It's New Years Eve and I've now had three months of electric bills with the heat pump. Remember I'm heating around 950 square feet with a Fujitsu Halcyon- an 18,000 BTU mini-split for cold climates.
So I'm going to offer my last three months of electric bills. My normal electric bill is around $50. (I don't use much juice I guess. No large TV or stereo, no cable modem or TV controller, I never use the stove - i'm a microwave, rice-cooker person.) So I'm figuring any amount in excess of $50, we can chalk up to the heat pump.
The first month hardly counts as it was early fall: the bill for September,-October, (mostly milder weather this year) was $67. I ran the thing constantly as the advice was to set it and forget it so that's what I did.... So $17 for a little heat.
For October-November, a colder time at the end, my bill was $102. So $52 for heat. Not bad.
November-December had some really cold spells. My bill was $202. So $152 for heat. I would have had an oil delivery by now. So $152 compared to $400-$945 for a load of #2 heating oil, depending on the price of oil.
UPDATE: Feb 6, 2023 - I now have the Dec-Jan bill also a bit higher but still better than a tank of oil - $272 minus the baseline $50 so $222 for heat.
(I have water filled heat pipes in three rooms not heated by the mini-split. If temps are freezing, say in the teens for several days straight - I am sporadically running a electric space heater on low in two rooms to keep those rooms about 50 degrees. The cost of running them is included in the electric bill. For three days when temps were in the single digits, I ran the furnace over night - for just for three days to warm up that unused space so the pipes don't freeze.
So far so good. I still have most of the oil delivered here in March at an exorbitant price. (I have hot water off the furnace. Dont use much of that either I guess!) The electric company will up rates in January. We'll see how that pans out. :)
