Need help: Apartment energy bill is too high. (long)

Factual Questions
1

On August 19th I was told that my electric bill was ready for viewing. I checked the amount and found it to be insanely high, $168 compared to $30. I went online, and compared the usage notes for the last month to the previous months. While before our kwh/month was in the range of 150-350, this past month it was up over 800, leading to the high bill. I was stunned at the amount, we don’t use the ac, we keep the lights to a minimum, and we had less people in the apartment than any other time except for Christmas. I thought the bill would be lower, if anything.

I immediately went around and unplugged all appliances that were not in use. From the 18th on, we had only had the fridge, the microwave, two computers and occasional lights being used. I am the only one at home during the day, and usually just one or two roommate is here at night. Before, we would have all 4 roomies coming and going and the tv and various lights were often on. We don’t use the ac, we don’t have a washer and dryer in our unit. And we have a dishwasher which we have used once. I called the electric company and asked them to do a rereading of the meter.

The new number they gave me was 96141. This was on the 25th. Our old number, taken on the 18th, was 95885 which means we consumed 256 kwh/day in 7 days, rounding out to an average of 36.57kwh/day. In April, we used 265 kwh for 28 days, leading to an average daily usage of 9.46, our highest daily usage before this occurrence was 11.28. As you can see, our current consumption is 3-4x what it should be. I can not read the meter myself, because it is locked up in a cabinet.

After this happened, I called back the electric company, Edison and explained the situation. They said that everything was fine on their end, they had checked the equipment and found it to be working properly. They gave me another number to call, but that was just for people who were looking for things to do to conserve their energy. As I said, we unplugged everything that wasn’t in use, and are only using 4 items and occasionally lights. Only one of these 4 items is new, my roommate’s computer, but I don’t see how it can use the extra 20kwh/day without exploding.

I went to the rental office and asked for an electrician to come out and check the apartment. They were the nicest and most helpful people I have had in dealing with this whole mess- everyone else was suspicious of me and kept telling me to check my AC or asking if my roommates were using the AC behind my back. They examined everything and told me that they found no leaks. They also told me that it was impossible for the fridge, microwave, etc to use up that much energy because it had locks or whatever on it to prevent that. I asked them if it was possible for someone to be taking my energy, but they didn’t see how. Each apartment is metered individually and the place where the meters are kept is locked most of the time.
I don’t know where else to go or what else to do. I just know that we aren’t using that energy. I have kept a close watch on everything since the 19th, and unless my roomie’s computer is taking in 32kwh/per day on it’s own, the energy is not being used by this apartment. I live in Southern California, in Orange County.

Thanks for your help.

2

You don’t have an electrical outlet outside that someone might be using to steal electricity from you, do you? It does happen, unfortunately.

You might want to see if you can get the rental people to have an electrician check the wires, to make sure your meter doesn’t cover electricity going to someone else’s apartment.

3

That a lot of power usage and more importantly a big jump. Are you sure no one has been using the A/C?
The only other thing I can think of is you water heater, although that would hardly explain that much of a jump. It’s advised that you set the water temp. at 120 degrees F or slightly below. How about fans, anything that heats, or cools, consumes large amounts of power. Does your power company offer a home power audit service? That would be helpful. Ann Neville’s suggestion that someone is stealing electricity is a possibility. Are all the computers turned completely off when not in use? TV’s left on when not watching? Any electrical work done in, or around your building? If you can’t find a reason inside your apt. then I think you should continue to demand an explanation from the power co.

4

Are you sure they read the meter every month? I’ve had occasional large bills at some places I’ve lived because they only read the meter once every 6 months or so, and estimate usage the rest of the time. So if you use more than the estimate, you can get hammered when they finally take a real reading.

5

I already had an electrician (two of them at once actually) check the wires. I asked them about the possibility of someone else taking it and they both seemed to think it was impossible.

Everyone keeps blaming my roommates and me for using the AC. It is set to off, with the ticks on the highest setting possible. I spent all 7 nights here and the AC wasn’t on during any of the nights. The only way that the AC could be involved with it, was, during the evenings when I was at work, my roommates sneakily used the AC for the time that I was gone but managed to shut it off so that I couldn’t feel it when I came home. A pretty neat trick, since my schedule is irregular and they don’t know when I will be home. I know these people very well, the girl sharing my room, who comes home in the evening because she works in the day, is my best friend and I know she is the type who would rather suffer in the heat than waste money by turning on the AC. My other roommates have also complained about the heat and have said things like “if our bill is this high, we might as well turn on the AC!” Furthermore, last summer, when I had different roommates, we ran the AC and our bill wasn’t anywhere near as high.

