My electric bill - what the hell happened?

Factual Questions
1

Well, as some people know I live in Jackson, Mississippi. And booooy do I love it here.

But there’s already a Pit thread about that. This is about cold, hard numbers.

I’m hoping someone out there has some brilliant suggestion about what the hell is going on with my electric bill.

I live in an apartment complex in a one-bedroom second-floor apartment. This 600 square-foot mini-mansion consists of a living room/dining alcove, bedroom, tiny kitchen, bathroom, and laundry closet.

The only new thing I’ve added electricity-guzzling-wise is a Brother HL-1435 laser printer. Otherwise, I’ve got the same stuff I’ve always had, consisting of the following:

2 PCs, one on 24/7, the other a few hours a day
Cable modem, router, and the laser printer mentioned above
Microwave, dishwasher, refrigerator, dryer, washer, hot water heater

Aside from lights, which aren’t on when there’s nobody to appreciate them, that’s IT.

Here in Mississippi, at the height of summer, with the A/C keeping me at a nice 72 degrees at all times, my bill never topped $135 a month. Steep, but spend a summer in Mississippi, and you’ll see it’s a bargain.

My bill this month, with minimum heating, no A/C and all the same appliances, schedules, and the like: $264.

To this I can only say, “What the hell?”. My electric bill has been going down steadily for the last 3 months. I was honestly expecting a bill of about $60 this month. I figured it’d be my cheapest one since Spring.

Entergy (that corporation that, at the end of 2003 still doesn’t take credit cards) is sending someone out to verify the meter, but I’ve checked it. The reading on my bill is right. Somehow, between 10/23/2003 and 11/24/2003 (Come to think of it, I didn’t even have the laser printer by then, so scratch that off the list…) I used 4519kWh.

How is this possible? Is someone stealing electricity from me? Do I have some romex doing a Frankenstein-like arc on my roof, and I just haven’t noticed?

-Joe, ground…apparently

2

Is it possible they were only estimating your bill up to this point, then when they actually read the meter, found they’d been lowballing all along, and now you owe the difference?

3

Actually, not if I understand my electric bill.

The main part of the bill being:

“Energy charge 267.75”
“Fuel Adjustment 4519 kWh @ $-0.000813 -3.70”
Current Month Energy Charges 264.05"

So, if I understand that right, they even overestimated the charge and the actual reading saved me the $3.70.

Of course, if I’m wrong…

-Joe, lightning-boy

4

Well, go take a reading now, then take another one in an hour. If anything unusual is running, it should show up. I wouldn’t expect normal usuage to go to 4500 kWh. That’s easily twice what I’d expect from a typical household. That works out to over 600 watts continuous load.

5

Well…

As of 9:10PM CST my reading was 64640 kWh.

My reading on 11/24/2003 was 64281 kWh.

My reading on 10/23/2003 was 59762 kWh.

So, let’s get this straight.

In the 32 days of the previous billing cycle, I was using 141.2 kWh per day.

In the last 14 days, I’ve averaged 22.7 kWh per day.

Hmm…my habits haven’t changed that last in the last month. I spent Thanksgiving here rather than at the office. Woo.

-Joe, wildly inconsistent, apparently.

6

Just a shot in the dark:

If you can access your water heater or can at least get to where you can here it, listen for the sound of running water. If there are no faucets on and no appliances using hot water, you may have a bad “pop off” valve on your water heater.

A pop off valve is designed to relieve the pressure in your water heater if things go wrong and pressure starts building up inside. This device keeps your w/h from becoming a steam powered bomb. If the pressure gets too high the pop off valve will allow the pressure to bleed off safely but they can also weaken with age to the point that normal water pressure can activate them.

This means that water could be constantly running through your water heater and since it’s coming in cold your water heater elements keep running because the thermostat never stops them. In the end, your stuck with a big power bill and possibly a huge water bill.

Like I said, shot in the dark but, if it’s not a geusstimation problem like Q.E.D. has mentioned, it’s a start.

7

My arithmetic upon dividing 4500/(24*30) results in an average 6 and 1/4 kw load. Not believable.

As QED says, check your meter. I’d wait until daytime and then turn off everything I could find and look at the meter. The disc should be either stationary or barely moving.

If the meter appears to be OK, i.e. as described, then ask the utility if they estimate bills most of the time and read meters only occasionally. If this is true ask them to up your estimate a little so you don’t get lulled into a false security about the amount of the monthly bill.

8

141.2 kWh per day means about 6,000 watts per hour 24 hours a day. My heater only uses 2400 watts, so does my electric jug. You’d need lots of stuff running all day.

9

Any new neighbors? Are you paying for what you use, or could there be someone stealing your electricity?

FWIW, raise you minimum summer A/C to 76-80*F. You will still be comfortably cool and save cash to boot.

10

Weeeeelll…that’s the question now, isn’t it?

I’ve considered it, but how possible is it? Assuming there isn’t some romex running from the bottom of my meter over to my neighbor’s apartment, is there any way of proving things?

More importantly, when Entergy comes out and looks at the meter again and sees that it’s reading right, what can I do?

Is this the kind of thing they care about and will seriously investigate, or is this a matter of bending over and taking it?

