Why Is My Xcel Bill So High helps Xcel customers in Colorado see what raised their bill and what to fix first. It is not affiliated with Xcel Energy.
Who does the work
When you send photos or schedule an estimate, the request goes to the Denver heating and cooling contractor that does our estimates and installs: heat pumps, furnaces, AC, heat pump water heaters and electrical panels. We don't do energy audits, insulation or air sealing. For those, the site points you to Xcel's Home Energy Squad and Xcel's participating contractors. The photos on this site are from our installs.
How the decoder works
- Reference rate. Each month uses the residential gas and electric rates in Xcel's rate summaries in effect mid-month, from January 2024 on. Electricity uses the standard residential rate as a reference price for every kWh; time-of-use bills charge more from 5 to 9 p.m. Taxes, city fees and credits aren't in Xcel's summaries.
- The bill adds up. The decoder's lines add to an estimate at the reference rate. The gap between that estimate and your total shows as "Unexplained difference", with its plus or minus sign, so every line reconciles to the bill.
- What heats the house. In a home heated with gas, gas above the water heater's share is heating. Gas for a water heater uses Colorado's monthly average from the EIA's 2020 household survey, 13 to 19 therms a month, unless you give your July therms. In a home heated by baseboards or a heat pump, all gas is base load and electricity above a no-heat month is heating. Without your own no-heat month, the decoder uses Colorado's average of 487 kWh (EIA, refrigerators and other use), which leaves out an electric water heater.
- Cooling. June to September, with your no-heat month's kWh, the kWh above it count as cooling.
- Weather. Heating and cooling degree days for Denver International Airport come from NOAA's monthly summaries, compared with NOAA's 1991-2020 normals. Heating is assumed to follow heating degree days. A colder month shows as a plus, a milder one as a minus. When NOAA hasn't published a month yet, the decoder uses the normal.
- Rate changes. The same use priced at this year's rates and at the rates a year earlier. The difference is the rate change.
- Year over year. Last year's heating is scaled by the change in degree days to get weather. Rate changes come from the rate summaries. The rest of the change in use is yours, and whatever remains is the unexplained difference.
It is an estimate. Billing periods don't line up with calendar months, and the gas cost adjustment can change mid-quarter.
Prices
Prices are typical ranges from our recent estimates in the Denver area, before rebates, rounded to the nearest $100. Half of recent Denver estimates fall inside each range. The ducted heat pump range follows our current pricing instead. Figures after rebates assume Xcel gas, the Denver metro and a 2026 install.
Privacy
Photo and booking requests are handled under the privacy policy.