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Looking back over out power bills for the past couple years and am having a hard time understanding why our kWh is as high as it is when running my wood stove insert. It is a newer 2 story house and very well insulated. All electric appliances. I run the wood stove insert upstairs anytime night time temps are below 30. When we have consecutive cold days, I run it continuously. Upstairs heat pump never comes on.

Wood stove has a flue baffle and is one of the newer 2020 compliant versions. (Osburn 2700i)

What I am thinking is that because we do not have a door on the stairs going downstairs, the heat upstairs pushes the cold air down and just makes the downstairs heat pump run harder. We do keep the temp set at 63 downstairs. A door may be in order to stabilize things.

Any thoughts on this theory?

FWIW- this last billing cycle we used 2500 kWh for a 2800 sq ft house. (1900 upstairs/ 900 downstairs) This same period last year it was closer to 2000 kWh.
Located in the Piedmont of NC. Seems really high to me.

Last year the only cold day or two happened right around chthonic it warmed back up. I’m looking at my wood stacks and be probably used 3 times as much this year as last.

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A door or even a heavy thermal curtain at the bottom of those stairs would definitely kill that draft and stop the downstairs unit from panic-heating.