesting, below a certain point, humid air will feel colder than dry air!

flgargoyle -- Ah yes, cold and clammy! Shortly after WWII my aunt and uncle were living in Yorkshire. My mother (in Chicago) sent them this wonderful new invention: electric blankets. My aunt wrote with thanks, saying they were enjoying the blankets "now that the beds have stopped steaming after three days".