Electrical Problem

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joeyww12000

joeyww12000

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Chatsworth GA
I have a friend whose electric bill is running way high, almost 3-4 hundred a month! We have checked everything and cannot understand what is drawing so much current. He has went with his a/c off for a month, unplugged dryer, stove....etc. We have checked all panel connections and found no problems. We are stumped, anybody here have any suggestions? The power company says there is good.
 
You need an amp meter.

Figured @ $0.10/kw, 24/7 for 52 weeks. A 5000 watt load (20.8amps) at 240V will cost about $364/month plus any other fees charged by the utility.

Did his bill just suddenly go up? Where does he live? What is the rate/kw he pays and what is the usage?
 
I have found baseboard heaters, electric heat in ceilings, and heat tape on plumbing, and electric water heaters that had bad thermostats stuck on causing high bills.
 
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stickboy1375 said:
Houses with wells and leaky plumbing will also raise your bill.
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Thats one I would not have thought of being on town water all my life.

I bet that could really raise your electrical bill though.
 
I was once asked this question by a family with an electric water heater. They had twin babies and they used cloth diapers, so they were doing 2-3 loads of laundry every day.
 
Are there any remote panels or feeds to other buildings underground? Could be a high resistance fault on the cable eating up power, check for amperage on the grounding electrode conductor. That will usually be the path the fault will take back.
 
An A/C unit or a Refrigerator that has extremely dirty coils, will run almost continuously. Other high resistant faults could be from any cable that contacts the earth. (Yard lights, A/C, or any poorly installed cable in an underfloor crawl space.)
 
080522-0748 EST

joeyww12000:

If you have no other instrumentation use the watt-hour meter. Mine is a disk type and takes about 19 seconds for 1 revolution at a 120 V 10 A load.

Averaged over one year there are about 730 hours per month. At $0.11 per KWH this is $80.30 per average KWH/month. A typical residence might be in the range of 1 to 2 KW average usage.

I would open the main breaker or fuse and see if the meter is perfectly still. Next close the main breaker and determine rate of rotation. One way or another you need to do a calibration on the watt-hour meter.

Depending upon what you see as the residual load make a judgement of what to do next. I might start by turning off everything in the house including refrigerators and freezers. My own residual load with almost every thing turned off except clocks, etc is about 100 W or 0.1 KWH average. My average usage is about 2 KWH and that makes my never off stuff about 5%.

If your base load is excessive, you have to make a judgement on the definition of excessive, then start turning off breakers to try to isolate the major source.

Obviously this is easier if you use clamp-on current meters on the incoming hot lines.

If there is no major residual load, then you need to look at the duty cycles of various high load devices. The previous posts have provided some good suggestions for you.

If you had a pair of recording ammeters on the main lines it could be very useful.

.
 
I had a customer complaining about high electric bill a few years ago. She had compared her bills to he neighbors' in the apartment complex and her's was substantially higher. We had her turn off "everything" in her apartment and then used an amprobe to check each circuit. Sure enough we found one circuit with a substantial load. It was the heater for her waterbed which ran almost continuously... Case closed. This should be fairly easy to trace without any exotic tools, just a simple amp meter and a few minutes of time.
 
You have been asking some extremely simple and basic questions over the past few weeks. Why use relays? How does 3-phase work? Can 208 & 480 cohabitate a raceway? How can a circuit work without a neutral?

Then you're asking abou fastracking you career to the top, and consider 3 years roping houses as part of a 5-year plan that somehow makes you a "journeyman."

I am a journeyman electrician with 5 years experience, 3 residential and 2 commercial. I am currently doing commercial wiring and am looking to fast track up the payscale. I do understand experience and time are the best way to learn, but I have the ability to learn and am impatient. I plan on trying to take in enough on my next two or three jobs to maybe taking on a job from the ground up.
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And now this...

I'm going to answer all your questions now. Get off your high horse kiddo. You've got a LOT to learn. You ain't no journeyman, journeyman know how circuits work, what relays are for, and have enough of a grasp on basic theory to know that 3-phase motors don't need a neutral. At this point, you know just enough to be considered dangerous. Don't fall into the perils of this instant gratification society we live in.

I want you to read the highlighted portion of your quote and understand that what you wrote isn't an asset, despite the encouragement you've gotten from others on this board, it will in fact be your downfall if you think you are going to make a sucessful career while skipping the most important steps in career development.

Good luck to you.
 
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