As I said before, during 6 of that 7 day period, I had unplugged everything that wasn’t in use. The only things that were on were the fridge, microwave and two computers. Various lights were used sparingly and a rice cooker - which I immediately unplugged as soon as I was finished with. We don’t watch tv, our old roommates used to leave it on all the time. My other two roommates have been very busy with school and summer classes and I’ve only seen one use his laptop once during those 7 days.

My roommate and I bought a small, 10 inch fan 3 days ago, but we use it sparingly, and the jump occured before we bought the fan.

I was told to turn of all elecriticty to our apartment and then check to see if the meter is still running. The apartment management people told me to call the electric company and have them unlock it. I called the electric company and they told me the apartment management has to unlock it. I called the apartment management back and she said that she would deal with the electric company and try to get them to send someone out tomorrow. That way, we will check it see if the meter still rises after the power to our apartment has been shut off. I don’t see any outside outlets and I would notice an extension cord.

Gorsnak, that still doesn’t explain why the usage has been so high over the past 7 days. Most of my roommates were gone during the previous month, so it should’ve been lower, not higher.

6

There was a report on ABC7 last night, this electric bill sticker shock is hitting a lot of edison customers this month. You may find something about it on ABC7.com.

There were people getting bills of over $800, which is totally insane. As to how your usage is up, I can’t really explain that bit but the ultra high electric bills are hitting most if not all edison customers in SoCal.

7

It sounds like you’re doing the right things. I second Gorsnak’s idea of making sure that you’re comparing actual measured usage and not estimates. Two ideas that might help isolate the usage: First, you might want to get an inline power meter something like this one. This will at least tell you if your roommate’s computer is in danger of meltdown, and let you better estimate the usage of your large appliances.

If you can’t track the usage to anything you’ve plugged in and you’re willing to turn off your apartment’s power for a while, you can see if your apartment manager will let you watch the meter for half an hour or so. 36kWh/day is about 1.5kW (~12A) average, which should be easy to see and easy to find. If the meter isn’t registering anywhere close to this, then watch it for a few minutes; the load may be sporadic. Get a friend with a cellphone to help you; one of you can monitor the current at the meter while the other one turns off the lights and flips various circuit breakers (circuit by circuit if you think the problem is on one of your circuits; flip the main one if you think the problem is between the meter and your breaker box). If the current drops when you flip a circuit, then goes back up when you turn it back on, that’s a good idea of where the power’s going. If even the master doesn’t make the current drop to zero, then the problem is either with the meter or a tap between the meter and the box.

8

Antinor01, I don’t know how it works elsewhere, but out here you have a baseline, in our apartment it is 10kwh/day. As you rise up over the baseline, the prices increase, the more you rise over the baseline, the more the prices goes up. My previous roommates were really bad about leaving the tv and random lights on - I’d often walk in to an empty room that had the tv blaring and all the lights on. We went over the 10 kwh baseline for two months. Now, as you can see, we are WAYYYYY over the baseline, so our bill is very high. $30/month for 300kwh/month versus 168/month for 812kwh/month.

I’m going to try that next Omphaloskeptic, I just gotta get these people to agree on who has access and for one of them to unlock the damn thing for me. The electricians assured me it wasn’t the large appliances because they have something on them (forget the term he used) which prevents them from sucking up too much energy. I’m going to test them out anyway, I’ve been lied to too many times in this ordeal. I want that thing you linked to, but I am short on cash right now (hence why I am trying to chase the source of this down so diligently) if all else fails, I’ll try that.

Thank you all for your responses, I feel calmer already.

9

I understand all that, I’m just outside LA and the reports I was referring to would affect you as well. I was just letting you know that it’s not just you, it’s all Edison customers in SoCal. People are reporting similar things, that when they thought their usage was down, the bill skyrocketed anyway.

What was reported on the news last night here in LA might not be what’s going on for you, but I thought the info may be of help.

10

" As you can see, our current consumption is 3-4x what it should be. I can not read the meter myself, because it is locked up in a cabinet."

We can see here that the price charged for electricity is irrelevant. For some reason, electricity consumption has tripled - that’s what is at issue, not high energy prices. My vote is for some new scam via your friendly neighbors - I’d be very interested in hearing how this plays out.

11

Especially check the refrigerator. Check the temperature, you’re looking for no lower than 35 degrees F in the refrigeration compartment, and 0 deg F in the freezer.

