Ok, so we bought this condo and in talking to neighbours we are paying approx. 2x what everyone else is paying in the exact same floor plan condo is. Which was $400 last month.
We’ve contacted to power corp (I know a guy pretty high up there) and he’s had the meter replaced to ensure it wasn’t misreading. The new meter is saying the same thing.
He also checked the history and found out that 2009 was when this unit suddenly started using 2x power. We didn’t live here then, so I think we can assume this power draw is not due to the stuff we brought in. So that leads me to believe it is the fridge that is the cause, as it is the only thing that has been constantly plugged over the past few years. Our heat is coming from a central boiler (fuel oil, not electric) that is in a mechanical room that is metered separately from each condo.
So, I just got a Kill-A-Watt and have plugged my fridge into it to confirm my diagnosis. My question is, how much power should this fridge be drawing?
The inside Energuide thing says that it’s supposed to use 635 kwh annually. If I divide this by 365, I get approx. 1.7 kwh daily. Right?
Also, it’s showing an instantaneous power draw of around 150 watts when the compressor is running. Is this reasonable?
The Kill a watt device should allow you to measure the energy used over a period of time. Leave it on for a couple of days. If it does not come out somewhat close to about 1.7 Kwh per day then I would say there is something wrong with the fridge. For things like fridges which cycle from using lots of power to using very little you need to measure over the course of many cycles to get a good idea of how much energy the device uses.
If the fridge consistently runs at 150 W, it’d have to run for about 11 1/3 hours each day to get to 1.7 kWh. This would be a duty cycle of about 47%, which isn’t out of line for a refrigerator (perfunctory Googling yields estimates ranging from 30–50%.) As gazpacho notes, though, if the fridge is broken and the compressor is running more of the time for some reason, that could help explain the discrepancy.
Well, this is discouraging. After an hour and twenty minutes of monitoring, the fridge appears to be using what it should be. I know it’s too early to call it, but still if the fridge was causing my power bills to DOUBLE monthly, then I would expect a pretty dramatic power usage after an hour. Shit. Now I have no idea how to figure this out if it isn’t the fridge.
It’s hard to imagine even a broken fridge making that much difference. I don’t know what your top electricity rate are, but here I think they’re around $0.40/kWh. If you have similar rates and your bill is $200 more than your neighbors, then you’re using about 17 kWh more per day. A fridge can’t use that much even if the door was broken off.
If you unplug every single thing you can find, what does the meter show? It should be zero; otherwise you have an unknown power draw.
Do you have an air conditioner? They are power hogs even under optimal conditions, and a broken one could conceivably cause that kind of difference. Even just removing insulation could have a similar effect.
I was thinking along similar lines. I was going to suggest shutting off/unplugging everything in the condo and seeing if the meter stops or not. If the electric bills are running about an extra $200 a month that is like an extra 1000-2000 watts being used constantly, depending on the electric rates. It seems like that would be hard to miss.
Except turning off breakers will only catch it if things are miswired in between the breaker box and the meter. If something’s miswired in to the breaker box, then you’ll turn it off this way. Though, now that I think about it, that might also help. If you turn off your breakers and someone else is suddenly running around because their power is off, there’s a big clue…
Two other suggestions:
See if you can find out if any electrical work was done on the condos around 2009. If so, that’s a big clue that there may be a mistake.
And, most power companies will send someone out to do a free energy audit of your home; see if yours will. They’re not going to be able to run around and find a misconnected circuit or anything, but they can point out the likely big energy users in the unit, and how you could lower your power use.
Where does your hot water come from? I had a hot water leak once, I was heating a steady stream of hot water that was going down the drain, which added considerably to my electric bill. Do you have an electric hot water heater?