After all, it’s not like I can go to a competitor…

-Joe, victim

11

Assuming no one’s stealing electricity from you, estimation could be a culprit. I’ve seen this happen before. A meter is missed, and the software makes some assumptions based on seasonal trends and your historical usage and gives an estimate. If they miss your meter a second month, then the estimate it again, the previous estimate goes into your historical usage, thus possibly compounding the estimate problem (if your actual usage is atypical). When an actual reading does come thru, there’s a hefty bill to pay.

It looks like you’re paying about 6¢/kwh. That comes out to about 2250 kwh for a $135 bill, about half this last bill. If you don’t have any previous statements, I’d call the utility for some reprints.

12

I’ve been a landlord who has owned xingle rental units in recently converted condo complexes, and I’ve seen some cases where isolated plugs in another unit are actually run off circuits in another unit, but that doesn’t tend to generate the kind of load that you’re describing. If it’s miswiring (which does indeed happen if the electrician assumes the first conduit s/he hits when they open a wall must belong to that unit) it sounds like someone attached a major appliance (the culprit in my case was a dishwasher for a family with several kids) or a public area fixture, like a 24/7 multiple lamp bulb, on your circuit.

I’ve also heard, from a condo board friend, of cases where an unhappily evicted tenant (like there are happily evicted ones here in Boston, the Land of Student Tenant Entitlement [for the record, I worked my way through multiple doctorates here, including battling some horrific landlords, without copping the “entitled student-tenant” attitude]) decided to leave their former landlord a 'parting gift, and left the owner next door a brital surprise instead.
I’m not even remotely suggesting that’s what happened, I’m just recounting my experiences and what I’ve heard.

13

I could see that, and I could even accept it without too much bitching. However, when they put a “Fuel Adjustment” on the bill (see previous post for more detailed details), isn’t that what you’re talking about? And doesn’t that mean it was adjusted downwards?

-Joe, thoroughly confused

14

Did they change your rate at all? I noticed a rate change when our power bill (usually $40-50) spiked to $70 one month with no major usage on our part.

15

Could this REALLY be a rate problem? It just seems incredible that such a small unit with so little in it could be running 6kW (that’s a hundred 60W bulbs, folks) all the time. I have a fairly large household (6 people, and my workshop w/machinery, welding eqpt, etc) and I don’t average that high.
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Time to see how fast your meter turns with all your stuff turned off.
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[lengthy boring anecdote]
My brother in law had a problem like this some years ago in his trailer. His bill kept going up and up. He got to the point of allowing only one light per person, wherever they were. Even turned off his aquarium heater. Finally we turned everything off and saw the meter still spinning like a record player. His neighbor’s meter, though, was at a dead stop. Their bills were amazingly low, so they got air conditioners, a washer and dryer, dishwasher… Lights on all the time inside and out… electric heat… He never noticed before they moved in because the old neighbors had pretty much the same usage habits.
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The utility switched the meters around. And told him to sue his neighbors to get his money back.
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He did eventually get the utility to give him a partial refund.
[/lengthy boring anecdote]
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So, is it possible that a new neighbor might have your meter instead of their own?

16

I can’t imagine a simple rate change would be that dramatic in one month, especially without warning. Be glad you have electric heat. We have natural gas in our house (soon to be converted!) here in North Dakota and the heat alone is up around $350/mo. and it’s not even cold yet!

17

It could be an error on the order of ours—we were charged $1,487(one month) a few months ago, and we usually pay ~$300.

It was corrected to $287, I believe. We’re planning on framing the bill.

18

Same thing happened to me last winter. Turned out to be malfunctioning module in the heat pump that was causing it to auto defrost continuously. My bill was normally around 160 and it ran 320. Went back down to normal after module replaced.

19

Holy Shit! I live in Missouri, in an almost 3,000 square foot house. I am home all day with two small boys, meaning there is at least one T.V. and two lights operating at all times. I also have two teenagers, so there’s another T.V., radio, Playstation, and several lights being left on all night long. I do at least two loads of laundry every day. I have two refrigerators, I have a dusk-to-dawn light (like a street light) in my yard, and everything in my house is electric (stove, hot water heater, clothes dryer, furnace, a/c). I receive most of my heat from a wood-burning stove and a fireplace, both of which have fans that circulate the warm air out into the room, so I don’t often have to rely on the electric furnace for heat. With all of that, the most electricity I have used in the five months I’ve lived here is 1700 KWH in the height of the summer heatwave (and Missouri gets to be one hot/humid motherfucker in August). I used 1270 KWH last month. I cannot imagine how you could have possibly used 4500 KWH in one month.

I believe the estimation of useage by the electric company theory is probably your best shot. I had something similar happen when I moved into a new house a few years ago. They estimated my first few months and based in on useage at the same residence the same months of the prior year. Too bad nobody lived there the prior year and the house was sitting vacant, except an occasional showing by a real estate agent. I think the porch light was left on 24/7, but that was it. Needless to say, the electricity useage of a vacant house with only one light being used is much less than the useage of a family of six. I was quite shocked when I received a bill for $500 because of the low estimation of my electricity useage. Luckily, they worked out a payment plan. I should have known my normal bill of $50 wasn’t correct, but I never bothered to raise the issue.

20

Check with your immediate neighbors to see if they are experiencing the same problem. If not, I think that the problem has already been identified as hot water heater.

Other than a direct short to ground somewhere, that is about the only place it could be.