High Electric bill with Oil Heat
jdsinc
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
Hello everyone. My name is John and I am new to the forum. I am a GC in the SE Pa. area. Been reading FHB for years now but never took advantage of this great venue. Anyway here it goes…
Q: I have oil, HW for heat at my home. I just got another skyhigh “electric” bill (2nd month ) Elec supplier claims no rate increases, but says it is b/c of the thermostat turning the heater off/on more times than usual. Will this really cause the elec usage (Kw) to skyrocket?? My elec bill is DOUBLE the norm. I know winter is higher but not double. BTW no new plasmas, or other new toys to blame. Thanks for any information
John
Replies
First of all look at the bill for the kWh's, not just the dollars. It is not unknow that an account get rerated so to a commercial rating.
Then look ending meter read and compare it with current meter reading to see if they made a mistake reading the meter.
If those don't show anything look at the disk on the meter and see how fast it is spening. Flip breakers off and see what is the high current draw, although it might not be continous problem so yu might need to do this several different times.
Some places for high power usages;
Teenage has grow lights in the attic.
Neibhgor has tape into your meter to power his grow lights.
A bad well pump or pipe.
A bad control or pump on a septic pump.
An AC unit stuck on.
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Thanks Bill
I will check to see that our account is not rated commercial, did not know that. The readings seem to jive up. Will look at other mechanical devices as you mention to see if anything seems suspicious. Thats why I was asking about the T-stat or something with the heater. didn't seem right to me.
john
Have you started leaving the TV and computer on all night long or something?For doubling, I amn thinking power loss someplace. Any alternate heat panels on that you forgot about?
Another possibility is that they are billing for "estimated" useage. In winter or when the crews have had to do a lot of repair work folowing storms, they are alloed to skip reading the meter for a month and estimate the useage. Following month they read it acurate and things even out.
But one year here, they grossly overcharged me based on 'estimated' billing that was for much more KWH than I normally averaged. This also conveniently happened when they were incurring a lot of high capital expansion costs. And it was for 2-3 months instead of one as allowed.I sent them a payment that I considered about right and a note explaining that when they were ready to bill me based on actual useage, I would pay that, but meanwhile i was sending them an "estimated' payment
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Have nothing really running all night... although my wife had brought home a PC from the real estate offfice to use at home for a while in the last 2 months. we have since removed that... maybe?
We also checked the estimate vs actual reading... they said actual and the readings seem to be accurate. We are linked to a site where we can look at our KWh on a daily basis. Findings are interesting and odd... some days were really low (20KWh) and some high ( 42 KWh) Cannot find a link to weather, kids, relatives, etc. will keep looking. Think its the elec co catching up with higher fees
wallyo had a good point... maybe my beer fridge in the garage is going bad OH NO
I would think this would keep everyday on the high side of KWh usage ?????
love the "estimate " payment plan!!
All good advice Thanks!
... maybe my beer fridge in the garage is going bad ...
Man....your problem is bigger than I first suspected.
Put the elctrical bill issue to the side for now and get out there and buy a new fridge.
Once you are certain the beers are safe, then....and only then....should you continue with your electric bill investigation.
But HURRY!
J. D. ReynoldsHome Improvements
beers are safe!! Thanks!
Thank goodness.
Carry on.
J. D. ReynoldsHome Improvements
Whew!
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
There have been some news stories here in CT lately about "bad" meters. The utility swore up and down that their meters were infallible... until finally at the relentless urging of a consumer watchdog newspaper columnist they were tested and... voila.. there were indeed some bad meters at play.
Interesting and worth looking into. I heard from about 10 people locally now that had skyhigh bills in dec and jan. At least i feel it's not only our house that may have a problem.
Thanks...
"wallyo had a good point... maybe my beer fridge in the garage is going bad OH NO "oh yes! I missed that one. Not only could it be the culprit, but an older type compressor in an unheated area will actually work much harder to keep things cold. I can't explain the dynamics if it, but some folks in maine here will keep a light bulb up under an old fridge in a porch or garage to help it work better in the winter just from that minor bt if heat thrown off.
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Do you have a pump on your boiler? Any chance it is doing something like running all the time?I don't see a thermostat by itself causing a huge increase in electric usage.
You sure the elec co understands you heat with oiL? Did you match the Kw on the bill to the meter to be sure it is not misread by a few thousand? circulation pump do not use that much elec.
Wallyo
Wallyo
I mentioned it to them about oooooooooh50 times, but it seemed to me it was not sinking in. after arguing with 2 diff people i was out of hair! Then i turned to the experts... the forum!
they kept saying the t-stat uses elec to ignite the furnace... never seemed to be an issue until this winter. even in summer. T-stat till needs to "ignite" the AC unit correct?
would anything in that sequence use more elec if it were faulty?
The amount of elec to ignite the burner, run oil pump and water pump is so slight overall. The only thing to cause your bill to double is a major draw is on somewhere, like someone said the AC is running or an electric baseboard heater that has been forgotten. An old freezer or refrigerator gone bad running 24/7 could do it something like that.I am still on the side of bad meter reading or estimate. Could lets say they under read November severely and are catching up now, so you are on the other end or the estimate.
Is it double the same months from the last couple of years or is it double the norm(12 month average)?
Cold and a constant running could add up.
Just curious what's the kwhr rate? SLC,Ut=.078
And a thread on how much a month from a lot of folks. http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=98978.1
PA just deregulated elec., not to be a conspiracy theorist but we all know what happened with california.
Is it forced air? Takes juice to run the fan, no? Fan runnng more? Perhaps this was addressed.
I have to take this oppty to tell my meter horror story.
I replaced a service myself on my previous home.
An electrician buddy came over and cut the supply away from the house. We nailed it to a tree with a power strip to plug into. Very scary!
I got the new service all switched over, set up the meter socket and supply cables thru the weatherhead and called the utility to set the new meter after inspection.
They set it up and we got our power.
That month we got our first bill on the new system and it was $3,654! (this was a 1500 sqft house)
I freaked out, all scenarios running in my mind...
I called the utility co. Explained that my bill had to be wrong. The operator on the other end mumbled incredulously for a bit until she found me in their system and exclaimed, "Well! Perhaps you are right!!"
Turns out our new meter had 1 extra digit.
I think the adjusted bill was 36$
Hope yours is similarly logical.
Pat
you sure didn,t have extra xmas lites?