Many years ago I rented an apartment in a twelve unit building. Now, my apartment was top floor on one of the ends so I expected that it would cost a little more to heat in the winter (electric baseboard). And it was, comparing notes with my neighbors. A couple of years later I’m moving out, and I’m taking my bathroom dimmer switch with me. (I was a cheap college student at the time.) Anyway, I have the breakers shut off to facilitate the rewiring and my next door neighbor sticks his head in and tells me that all the carport lights are out! :smack: Sure enough, the lights were routed through my panel! And sure enough, the manager had “forgotten” to tell me about it. Anyway, I was supposed to get a $50 a month discount which was more than enough to cover the added cost. I guess they were just forgetful types because a couple of months later I went back and knocked on the door to my old apartment, introduced myself and told the new occupants about the lighting situation. Sure enough, the manager had “forgotten” to tell them about it too! :rolleyes:
Not saying this is your situation but it might be something similar. Cut power and poke around a bit.
I assume this is one of the newer meters with a digital display instead of dials and the spinning disc?
The older mechanical meters had an assumption about the phase relationship of the feeders. Most residences will be fed from a true 120/240 feeder, but in some areas they are distributed between two of the three legs of a 3-phase feeder, giving 120/208. Having the wrong mechanical meter can produce an error in the reading of up to 10% or so, which can go either way depending on what sort of mismatch there is. It is theoretically possible for a digital meter to have the same issue, though every one I’ve ever seen from a utility was universal. This does NOT hold true for consumer-provided digital monitors like the EUM-2000, which DO have phase-dependent error.
Next, are you sure they replaced the right meter (yours)?
To find unexpected loads, you can use a clip-on ammeter (like the ones from Amprobe) to see how much current is being pulled on each circuit in your power panel. Note that this involves opening up your panel and fiddling around inside it with the power on, so if you’re at all uncomfortable with this (or don’t know what I’m talking about) you should get a licensed electrician to look at it for you. It should be well worth the cost, since at $2400/year ($400/month / 2 * 12) the savings from locating the problem should be substantial.
150 watts when the refrigerator is running is low. My refrigerator averaged 160 watts over a week (3.7 KwH per day) and I know it only runs about 1/3 of the time.
I know it’s unlikely, but someone may have tapped into your electricity and be stealing. Make sure the wiring goes only to your condo after it leaves the meter.
Keep the Kill-a-Watt meter on the refrigerator (so you food doesn’t spoil) and shut down everything else for a day (or at least overnight, or while you’re at work). See if the two meters compare after a long term shut-down.
Also: If you’ve got a buddy at the power company… Did any neighbor’s electric bill suddenly drop about the same time your condo doubled? Perhaps your buddy at the power company can check.
One way to do that is to check with your city/county to see if any building permits were issued at that time for this address. (But not finding one may not mean much – many times, people don’t bother to get the required permits. Especially do-it-yourselfers. And they are more likely to have mistakenly wired something into your panel.)
If it is theft, my guess would be that someone installed grow-lights and is stealing the power for them, in which case the neighbor’s acknowledged consumption might not be down at all.
For that matter, anything localized that’s consuming that much power should be getting pretty hot. Have you noticed any warm spots on the floor or walls?
I’ll third this. It sounds to me like someone is stealing power from your apartment. Unplug everything in your apartment (including the fridge and stove if you can) and turn off all the switches.
If the meter is still running, start flipping breakers to see which one makes it stop and go from there. It could be as simple as something faulty in your stove so it’s always using power or it could be that the apartment complex installed some lights or another boiler somewhere and accidentally used one of your lines.
But, like others have said, if you shut off and unplug everything in your apartment and it’s still going then you have a problem. I’m not sure what the next step would be. On the one hand, you would want to call the landlord to let them know so they can fix it. OTOH, I’d want to call the power company and let them come out and look at it so it can be documented. That way they can deduct the charges from your bill and apply them to the person that used the power. I suppose if it were me, I’d call the power company and ask them to come out, explaining that I unplugged everything and the meter is still spinning and I believe someone is stealing my power. Like someone else said, I know they do free energy audits so I’d imagine they would investigate this as well.