You may have dust or debris blocking the heat exchager coils that make it work a good deal harder than normal. An automatic defrost refrigerator may have the defrost cycle stuck on as well.

12

Is it possible for a refrigerator to result in a tripling of electricity consumption??

13

How old is your refrigerator? Does it have an ice maker? Does it have ice/water dispenser?

kaylasmom and I replaced an 8 year-old fridge with these features back in December, and since then our electric bills were cut in half.

14

Some computers are power hogs. This computer for example says it requires 350 Watts to run, which if run 24 hours a day could add as much as 180kwh to your bill. A CRT monitor can run as high as 200 Watts (if not in standby), so in a months time can add another 144kwh (324 total).

Could help by turning it off when not in use. A couple charging laptops, a computer on (I have two screens so it is twice as bad), and a few other innoculous things can really add up quick.

15

You might already know this information, but just in case, this site helps me figure out power consumption. If you have time, calculate everything you think you are using and use that site to calculate energy usage.

16

See my post immediately after yours. It might be intuitive, however, to expect the rate of chage to be somewhat more gradual than that reported by the OP.

17

It’s not the fridge. For one, we just got it last year, and we already set the temperature at energy savings amount. It doesn’t have an icemaker or an water/ice dispenser. Furthermore, when I asked the electrician if it could be the fridge, he said it was impossible because the fridge, the microwave, the oven and the dishwasher are all on one thing (breaker?) which only allows a limited amount of energy to be used. They are all supplied by the apartment company which picked them in part because of their energy efficiency. The fridge couldn’t suck up more energy even if it wanted to. I forget what the terms he used were, but the whole kitchen thingee would have be malfunctioning. This was my apartment company’s electrician and his assistant, so I’m going to believe him when he said that it was impossible for it to be the fridge. Also, I talked to my father, who is a nuclear physician. He calculated the energy consumption for me and told me it was impossible for the fridge to be using that much without us noticing.

Everyone here (elec company and rental company) is convinced that my roomies were sneaking the aircondition, but as I said before, that’s impossible. It would involve all three of them conspiring against me for no reason/purpose. Furthermore, two of them don’t get a along with the other one and I know the one would report the other two with glee and vice versa. (They are always complaining about each other’s kitchen mess to me. I don’t know why they insist on getting me involved, but I am the go-between)

My computer is the same, nothing has changed. I asked my roomie about her computer - she is a huge computer geek, so she knows what stuff she’s using, and she scoffed at the idea that she was using that much energy. She said that she never had bills like this back at her apartment so there is no reason why it should suck up a lot in my apartment but not in her old one.

Edit: All my kitchen appliances are Whirlpool energystar, which means they are super energy efficient. I can’t find it on the whirlpool website, but it uses max 6.5 amps and 115 volts, so 747.5 watts, .75kwh, 18kwh/day at maximum usage (door open all the time). The microwave uses 30watts at max. The oven was never used, and the dishwasher, run once, uses 9 amps.

Both of the general lightbulbs that I can check are 60 watt. There is a small one, probably 60 watt, in my closet and a large kitchen light, I estimate the kitchen light to be equivalent to 4 60watts, but I have no way of currently knowing for sure. It is pretty bright for most of the day here, so the lights would be on for a max of 4 hours if we turned them on at all. There are 8 60 watts in the bathroom. My father told me that the current energy usage is equivalent to 30 100 watt bulbs on for 10 hours a day. If we round all the bulbs up to 100 watt and I estimate the numbers of bulbs to be 20, that still is nowhere near the extra 24khw/day, unless we had all of our lights on for 10 hours a day and then some.

I don’t know how to check the computers, they are self built.

18

Okay, this pic should tell someone who knows how to read these things how many watts my computer uses at its peak. My roomie is over at her boyfriend’s and would kill me if I opened her computer. However, one of my doper friends who knows the two of us said that he remembered her talking about her 500W power supply.

19

If you pay for your own hot water, check the hot water tank for leaks. I had a helluva shock one month, got no help from the electric company, and told my landlord about it. He went to the basement and found a flood! A hot water tank running 24/7 can do it.

20

Hmmm, I will check on the hot water. My roommates and I have been taking cold showers though, in order to avoid the heat. I just checked with my roomie who has the computer on all the time and she said that hers would take in 500watts at max usage, which she says she isn’t doing. She doesn’t spend much time actually using her computer, so I doubt that that is causing it.