Bills must still be enormous for the AC. Nothing worse that having a 150 degree oven over you head at night, amazing how sucking the heat out and circulation makes a difference. Here in the Midwest temps are about 10 degrees below normal.
Your close…. when I first went into the attic and measured the temp, it was 140F! I was livid, because this is supposedly a Energy-Star house. Turns out they don’t insulate between the rafters on the top of the inside roof, just on the floor of the attic.
So I began putting up radiant barrier in the attic between the rafters. I also added the gable fan. The fan kicks on at around 2pm when it’s 105F. It usually turns off around 10pm at night. That Gable Fan makes a HUGE difference, why that’s not a mandatory piece of equipment is beyond me.
My power bills were high prior to that, now believe it or not, they average $150 a month. The other thing I did was put a separate 5000 BTU Air conditioner in the Master bedroom and shut off the big A/C unit at night.
It’s not usually this hot out here; we’re just in a weird High-pressure jet stream with a heat warning for right now. There’s a learning curve to living in the desert, once learned its becomes second nature. The other 8 months of the year are awesome here!