HUGE electricity increase - help!

[Kremlar]

(sorry, this will probably be rambling...)

I opened my electrical bill to find a HUGE jump last month in electricity
useage.

To be more specific, 3 months ago I was averaging 65 KWH per day, 2 months
ago I was averaging 55 KWH per day. Last month I averaged 145.5 KWH per day.

Total useage for last month was 4511 KWH.

I was obviously shocked. Nothing major has changed at the house (as a matter
of fact we've been switching to energy saving light bulbs!!).

One major thing did occur, though - we had a few days of heavy winds and
extreme cold weather. At one point, I noticed the hot tub cover had blown
off our hot tub because someone failed to lock it down. I can't be certain,
but I think it could have been off for as little as 8 hours to as much as a
couple of days.

The hot tub is a fairly large 6 or 7 seater. I'm sure the heater and pump 1
for circulation were on during this time, trying to fight the cold weather.

I expected a lot of wasted electricity because of this, but 2500+ additional
KWH shocked me.

I ran the numbers with some people on an electricity forum, and there's no
way it would have jumped my bill that much.

So why the heck did my bill jump so dramatically? It doesn't make any sense
to me...

I called the electric company to complain, and they say they'll send someone
out to check the meter, but I'm sure they're just going to blow me off. They
originally claimed that they have been estimating the electricity for the
past few months because they were having problems reading the meter, but I
challenged that and she backed off saying that wasn't the case (do they just
say that when anyone calls with an issue??).

Here are how my bills break down.

2/11/06 - 3/14/06 (31 days) = 4511 KWH = $685.19
1/13/06 - 2/11/06 (29 days) = 1589 KWH = $245.36
12/13/05 - 1/13/06 (31 days) = 2031 KWH = $312.01
11/08/05 - 12/13/05 (35 days) = 2248 KWH = $344.71
10/10/05 - 11/08/05 (29 days) = 1725 KWH = $222.08 (this is before a rate
increase)

We are in a 1 year old house. We have:

- electric oven/range
- electric dryer
- microwave
- toaster oven
- Foreman grill
- iron
- dishwasher
- refrigerator
- 11 rooms (including 2.5 baths, finished basement) - about 3600 sq feet
total
- sewer pump (we have town sewer, but are below street level)
- hot tub
- flat iron (hair straightener)
- heat is forced hot air
- hot water heater

We also have a bunch of computers (that's what I do for work), but the #
hasn't really increased at all.

The ridiculous jump just doesn't make sense to me.

As a matter of fact, we've spent the last 1.5 - 2 months replacing our light
bulbs with energy saving CFL bulbs (which is why I thought we saw the drop 2
months ago).

We haven't added anything new, as a matter of fact we got rid of a small
refrigerator.

We are a 3 person household (2 adults, 1 6 year old).

Any suggestions on trying to figure this out??

Thanks!

 

[stu]

have you checked the meter reading?
i got a bill a couple of months for over $1000, the meter had been misread
and they charged me for 10000kWh of off peek ele. i havent used off peak
ele for over 10 years, you couldnt pull 10000kWh through the meter in the
number of days the bill was for, and it was exactly 10000kWh.... how stupid
is there billing system??????(also rambling)
but as you have a new house i guess it would have a digital meter

 

[Kremlar]

Thanks for the long reply. I will go through all of the suggestions you
have made.

My sewage pump is underground - should I still be able to hear that somehow?

I do have several TVs, but rarely are several on at the same time.

My meter reading yesterday was 29,348 at 3:00pm. At 6:00pm, it was 29,360
and we were in the middle of drying clothes and cooking dinner.

This AM it was at 29,406 at 7:30am.

That's 46 KWH overnight, which seems high to me...

 

[m Ransley]

Miss reading is common, simple enough for the reader to miss read, I had
it occur and had my bill tripled. Read it yourself, your usage is insane
unless you don`t have Ng in your area, anyway try to reduce it. Do you
have Ng, are you aware that even with high Ng prices electric for most
of the US is still 50% moe than Ng. A short to mains can cost alot. Get
a Kill-A-Watt meter and do your own audit. Simple things like having ol
tvs and raios on switched outlets has saved me 10$ a month, my last bill
was 190kwh it is usualy 130 kwh a month.

 

[Ecnerwal]

The ridiculous jump just doesn't make sense to me.

One possibility is that they really were using estimated readings
(sometimes they don't like to send the reader out when the weather is
bad), the estimates were low, and they finally got around to taking a
real reading, causing the jump.

In any case, you are using a lot of power. It's going somewhere, and
considerable good advice about tracking that down has been offered. If
you cannot hear/see your sewage pump, you might want to have some sort
of indicator put on so you know when it is running.

A water leak, especially a hot water leak, can eat a lot of power. Had
that happen in a rented house during college - gas bill shot through the
roof - landlord fixed the pipe, but we were stuck with paying for all
the hot water we had not used while it spewed it the crawlspace where we
could not see it. In your case any water leak will also have the sewer
pump running. What's your water meter have to say about water use? Any
toilets quietly overfilling themselves?

