Electric Bill

[aelectricalman]

I have lived at the same place for 4 years. My largest bill for electric is $102.00 two years ago. My bill is usually around 65-75 dollars. This month my bill is $264.00. Yes it is for January, but it was not that cold and there is just no way. Are there ways that the power company could play a part in why my bill is so ridicuous. (decreased PF, transformers going bad, bad connections). I checked the KWH and they are correct according to the bill. We have digital meter supplied by Bluegrass Energy. Any suggestion on why? Thanks

 

[jimwalker]

Re: Electric Bill

does your bill show usage in kw per day a year ago ? ours does and some of my corrective measures are showing a small savings.You must look at the charge per kw /hour.This has been a hard winter on some.It being colder has actually helped me.
Want to trade bills ? Any thing under $200 is great to me.We have kin in KY and hearing they getting slammed hard.

[ February 16, 2005, 08:22 PM: Message edited by: jimwalker ]

 

[charlie]

Re: Electric Bill

Do you have an electric water heater and do you have a slow hot water leak (are you sure you don't)?

Are you running an electric heater in a garage where you forgot to turn it off?

Check your circuits to see if something is on continuously that should not be on.

Do you have a heat pump that is no longer working and you have been running on the electric resistance backup?

Is your billing cycle longer this month?

Has the meter been replaced (if a meter is going bad, it will run slower and the new one will run faster)?

Anybody else with more guesses?

 

[aelectricalman]

Re: Electric Bill

My bill for this time was for.

27 days of service at 3582 KWH

This time last year was

42 days of service at 1143 KWH



Can we say leakage?

 

[charlie]

Re: Electric Bill

Can we say leakage?

Yep but it has to be on your side of the meter. Ya gotta do sum checkin', OK?

 

[rattus]

Re: Electric Bill

Charlie, Now that meters have been brought up, how do you use the Kh constant and the meter disc RPM to compute load? I used to know.

 

[charlie]

Re: Electric Bill

This is what I wrote for our engineers:

Look at the meter for a Kh (secondary watt-hour constant) number, this is the meter constant and indicates the energy used by the load for each revolution of the disk. If you are looking at a CT cabinet, someone will have marked a multiplier and is used to increase the Kh value for the CT ratio.

Count the revolutions of the disk for one minute, if you want a little more accuracy, use a little more time.

Multiply the number of revolutions in one minute by the Kh, and then by 60. Divide the resultant by 1000.

Example:

You are at a service that has a meter with a Kh of 3.6 and time the turns at 68 per minute.

(68)(3.6)(60) / 1000 = 14.688 kW

If this is a single phase service, the load in amperes is

14.688 / 0.24 = 61.2 amperes

This is just an instant in time and is of no use for any kind of load study. However, it may prove useful if you want a quick approximation of the load while you are in the field.

 

[rattus]

Re: Electric Bill

Thanks Charlie,

From this I infer that Kh = 3.6 for example means 3.6 watt-hours/revolution?

 

[catchtwentytwo]

Re: Electric Bill

Anybody else with more guesses?

Has aelectricalman looked at the possibility of energy theft? Is this a detached single family home? Or is it a condo/apartment where someone could tap the load side of the meter?

 

[rick hart]

Re: Electric Bill

With the electronic meter there could be some sort of voltage distortion- an extra zero crosssing will sometimes play havoc with clocks.
I know, I know....really wild guess here but,with that kind of increase in consumption you are either already on fire, the meter setup is off or something really odd ball is in play.

 

[physis]

Re: Electric Bill

I agree with what Charlie said. You need to take a look. Bust out the ammeter, disconnect some loads. If it's an inrtermitant draw, like a fridge, turn the place off for a few hours, when you power back up maybe you'll see it.

 

[kilewatt2002]

Re: Electric Bill

I see that the 2 most common issues were adressed water hearers & meters I have found in 25+ years that on this type of increase that its usualy the water heater. Anybody been welding?

 

[gregoryfast]

Re: Electric Bill

This is a flyer I put out for high bill inquiries.
(Most of it has been covered by other's suggestions.)

