How to lower your AC bill with FPL or CHELCO

FPL Northwest FL or CHELCO: check your bill

Two utilities split most of this area. FPL Northwest FL is the former Gulf Power territory. CHELCO, the Choctawhatchee Electric Cooperative, is a member-owned co-op headquartered in DeFuniak Springs with more than 76,000 accounts across Okaloosa, Walton, Holmes and Santa Rosa counties, Eglin AFB included. The service lines do not follow city limits neatly, so the top of your bill is the reliable answer.

FPL Northwest FL: the $200 instant rebate

FPL Northwest FL offers a $200 instant rebate on a new system. The rules, as FPL publishes them:

• It is for a complete new system with both the indoor and outdoor units, not just one half.
• The system must be rated 15.2 SEER2 or higher.
• It has to be installed by an FPL-approved Participating Independent Contractor.

If you are replacing and you are on FPL, ask the company up front whether it is a participating contractor. The rebate is applied at the sale, so it is easy to miss if nobody mentions it.

CHELCO: heat pump rebates

CHELCO's rebates are for heat pumps. Dual fuel and mini-split heat pumps rated 15 SEER or more earn $350 per ton, for single-family homes only. Existing manufactured homes that replace an electric furnace with a heat pump earn $400 per ton. Every CHELCO rebate needs a load calculation by CHELCO Energy Services and a licensed installer, so call CHELCO before you sign a replacement contract, not after. The load calculation is worth having anyway: it is how you find out what size the house actually needs.

If you are on CHELCO and replacing an old strip-heat system, this is the program to look at. The heat pump page and the mini split page cover the equipment.

Thermostat and humidity

The DOE Energy Saver guide's general advice is to set the thermostat as high as you are comfortable with while you are home and raise it when you are away. I am not going to give you a percentage savings per degree, because it depends too much on the house.

The comfort problem here is often humidity, not temperature. Crestview now averages 12 days a year with a mean dew point of 75°F or more, and the July average dew point is 73°F. A dry house at 78°F feels better than a damp one at 75°F, and you pay for every degree of that 75. The EPA recommends keeping indoor humidity below 60 percent, ideally 30 to 50. A cheap hygrometer tells you where you are. If the house is cold and still damp, the system may be oversized or the fan may be set to run continuously. Ask the technician whether the fan should be on "auto" rather than "on" for your system, since a fan running between cycles can blow moisture off the wet coil back into the house. More in our humidity page.

Families on PCS orders often arrive at Eglin or Hurlburt Field in the middle of summer and ask whether their first bill is normal. Part of the jump is the season. Part is often fixable. If the system runs nonstop and the bill keeps climbing, have the system and the ducts checked before blaming the rate. See when the AC can't keep up.

Winter counts too

This is not South Florida. The metro averages about 1,586 heating degree days a year to go with 2,595 cooling degree days, and the January low in Crestview is 38°F. 80% of Crestview homes heat with electricity. On a heat pump, the expensive part of a cold night is the backup heat strips. If your winter bill spikes, ask the technician whether the strips are coming on more than they should. That can point to a thermostat setting or low refrigerant. It can also mean the heat pump is not doing its share.

Airflow and ducts

• Filters. Change them on schedule. A clogged filter cuts airflow, makes the system run longer and can freeze the coil.
• Ceiling fans. A fan cools people, not rooms. DOE says ceiling fans let you raise the thermostat setting without feeling less comfortable. Turn them off when you leave the room.
• Duct sealing. Many homes here have ducts in the attic, the hottest place on the property in summer. Leaky ducts pull attic air in and push cooled air out. Sealing and insulating them is on DOE's list for a reason. Fixr puts duct work at $300 to $700, with $500 as the average.
• Outdoor unit. Keep plants and debris away from the condenser. Near the Gulf and Choctawhatchee Bay, salt builds up on the coil, and a dirty coil works harder.

Duct cleaning is a different thing from duct sealing. The EPA says duct cleaning has never been shown to actually prevent health problems, and it will not lower your bill on its own. Read our duct cleaning page before you book a coupon special.

Maintenance and when to replace

A tune-up runs $65 to $200 according to This Old House, with $133 as the average. It is worth it if the visit actually cleans the coils and clears the drain line, and less so if it is mostly a sales visit. Our maintenance page lists what a visit should include.

This Old House puts the typical life of a home cooling system at 12 to 15 years. An older system near the end of that range, especially one that needs a major repair, may cost more to keep running than to replace. New split systems in Florida have to meet at least 14.3 SEER2, and the FPL rebate asks for 15.2 SEER2. Our repair or replace guide goes through the math.

Why the bill is high in the first place

It depends on where you live. Crestview averages 108 days a year at 90°F or hotter against 71 at the Destin airport, so inland systems work hardest in the afternoon. The coast gets the warm nights instead: 106 nights a year at Destin stay at 75°F or above, against 10 in Crestview, so beach systems never get a break. The full numbers are on our heat and humidity data page.

Inland vs coast, yearly average, 2016 to 2025