Exceptionally high utility bill.

[kwired]

Might be the air bladder is going bad, or a leak on the water side of the bladder going off to a drain.

My experiences there is the air gap eventually diminishes leaving you with little or no expansion ability in the tank anymore, and too frequent starting/stopping of the pump because of it.

 

[ptonsparky]

I haven't looked back, but what is/was exceptionally high?

 

[kwired]

I haven't looked back, but what is/was exceptionally high?

I don't think it was ever brought up. Not just the total bill but not even any consumption comparisons

 

[Fred B]

I haven't looked back, but what is/was exceptionally high?

Owner never said beyond bill was much higher that it used to be. Did ask for usage comparison not $, but he never really got me any historical information only saw recent billing, did seem a little high but not extremely so. His insistence that it was high led to the investigation and findings. As investigation progressed and as I found some of the issues that I corrected but might have only slightly if at all contributed to a higher bill found out he had been using some higher draw items more so recently as well.

 

[jmellc]

Check water heater thermostat. Maybe it got turned up by a family member without telling him.
Check if the service feeds any neighbors’ houses. I’ve seen a few of those with family members living next door. One service won’t handle a new load so they feed from the one that can. People forget those details, a brother sells house, new owner uses stuff more & jacks the bill.
Check for hidden loads within the house. I did a job for a family on city water. Kept hearing a motor in the crawl space. They had been in a well before. Plumber had rerouted water years before but water pump was still connected and running. I killed the circuit but boxed it off where they could use it again if they wanted to, for a backup.
Check for any electric baseboard heaters covered by furniture. May be on & consuming. Space heaters in outbuildings?
Check for a range with bad thermostat, let’s oven element keep heating at low level. Not common but I’ve seen it once.
Attic fan set too low & never stops running? Stuck thermostat possible too.

 

[Fred B]

Check water heater thermostat. Maybe it got turned up by a family member without telling him.
Check if the service feeds any neighbors’ houses. I’ve seen a few of those with family members living next door. One service won’t handle a new load so they feed from the one that can. People forget those details, a brother sells house, new owner uses stuff more & jacks the bill.
Check for hidden loads within the house. I did a job for a family on city water. Kept hearing a motor in the crawl space. They had been in a well before. Plumber had rerouted water years before but water pump was still connected and running. I killed the circuit but boxed it off where they could use it again if they wanted to, for a backup.
Check for any electric baseboard heaters covered by furniture. May be on & consuming. Space heaters in outbuildings?
Check for a range with bad thermostat, let’s oven element keep heating at low level. Not common but I’ve seen it once.
Attic fan set too low & never stops running? Stuck thermostat possible too.

All good checks. Did find out that they were using multiple portable heaters in the house, definitely a power hog. Another factor just found out, the actual property owner is the grandfather of the now "tenent" of a new mobile home that was put on the site. And the "arrangement" was that the grandchild was to pay for the electrical usage difference from when it was just the grandfather's shop (one meter between the two buildings). And as the rates have been increasing there was no increase on what grandfather considered "historical usage". So the grandchild saw a huge increase in the electrical bill. I am now in the process of getting POCO approvals and separating the services with a 2 meter stack.

Once again more proof that getting accurate and complete information from a customer is like pulling teeth.

 

[Fred B]

Thanks for everyone's input and suggestions.

 

[kwired]

Owner never said beyond bill was much higher that it used to be. Did ask for usage comparison not $, but he never really got me any historical information only saw recent billing, did seem a little high but not extremely so. His insistence that it was high led to the investigation and findings. As investigation progressed and as I found some of the issues that I corrected but might have only slightly if at all contributed to a higher bill found out he had been using some higher draw items more so recently as well.

mis-reading a meter maybe isn't really too likely with the smart meters and automatic readings, but I've had people concerned about high billing before and come to find out it was meter reading error. Or maybe one has a rate change, some one time fee for some reason, budget billing adjustment, etc. that will leave you chasing ghosts if you can't look at their bills and check actual consumption vs going off the bottom line dollar figure.

 

[gadfly56]

All good checks. Did find out that they were using multiple portable heaters in the house, definitely a power hog. Another factor just found out, the actual property owner is the grandfather of the now "tenent" of a new mobile home that was put on the site. And the "arrangement" was that the grandchild was to pay for the electrical usage difference from when it was just the grandfather's shop (one meter between the two buildings). And as the rates have been increasing there was no increase on what grandfather considered "historical usage". So the grandchild saw a huge increase in the electrical bill. I am now in the process of getting POCO approvals and separating the services with a 2 meter stack.

Once again more proof that getting accurate and complete information from a customer is like pulling teeth.

So, they basically added a second service on the meter and expected the usage to stay the same????

 

[Hv&Lv]

So, they basically added a second service on the meter and expected the usage to stay the same????

You would be amazed at the calls we get regarding high usage where we find something like this.
One guy swears his (4) 7500W electric heat strips he installed in his heat vents isn’t the cause of his high bills because “strip heat is 100% efficient”

 

[jmellc]

All good checks. Did find out that they were using multiple portable heaters in the house, definitely a power hog. Another factor just found out, the actual property owner is the grandfather of the now "tenent" of a new mobile home that was put on the site. And the "arrangement" was that the grandchild was to pay for the electrical usage difference from when it was just the grandfather's shop (one meter between the two buildings). And as the rates have been increasing there was no increase on what grandfather considered "historical usage". So the grandchild saw a huge increase in the electrical bill. I am now in the process of getting POCO approvals and separating the services with a 2 meter stack.

Once again more proof that getting accurate and complete information from a customer is like pulling teeth.

Yep, we need to know if a nail has been driven, a hole has been cut, a desk has been slammed into a wall, etc. Trouble can come from any source.

 

[hillbilly1]

One of the office girls said her dryer quit working, went out to her house, breaker was tripped. She said her husband just installed a new cabinet in the laundry room, yep, he drove a screw right into the wire! LOL!