What size home do you have and how much do you roughly pay a month? Thank you. 

I live in bonsall, we pay an average of 85 a month. We run fans all day limit our air conditioning and have kept it at that price, not to bad in my opinion. 

I live in Temecula, 4 bd. house. We average about 20.00 a month.

We totally cheat though, we have solar power ;-) 

We live in a 2 bd/2 bath in Oceanside. Our bill is usually between 25-45, but we don't have ac or fans. 

I live in Temecula, 3 bedroom, keep ac on most of the day, we pay $60ish 

I'm in Winchester 4bd/3.5 bath, mine is btwn $45-$55. I don't run AC, have fans. I'm on a hill so i also have a constant breeze/wind, so windows are always open. 

Wtf... yall seriously only pay that? Why is my bill (total) like $200 on base when I have no AC in a 3bed and we keep everything off and unplugged? Screw this crap Im looking for a place out in town. We need to move into a bigger place anyways with the little boy on the way. 

Good to know, thank you ladies.

Wtf... yall seriously only pay that? Why is my bill (total) like $200 on base when I have no AC in a 3bed and we keep everything off and unplugged? Screw this crap Im looking for a place out in town. We need to move into a bigger place anyways with the little boy on the way.

On base? Wow. I live on Lejeune and mine was $25 and that was two monthis combined. Lol still pissed I have to pay it. 

I don't know what type if plan they have on base, but sdg&e (our electric) has a plan to help you cut down. We also get discounts on certain days if we don't use a lot of electricity in certain hours, they send a text to your phone to say when. 

I think most of us are with SCE, not SDG&E which is who base uses. Plus on base you are paying for a third party billing contract.

I still don't get 200.00 with no AC though....that's not right. 

I'm in oceanside, and every apartment I've been in has been sdg&e. There may be something wrong with your meter if you're paying 200 a month. If you're sdge then you can request them to come out and help you figure out how to lower your bill. 

Did they install smart meters when base started charging for electric? You can track your usage online daily if they did. Turn certain things on and off at certain times so you can see what's eating up the power. (Or they just didn't install your meter correctly)

(It would be a digital meter instead of the older spinning wheel type) 

Ours is with sdg&e, I think ours is in the 80-100 dollar range cuz we just moved in and are doing ton of laundry and trying to figure out the best wah to cool our 3 story place. 

I don't know what type if plan they have on base, but sdg&e (our electric) has a plan to help you cut down. We also get discounts on certain days if we don't use a lot of electricity in certain hours, they send a text to your phone to say when. 


I called to ask about this and they don't have any discount plans available. It would be nice to have a time of day price plan option that offers discounted energy prices during off- peak hours. 

That's weird, we're on it. Here's the link

http://www.sdge.com/save-money/reduce-your-use/reduce-your-use-rewards 

Empty houses are factored into the average, and I do believe if you're a conservation Nazi it would bring the grace zone buffer down. 

Empty houses are factored into the average,

Yeah see I KNOW they are but housing claims they aren't. Once the empty homes were filled around us we were suddenly like $20 over the max buffer. Each other time we were $100 over. I keep track of the KW usage and had my dad look over the bills. Apparently we are being charged outrageously per KWh. 

I pay around $180 a month. That's a 3 bedroom house (with 3 people living in it) in oceanside with a pool, jacuzzi and AC. We don't run the AC that often, but the pool pumps run about 6 hours a day in the summer to keep the pool clean. In the winter when i don't run the pool it's about $90 a month (mostly because the jacuzzi is heated with gas).

I have an energy saving fridge, washer and dryer (dryer is gas) that i receive a discount on each month from SDG&E. the credit isn't that much, but every little bit helps.

I didn't know base was charging now for electricity. That was one of the main reasons i lived on base for 12 years, but i moved out 2 years ago and don't regret it one bit especially if now they are charging for electricity. 

I received my first bill for electricity today! Does anyone know what the "SDG&E Rate Structure" on the back of the bill is about? 

We are thinking of living on base the next time we move and this is very discouraging. If other people have any updates, I would like to know if things have gotten better. I did some looking online and found this petition:

http://www.change.org/petitions/the-united-states-department-of-defense-suspend-charging-military-families-for-utility-usage-pending-an-investigation

A lot of people have signed it already but it looks like it is still far from the goal. 

I agree an audit should be done on the program, but giving dependents free reign on utilities is costly. People don't know the true value of something until they have to pay for them.

In Stuart Mesa they give a portion of BAH back (a few years running) so those individuals living in BAH-back districts aren't suffering if they have overage. Serra Mesa as well (lower enlisted).

However, dropping BAH and only paying what utilities we actually use would defeat the purpose of living on base for what you get. It wouldn't be "fair" for a Lance with three kids to get a four bedroom house and get BAH back.

I read one person's comment on the petition that her child was special needs and how it affects the child--there IS a waiver for EFMP families. 

Also, I don't agree with letting the residents set their own average and everyone lives off that. People would pump their usage up to something like $300/month and making a game of it going under to get a refund. Set it too low big families will cry discrimination. 

Before reading all of this I had thought that they would come out with a more thorough way of calculating energy usage than just going off of the houses in the area. I wish they would come out with a better way like, say, installing solar panels. 

That would be optimal in CA, so I would like to know (other than cost) what would hold them back from doing that. 

I read one person's comment on the petition that her child was special needs and how it affects the child--there IS a waiver for EFMP families.

Only some people qualify. Having an EFM that uses something regularly needing electricity doesn't matter either. They are denying the waivers left and right.

My biggest problem is it seems like we are paying much more per Kwh then people are out in town. IDK why they dont have panels out here already. They do on a lot of homes in Lejeune and they did in Hawaii. It kind of surprises me that we dont have any here. 

Lejeune and Hawaii housing have solar water panels, not power.

The water here is usually heated by gas so it wouldn't save much on the electric bill if they went that route at Pendleton.

Pendleton still has plenty of room to build a solar farm (like Lejeune has been doing) or a wind farm. Not sure why it hasn't been done, maybe the base CO wasn't as aggressive about saving energy as Lejeunes was when money WAS available for projects like that. 

I was told it can take 8 weeks to have a waiver approved, so don't wait if you need it. Has anyone one here kept track of their meter? I would like to be able to track my energy consumption online since we have "smart meters". 

I've already made a list of items housing has to fix once they start charging us for something we already pay, I would advise everyone to do the same. If air seeps through any crack door fame window it will cost you in the long run