electric bill

[Tronyadorable]

The only thing new is a 32 inch led tv that is maybe on a few hours a week.

If it's plugged in it's "on".....no matter if you can't see a pic.Plasma is worse.
Put the Hot Water Cheater on a timer. If it runs for an hour in the morning you'll still have hot water at dinner time......UNLESS some idiot put it in the garage ?

 

[JohnKal]

turn everything off in the house and watch the meter, if it is turning fast then you have a device with a high draw, start shutting off breakers until you find it.

You can also ask the power company to check the calibration on the meter.

Most utility companies have digital meters, there is nothing to turn.

I've tested 1000's of both residential and commercial electric meters. I VERY rarely saw any more than +/- 1% out of cal. Some of them were over 40 yrs old.

Your best bet is to invest in a clamp on amp meter and see where your draw is.

 

[CNGsaves]

OP . . . question, does the wifey have a craft room where there's an electric heater ??

Maybe "she's keeping her toes warm" and just forgot and left 1500 watt heater running the entire month !!!!

 

[corrie]

^ maybe the wife is the one charging a lot of batteries...

I'd say they guessed before your last reading. Only two bills isn't enough to notice a pattern.

 

[IOWNJUNK]

Probably have one of your neighbors tapped into your box.

 

[Backpack Hunter]

Clamp on meter as mentioned works well. You can also use a multi meter on the appliance.

 

[Jslys13]

Do you have a smart meter installed or the plain mechanical wheeled meter?

We have been retrofitted with smart meters, and you can get hooked into analyzing usage and trying to drop it down. For Nov, I used 0 heat and 0 AC, but still managed to use 1005 kWh. Avg daily was 36kWh.

I *think* your high delta between months is probably due to a "guessed" usage and then a real reading that made up the difference?

Both reads were actual reads. Not estimate. And they said based on what reading I gave them I was averaging 47 for the past few days. It's a wheel meter.

 

[Jslys13]

If it's plugged in it's "on".....no matter if you can't see a pic.Plasma is worse.
Put the Hot Water Cheater on a timer. If it runs for an hour in the morning you'll still have hot water at dinner time......UNLESS some idiot put it in the garage ?

Propane hot water heater.

 

[Ohio Auto]

You're chasing your tail here....your usage is not out of line of for a typical home in northern Ohio.

You're comparing numbers to a one time bill you got when you first moved in. Nothing has probably changed.

 

[mygarageone]

I had that same problem , called the power company . After talking with them , I was amazed. They could tell me what amount of power I used every hr of the day . She said I even know when you get up to go to the bath rm or get a drink of water. Nhow in the world can you know that ? By the spike in your usage at 3 am in the morning or what ever time it is. So they can tell you at what time your highest usage is , they can tell you most anything you want to ask. By the way ,my meter is read via satellite . I never see a person ever.
Kind of scary what they can tell by your meter reading ?

 

[jabin]

You'll be surprised by how much electric those new flat screen TVs take. Also, even though you're Propane heat, it still takes electric to run the fan in a forced air unit.
Just throwing a couple thoughts out there.

 

[chops101]

I had that same problem , called the power company . After talking with them , I was amazed. They could tell me what amount of power I used every hr of the day . She said I even know when you get up to go to the bath rm or get a drink of water. Nhow in the world can you know that ? By the spike in your usage at 3 am in the morning or what ever time it is. So they can tell you at what time your highest usage is , they can tell you most anything you want to ask. By the way ,my meter is read via satellite . I never see a person ever.
Kind of scary what they can tell by your meter reading ?

With the "smart" meters FPL installed, the user has access to monthly-daily hourly usage from a website; i.e. I can see yesterday's hourly usage in kWh usage, cost, and outside temperature all on a graph, or look at the past week or month, and compare to a year ago if needed. Really cool toolkit that is available.

 

[NUTTSGT]

Wait till the end of Winter before you make the judgement call on your electric usage.

 

[tdkkart]

Kind of scary what they can tell by your meter reading ?

If you pay attention, it's not difficult to figure out a lot of things about people just based on observation, and having specific information makes it even easier.

Certain activities use certain amounts of electricity, and patterns develop rapidly. They can tell you how many people live in your house just based on your electric use. If you've got an electric water heater it takes X amount of electricity to heat water for a typical shower. 1 shower uses X times 1, 2 showers equals X times 2. The water heater uses a lot of power, the spike is easy to see. Most people only shower once each day, a pattern of 3 spikes per day indicates 3 people.

 

[Jslys13]

Wait till the end of Winter before you make the judgement call on your electric usage.

I agree. I was just shocked when I saw the usage was double. My pervious house was smaller. But we never had increases like this. Other than the summer months.

 

[Den69rs96]

One thing about owning a home, the bills always go up never down lol. As mentioned above, since the utility company can identify activities that you do in your home by the power spikes, they also adjust rates based on peak usage. If you do laundry doing peak hours it cost more than if you do it at night.

Our utility company just sent out a letter that they will increase our power supply rates by 37% for anyone using over 500kwh per month during Nov through April due to high energy supply prices.

 

[macgyver37]

I don't think the OP is as concerned about the cost as much as he why did it double in 1 month? I know alot of people that wish their bill was only 1100 kwh. I too try to keep track of things like this whether for the house or the car. I track my mpg at fillups so that I can catch a problem with the vehicle before it turns into a big deal. I have a good idea of our useage habits ans if there is an outlier on the electric or gas bill, I want to find out why, could be a bad appliance or a leak.

I would say if the only major change other than weather for the OP is that new TV, that could very well be the source. Like everyone else said, get the meter and start checking , otherwise you are guessing.