We have seen some odd ones reported either here or in other groups - ie,
a house where shutting off all the breakers shut off the lights (and
golf-cart battery chargers) at the golf shop next door, not owned by the
owner of the house...

 

[Kremlar]

Thanks for the suggestions. Water useage seems good, was about $50 I
believe and I received the bill a couple weeks ago.

I'm definitely using a lot of electricity. My bill jumped $70 or so per
month from my other house, but this house is also much bigger and I've added
a bunch of things. I'm mister high-tech with the various PCs and TVs and
stuff I have in my house, so I know my bill will never be $100 per month.

However, this bill just freaked me out. It just seems silly that they could
go months without getting an accurate reading. How would they guess at my
bill in the meantime? It has definitely been fluctuating over the past few
months.

I'm definitely going to try the suggestions mentioned in the thread, but I
doubt I'll find anything as crazy as the golf cart incident.

I'm not sure what to do about the sewer pump, but I'll see what I can find.
It does have an alarm box in the house, but I don't believe anything to
indicate it's running.

 

[Stendec=stardust]

Your Average monthly usage is almost the same for what i use in A YEAR.

___

 

[Kremlar]

Thanks for the ideas.

I may pull the breaker on the sewer pump overnight tonight to see what
useage is like in the AM.

 

[Kremlar]

You also just rung a bell in my head.

I remember the cover for the sewer pump being slightly cracked, not on
fully, before they filled in my yard.

I wonder if the builder could have been idiotic enough to not seal the cover
before my yard was filled.

 

[William P.N. Smith]

To be more specific, 3 months ago I was averaging 65 KWH per day, 2 months
ago I was averaging 55 KWH per day. Last month I averaged 145.5 KWH per day.

A hot tub with the cover off might use 100 or 150 KWHR/day, but if
that only lasted a few days that wasn't your problem. I'm guessing
either a misread or a big catchup from previous low estimates.

Even if it's not a misread, you can get them to spread the excess over
several months, as the low estimates were their fault.

I'd keep reading it once a day and see if you can find out how much
you are using and where it's going.

 

[Derek Broughton]

Your Average monthly usage is almost the same for what i use in A YEAR.

___

Much more than my annual consumption (2kWh/day). Even when I was on-grid, I
didn't get electricity bills much over $50/mo.

 

[Derek Broughton]

You also just rung a bell in my head.

I remember the cover for the sewer pump being slightly cracked, not on
fully, before they filled in my yard.

I wonder if the builder could have been idiotic enough to not seal the
cover before my yard was filled.

Idiotic? It's a business decision on his part - fix it (at his expense), or
cover it up and figure that even if you ever find out, you won't be able to
prove he was at fault...

 

[Kremlar]

Sorry, I used the wrong words to describe -

I meant the cover wasn't on fully, like there was a gap because the cover
wasn't centered in the hole.

 

[wmbjk]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

About the best I can say is, welcome to the joys of an all-electric home

His situation is pretty common, and I think it mostly has to do with
being out of touch with how much the little things increase energy
consumption. He'll probably find the main problem as well as some
smaller ones, and hopefully reduce that previous consumption by a lot.
Wayne

 

[m Ransley]

Oil heat, so the rest is electric I guess. Do you have Ng avalaible.
What is your Kwh cost, Propane might be better, im sure Ng is.

 

[m Ransley]

I have 1800sq ft and lots of electric toys, last YEAR I used 2390 Kwh,
talk about waste.

 

[Kremlar]

Yes - the access hatch is definitely buried a bit. I'll see if I can dig it
out to make sure it is fully closed.

 

[Kremlar]

I don't know if natural gas is available. It's a very new development, all
by the same builder, so it may not be.

KWH cost is .10718. Up from .07213 6 months or so ago.

 

[Kremlar]

I'm aware of how little things add up, but up until now I have accepted it.
This 'catch up' bill caught my attention.

 

[Kremlar]

OK, I've shed a bit of light on this and I think pointed myself in the right
direction.

I've confirmed that the electric company was correct in that they did not
have an accurate reading 3 months in a row, and then finally just now an
accurate reading.

The last time they had an actual reading was 11/8/05. I finished my hot tub
and powered it up 11/10/05. Go figure.

So, I'm now pointing my figure at the hot tub. I'm going to power it down
this evening and leave it off overnight, get a reading in the AM and compare
it to last night's reading.

If this is all correct, the past 4 months I have averaged about 2600 KWH
each which is in-line with the other months, especially since I added the
hot tub in November.

I'll have to find a way to insulate the tub better, and maybe drop the
temperature way down during off-season months. Maybe get a better cover...
I'm not sure.

I'm also going to work on other ways to save electricity. Maybe consolidate
some of my servers...