I’m in the process of moving into a new place. I’m taking my time and haven’t actually been living there. Well I just got my electrical bill for the last month. $134! They’re saying I used 3100 kilowatts of energy. My ass. I haven’t been there! I’ve had the heater on at about 60 to keep the pipes warm but there’s no way it racked up that much energy. The previous owners actually are in a dispute with the electric company right now. Apparently they were charged over $200 a month for electricity and they never used the heater at all. They used a wood stove.
I’m going to call them tomorrow but I have a feeling I’m in for a “tough shit” answer. I’m wondering if someone could be tapping into my electricity and using it on my bill. Is that even possible? I’m not looking forward to calling because I’m so non-confrontational it’s not funny.
Don’t see why not. I’ve had someone splice into my Cable TV lines before so they could get free Cable. You just have to know what you’re doing.
OTOH, can bad wiring lead to an excess draw of current that goes to waste? Remember that being mentioned in the book Red Dragon, but then, that was a fiction book.
Absolutely. It can happen. Some years back, I lived in a small apartment building (four units) in Brooklyn. I discovered at some point that the landlord had wired all the common areas of the building (halls, stairways, the basement) into my meter.
That was just the first of several things that caused me to withhold rent, him to attempt to evict me, us to end up in landlord/tenant court, and me to be awarded six rent-free months (after which I moved out, of course).
You could have a bad meter. There are a number of things that could be wrong. It could be on your end. Did you just heat with one circuit? What is the amperage and voltage of the heating circuits?
You can calculate the maximum power continuous use would have consumed for the billing period. A couple heaters that are 2000 watt units would use 4 kilowatts per hour. 4 time 24 hours is 96 kilowatts 96 times 30 days is 2880 kilowatts. That would be a typical heater load for a 20 amp 220 volt circuit.
If you do call the power company, ask if they have a department that investigates theft. It could be called loss mitigation or revenue protection or something like that.
Turn everything off in the house. now if you have an ols style meter go look at it is the wheel still turning? If so you are consuming power. No you may have a frige that is running or something else. Turn the breakers one at a time and check the meter. Do that until you find which circuits are consumming power. If you are still consuming power turn main breaker off. If you are still consuming power then something is wrong.
You may have a faulty appliance.
I do not know about your house, but an electric of 10,000 KW will consume 3600 KW in a month with a 50% duty cycle. So if your house is uninsulated it is possable.
The point of my my post was showing you could have used that much power. Having somebody else calculate how much power your heating can use, is easier on both of us, so let’s have a cheer for your daddy.
Tenants spl;ice into the common area electrical wires quite regularly. And we’ve seen cases of tenants whose electricity is included int he rent run extension cords to tenants wose electricity is not included in the rent.
Try this: read the numbers on your meter. Then read the numbers on the statement. Make sure they match. It is very possible that one of your neighbors is pulling your meter to use on their house (they just pop out, I saw an electrician do this once while troubleshooting my power) and then replacing it when they know the meter reader is coming around.
A friend of mine who travelled a lot for his job had a $300 bill one month, and a $400 the next, even though he verified (during hte summer) that the AC was off before he left. Arouind here, getting a $300 electric bill means you have to be running something with a huge draw pretty constantly. My wife and 2 kids stay are home all the time and we’ve never had a $300 electric bill.
He eventually found out that someone weas swapping his meter around, and got $700 credit on his electric bill.
Well we found out what’s going on. I had my brother come over to help me out and after concluding my electricity was not being stolen, we decided to try and narrow down the culprit. When he first came over, he had noticed the meter was spinning like crazy. But when he went out for us to do the ‘testing’, he noticed it was going at a very slow, normal pace. It basically took about 10 seconds to go from 10 to 20. Well while we talked on the cell phones (me inside, him out), I turned on the heater. Suddenly the meter went crazy. The same amount of time it took for it to go 10 kilowatts or whatever the measurement is, it went 80. So yeah…I have a holy heater from hell in regards to energy consumption.
This is not a happy result for me since I can’t afford a brand new heater but I can’t leave the heat off since it’s still pretty cold at night here and I have a baby. He changed the filter and said it might help a little but…ehh…I’m not being too optomistic.
on a day when it is windy outside, light a candle and walk around your house holding the candle in front of electrical outlets and light switches and windows. If you see the candle flame moving, you have air leaking into your house.
(I was amazed at how much air was blowing in) I went to the hardware store and bought some “Insulating socket sealers” (foam pads that fit inside electrical outlets and light switches to block air flow. You unscrew the cover, slap the foam pad in place and screw the cover back on. Easy to do and can make a big difference.
Air leaking around windows may require caulking to fix
You might want to have a heating company come out and do an energy evaluation. You might be able to get an energy efficient heater and qualify for a tax rebate (if you are in the U.S.) and lots of heating companies here in Texas are running deals like extra insulation, and no payments/no interest for one year. (and some guaranteeing 30-60% savings on your energy bill-I saved 30-40% on my energy bills with my new heater/air conditioner.
I’m asking because there a lot of electrical types here who may be able to let you know if your power draw is normal or suggest a way of improving it. If it’s an electric furnace for instance it just might be a power hog. If it is an electric furnace replacing the filter will certainly help it work more efficiently.
None of this were born knowing this stuff (we just act like were :)). Electric furnaces tend to use a lot of power. Hopefully replacing the filter will help. It may be worth your while to have it serviced professionally, there are some switches known as sequencers in most units which affect their operation. Some other good suggestions in the thread for checking for heat loss throughout the house are worth following up on.
… I guess it’s time to do the tried and true “call my daddy” method of dealing with things like this…
I’ll give it a shot tomorrow.