HIGH BILLS????
For many, the first inclination is to suspect meter error. Our experience has shown that meters never speed up and make bills higher. They do occasionally slow down giving a lower billing! When we find them, we replace them with meters that give accurate readings. Here are some suggestions that might help you to understand why last month's bill seemed higher than normal
Was your billing period for more than 30 days? Looking at the per-day cost and comparing it with the prior month or year can help you to see if this is truly unusual usage.
Has anything changed in your house? Did you have any guests staying with you? More people in the house equals higher electrical consumption as more lights are on, more showers are taken and more loads of clothes are washed.
Did you buy a new appliance (computers, hair dryers)? How are the old ones running? Old refrigerators and freezers with ice or frost built up in them are not energy efficient.
Does it seem like you are running out of hot water more quickly than normal? Are any hot-water faucets leaking? Is your water extremely hot? Check your hot-water heater settings. 120? to 130? should be sufficient for most homes. Occasionally a heating element will wear out causing power to flow to ground. It is recommended to flush out the water tank yearly to remove any accumulated sludge. (Remember to turn off the breaker first!)
Holidays are a time for higher than normal electric bills. Decorating your house with Christmas lights will increase the amount of power being used. Holiday cooking also raises your bill.
Are you heating your garage all year long? How about the heat tapes on the pipes under the house? It's easy to forget to turn these things off during the warmer months.
Make sure the meter reading used for billing is correct. You can read your own meter and compare it with the reading shown on your bill. It's rare, but mistakes do happen.
Still puzzled about your high bill? Give us a call at the meter shop XXX-XXXX. It's possible that your bill was too good to be true last month because we under-read your meter. That would certainly make this month's bill appear too high

 

[davedottcom]

Re: Electric Bill

Does your service have any underground feeders to sub-panels, docks? Could be voltage leaking into the earth. Shut off ALL loads, only power the feeders...see if meter still spins?

Dave

 

[brian john]

Re: Electric Bill

Close friend of mine had a leak in his water pipe between the well and the house hew was in Iraq for three months and the pump ran non stop.

 

[eutaw42]

Re: Electric Bill

Having worked for an electric utility and reviewed thousands of bills -- it could be many things -- if utility problem, then: 1) correct meter reading? Son got two bad readings recently-- I got high bill corrected for him. 2) meter replaced? -- seen many times that wrong initial reading for new meter input and caused high bills. Have seen thousands of meters checked and only 2 kwh meters were bad on the high side and these were below 1% high -- most meters are bad on the low side. Now a KW/kwh meter for commercial customers are a different story -- the kwh can be on the money but the KW can be or go bad on the old analog & some digital meters. -- If the Meter readings are good, my bet is YOU have a problem with your equipment -- have seen customers swear no problem only to find hot water running out of the crawel space, switch breakers on and off finding water heater grounded, strip heat running all the time, well pump grounded, busted central heat duct broken and customer trying to heat the world-- on and on. Take your own reading everyday to determine where problem may be if any. By the way it has unusually warm here in the south but up where you are it has been exceptionally cold. People often forget how cold or hot this year is compared to previous years. Heck, it seems unreal to me how many folks forget how cold to hot the previous month was.

 

[mc5w]

Re: Electric Bill

Some other possibilities:

1. An underground electrical line is failing and leaking electricity into the soil. This will also partially energize concrete floors and metal drain pipes leading to nasty tingle voltages on properly grounded appliances and water supply pipes.

David Eli Shapiro also relates in his book Old Electrical Wiring that he one time found an instance where electricity was crawling up through the slime inside of the plastic drain pipe for a shower. Was getting the homeowner's attention. He never found the source of electricity. I also know of a mobile home park that has grass roots and tree roots that have penetrated the gasketed joints in PVC sanitary sewer pipe.

2. Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company's metering people sometimes find knob and tuve wiring that is leaking 1/2 to 1 kilowatt into the woodwork. According to Dr. Jesse Aronstein thermal insulation around knob and tube wiring can aggravate this problem.

 

[mc5w]

Re: Electric Bill

I forgot to add that one time a former CUSStomer who was the principal at her private school showed up on Saturday to catch up on paper work. The backyard neighbors had plugged an extension cord into HER outdoor receptacle. Next thing I was installing locking covers for the outdoor receptacles.

I told her that she should have called the police instead of just unplugging them.

 

[mc5w]

Re: Electric Bill

Racoons can also disrupt insulation in attics or crawl spaces.

 

[hardworkingstiff]

Re: Electric Bill

Chris,

Let us know what you find please.