Household Electrical Issues?????

Hey guys,

I hoping you guys can give me suggestions to look in my house for an electrical sink somewhere. My electric bill are on an exponential slope the last few months. Below are my electric bills for the last few months and keep in my my house is about 1200 sq. ft. with a gas furnace.

September -$50

October – $50

November – $70

December – $198

January – $377

The higest electric bill that I have seen since I moved into this house was $90 last winter. I cross checked my meter when I recieved the $377 bill and also asked the electric company for a re-check. I have not added any appliances, heaters, or devices to my house in the last year. We had a baby in November and have had lots of guests over to our house, but other than that we haven’t changed much. I have been taking note that is seems my fridge is running a lot, but the freezer isn’t going crazy with ice and the fridge isn’t overly cold.

Do you guys have any suggestions for me to check? Is it possible that my electric meter is going crazy? Something isn’t right and I’m not sure what to fix/check as everything is seems to be working normally.

Electric hot water heater??? If you have a bad element that could affect it. I would think you would notice a shortage of hot water though

Also with the refrigerator issue, your cooling coils could be iced up which means the auto defrost isn’t working properly. I have a Maytag refrigerator/freezer side by side that has an issue like that a couple times a year.

Those numbers hardly seem possible. It does make me wonder about your meter. If that’s OK then look to heat producing devices. They consume hugh amounts of electricity compared to all other house hold uses. Do you have any electrical heaters anywhere? Could they have been left on? If not I would check for cords leading to your neighbors place.

Yes the water heater is electric, but there is no shortage of hot water. As a matter of fact, I need to turn down the temp.

All of our appliance are electric. We are going to pull out the fridge today and make sure everything is cleaned out.

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Those numbers hardly seem possible. It does make me wonder about your meter. If that’s OK then look to heat producing devices. They consume hugh amounts of electricity compared to all other house hold uses. Do you have any electrical heaters anywhere? Could they have been left on? If not I would check for cords leading to your neighbors place.

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I do have an electric heater in the garage, but it has hardly been running this winter. It is a very low wattage as well. I ran it much more last winter I believe. Last year i had some winter projects and ran my heater a lot and it only affected my bill by about $10-$15 per month.

I am wondering what I can do if the meter is truly the case. It is only my wife, me, and a 9 week old baby. My wife says the oven has never been left on or anything like that.

I don’t understand what could even be in my house to consume $13/day of electricity or 128 kwh/day. This year the monthly avg temp was 5 degrees warmer than last year and we used 3 times as many kwh/day this year than last.

I guess you could try to localize the problem by shutting down circuits at your panel and see which one affects the meter the most and go from there. You would need 2 people and a walkie-talkie to make it simple.

You may want to investigate the water heater. You stated you had to turn down the heat.Maybe the thermostat is not working properly or maybe the heating element could be full of mineral deposits and can not heat the water efficiently.

With Baby comes many loads of laundry, Electric Dryer?
Good Luck

We had the same thing – the electrical company misread the meter, so we had one month of ‘free’ electricity.

Before they realized this, I went to the public library and checked out a meter that measures the electricity of any appliance. All you do is plug the meter in between the outlet and the appliance, and let it run for a day or so to see how much electricity it is using.

Good luck!

As already mentioned above, if the water heater is staying on constantly your bill will skyrocket! The dryer will eat plenty too, especially with a new baby in the house. Those are your largest 220V high amperage appliances. Check that water heater first.

Go hammer on the electric company. My Mom lives in a condo in E.C., she and 3 of the other ladies suddenly got electric bills 4x their normal. They got the run around for a couple months…..my Mom finally went down to the office and got in their face with copies of her past years bills, and the new ones, said she was going to her attorney next…….they sent someone out, they all got new meters, a full credit to their accounts for the amounts over the average…and they got normal bills ever since, and it took them almost a year to use up the credits. The electrical company tried to tell her it was her Christmas lights (one 2′ fiber optic tree), her refrigerator (it was a new efficient one, barely 6 mo old)…..they tried every excuse over the phone…..but they couldn’t convince this old Polack that the bills were justified when she got in their face.

A bad meter isn’t uncommon. Have the power company change it, but don’t expect a refund…

I’d also change the water heater to a gas unit when it needs to be replaced – much lower cost to operate.

Good luck.

Dan

Have you checked to see if there are any extension chords running to your neighbors house

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Have you checked to see if there are any extension cords running to your neighbors house

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Shhhhhhhh!

Hey guys. Just got back from Lowes, Home Depot, and Menards. Had to get a few items so I was looking through the appliances. Man that stuff is spendy.

I will look at the water heater, but our water has always been hot since we moved in. The thermostat is set high like at 170-180 or something. I’ve been meaning to turn it down because there is a baby in the house.

I think we will have to ask Excel to install a new meter or something. I just didn’t know if this type of thing was common or if I was just crazy. The month our bill was $377/month, my wife was back to work so no one was home during the day. I wrote off the other high bills due to inlaws in the house and people home during the day. My wife says we only have about 2 more loads of laundry per week.

Maybe I will look into that power meter for the fridge. I wish I could shut circuits down to test, but the fact is that we need to keep the milk cold and heat up the hotdish at night.

Thanks for the help.

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The thermostat is set high like at 170-180 or something. I’ve been meaning to turn it down because there is a baby in the house.

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If I were a betting man, I would say that here is your problem. Check all your faucets for drips. (You would be surprised at how much water runs down the drain with the smallest of drips!)You can also check your water usage to make sure you don’t have leaks. Also make sure your “mixing valve” faucets (these are the ones with the single handle) will produce COLD water. If it will not get cold (stays warm or even hot) change that valve/cartridge/faucet. You are using too much hot water! What ever you do..Turn down your water heater! Imagine how much “cold” water you need to use just to “temper” the hot in order to make it usable for bathing, washing your hands …ETC! This is the first place I would check.
Good luck!
Labman

Definitely follow up with Excel on the meter – I know two people that have had bad meters. And like you said, you REALLY need to turn your water heater down. That isn’t safe for anyone to have it that hot, though it could be that it had been turned higher so that it wouldn’t run out of hot water for showers…

Good luck!

Dan

First off it’s Xcel, not excel.

Secondly call them, I’m willing to wager that you have a bad meter. I can’t image a normal household could use that much energy. Alone, only unless the garage heater was running more than you thought. I’m sure a little electric heat can run you a good $30-$40 a month pretty easy.

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First off it’s Xcel, not excel.

Secondly call them, I’m willing to wager that you have a bad meter. I can’t image a normal household could use that much energy. Alone, only unless the garage heater was running more than you thought. I’m sure a little electric heat can run you a good $30-$40 a month pretty easy.

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It is a conspiracy to pay Nick and Bruce’s salary, they have a special bonus switch

Go to Home Depot and get a Water Heater Tester, I think they run about $7.00 and you can test the 2 Thermostats and make sure one is not stuck on all the time
I would start with the lower one first as that is the one that goes out more often.

The hottest your water heater should be set at is 130F. Typically 120 is sufficient. That is a lot of hot water that you are making! Especially with sensitive hands in the house I’d hate to hear about a scalded hand because the wrong knob was turned on

Let us know what you find…

You don’t have neighbors next door that come and go and all hours and have VERY high watering bills do you? Maybe their using your power to keep the “lights” on their crop???

good luck

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First off it’s Xcel, not excel.

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Or here’s a thought.

Maybe they should go back to calling it NSP again. It’s a lot easier to spell!

Dan