 

[Ben7203]

Had a similar issue 4 years ago. My normal electrical bill is around $150, jumped to $300, then to $450. It's just me, I'm turning everything off, called the company, guy came out and verified the usage and all the power draws. Turns out it was my well pump running 24/7 I called the well guy, turns out one of the sections of pipe had a crack and the tank would never fully pressurize, so the pump never shut off.

So, if you have a well, check it

 

[CNGsaves]

OP . . . to be an electric miser, you'll need to go extra effort and unplug "vampire" draws like chargers when batteries already charged, Instant-On TV's (they are always drawing electric to enable this feature), lights left on, computers left on, printers left on, etc.

Only way to truly eliminate these vampires is UN-Plug them, or have on/off plugin strip.

{clip} Our utility company just sent out a letter that they will increase our power supply rates by 37% for anyone using over 500kwh per month during Nov through April due to high energy supply prices.

PoCo's starting higher rates at just 500 Kwh is just crazy, For any house, it's almost impossible to stay under 500 Kwh per month. This sounds more like overloading rate increase on rank-in-file residential customers, rather than putting rate increase on BIG users of electricity . . BIG BUSINESS !!

Natural gas is remaining very low cost around $4/Mcf so I don't see any reason for Nov thru April price hike. Coal prices are remaining low as it goes out of favor for PoCo power generation. That MA utility must be using Propane !!

 

[Jslys13]

Had a similar issue 4 years ago. My normal electrical bill is around $150, jumped to $300, then to $450. It's just me, I'm turning everything off, called the company, guy came out and verified the usage and all the power draws. Turns out it was my well pump running 24/7 I called the well guy, turns out one of the sections of pipe had a crack and the tank would never fully pressurize, so the pump never shut off.

So, if you have a well, check it

I do have a well. I'm new to the whole well thing. If I go out in the yard where the well is would I be able to hear the pump running?

 

[tdkkart]

I do have a well. I'm new to the whole well thing. If I go out in the yard where the well is would I be able to hear the pump running?

Do you have a pressure tank, pressure gauge, and pressure switch in the house?? You should be able watch the pressure gauge and listen to the switch to see if it's working. Pretty easy to figure out.

Again though, 1000kwh is not an unusual amount, if anything more than light bulbs and normal appliances were running you'd be using more than 1000kwh.
You've got 3 refrigerators and a freezer, you're lucky it's no higher.

 

[Jslys13]

Do you have a pressure tank, pressure gauge, and pressure switch in the house?? You should be able watch the pressure gauge and listen to the switch to see if it's working. Pretty easy to figure out.

Again though, 1000kwh is not an unusual amount, if anything more than light bulbs and normal appliances were running you'd be using more than 1000kwh.
You've got 3 refrigerators and a freezer, you're lucky it's no higher.

Yes I do have a pressure tank and gauge in the house.

I had the same three refrigerators and the freezer the previous month. What makes me nervous is the increase from the first month to the second month to days since the meter was last read. They said in the 5 days since it was last read I was averaging 47 kwh. Which is over double what it was the first month And over 50% more than the second month.

 

[chops101]

Unless you saw the meter reader both times, I still wager that they swagged the first month, and reconciled the 1st and 2nd months together after reading it, or they took the wrong reading...been there done that. ( I've had that done to me)

 

[Den69rs96]

PoCo's starting higher rates at just 500 Kwh is just crazy, For any house, it's almost impossible to stay under 500 Kwh per month. This sounds more like overloading rate increase on rank-in-file residential customers, rather than putting rate increase on BIG users of electricity . . BIG BUSINESS !!

Natural gas is remaining very low cost around $4/Mcf so I don't see any reason for Nov thru April price hike. Coal prices are remaining low as it goes out of favor for PoCo power generation. That MA utility must be using Propane !!

The state had to improve the increase for National Grid. Their argument was they had to eat the high energy cost of the past few years during the winter. 37% seems steep to me, so they are probably recouping lost revenue from years past.

We get letters from them every month regarding our usage vs our neighbors. We are in the middle. Even my most efficient neighbor is way over 500 Kwh.

 

[Jslys13]

Unless you saw the meter reader both times, I still wager that they swagged the first month, and reconciled the 1st and 2nd months together after reading it, or they took the wrong reading...been there done that. ( I've had that done to me)

The read in November I saw the meter reader. December I didn't see the reader. But What the bill said and when I read it, it wasn't far off.

 

[Wanna Ride]

My uncle retired from a power company on the east coast, and he was in charge of a division that read the meters. He always claimed that meters don't get read every month, and they're often "estimated" and the dial readings are often "rounded up or down". So, not every month is 100% consistent, but when averaged out over a year, the numbers level off.

I'm probably not explaining it correctly, but basically he said that if you have a partial month in the billing cycle, or a particularly low month, it will average out. More often than not, the "low" month wasn't accurate.

 

[Rookie2]

IT takes 30 min. tops to turn one breaker off at a time and watch for the wheel to stop turning as fast as it is ! 47 KWH is easy to find.

 

[CNGsaves]

The state had to improve the increase for National Grid. Their argument was they had to eat the high energy cost of the past few years during the winter. 37% seems steep to me, so they are probably recouping lost revenue from years past.

We get letters from them every month regarding our usage vs our neighbors. We are in the middle. Even my most efficient neighbor is way over 500 Kwh.

^ ^ Water under the bridge . . . tough luck !!

How about your PoCo re-trieving bunch of dividends paid to stockholders over those past years because management didn't know how to run the monopoly ???!!!@#!*?!!!

You all need a Consumers Protection Board as you're getting Ripped Off !!

I would write 2 separate checks each month . . . . appropriate check for what charges normally would be. Then 2nd check would be for the 37% Up-Charge and I'd include letter (each month) objecting to the overcharge, and write on the check "Paid In Protest With Prejudice" . . . this would give you legal rights on the portion that you're getting ripped off.