Question about outrageous electric bill?!?
- Thread starter mgotgame
- Start date
- Status
- Location
- Massachusetts
480sparky said:
480, I don't think amptech is talking about radiant heat, I think he is talking about the normal plumbing.
steelersman
Senior Member
- Location
- Lake Ridge, VA
ok but isn't that usually in the form of wiring not radiant pipes under the floor?480sparky said:
steelersman said:
steelersman, There are lots of things you may not of seen so far in your life,
you seem to insinuate that members are making up stories, how about chill a
little bit before posting. Maybe it's just me !!
In Arizona, all the water pipes are run under the slab.
- Location
- Massachusetts
steelersman said:
You obviously do not watch Dick Trethewey on this old house.
He is always pushing hydronic-radiant-floor-heat. It is becoming very popular in my area.
I would like to retrofit it in my own home.
steelersman said:
I know radiant floor heat is available via wiring but all I've seen around here is hot water piping in the concrete slab or hot water piping on the wood subfloor covered with 2" of light weight concrete. I'm doing my new building's concrete floor with hot water radiant heat this fall. You can use a boiler or an electric or gas water heater with circulator pumps. It is pretty economical heat. I have installed electric heat mats for bathroom floors under tile but they are just for specific areas. We put hot water heat piping in a Dr.'s concrete driveway 2 years ago for snow/ice melt.
CHWflorida
Member
steelersman said:
Almost every house I've ever worked on has hot/cold water supply lines under the slab. Different ways of doing things in different parts of the country. I went to a doublewide trailer this week with $700/month average electric bill. I have no idea why.
alfiesauce
Senior Member
My shop upgraded a farm service to a 200 amp service a few months before I started working there, and 6 months later the indivuduals who purchased the upgrade were charged with "farming".
It seems to me, back in the day, one of the things we would look for when people complained about high power bills were loose neutral connections.
It seems to me, back in the day, one of the things we would look for when people complained about high power bills were loose neutral connections.
steelersman
Senior Member
- Location
- Lake Ridge, VA
I am confident that there are tons of things I haven't heard of, seen or thought of. I tend to think inside the box alot. I'm still learning. Sorry for offending you ben. I'll try to chill out a bit. But I still gotta ask why do they run water pipes under the slab not minus the ones for radiant heat?benaround said:
steelersman
Senior Member
- Location
- Lake Ridge, VA
You're right I've never heard of that guy. I've seen a few episodes back in the day with Bob Vila. I heard he had a cocaine problem. Anyone else hear about that?iwire said:You obviously do not watch Dick Trethewey on this old house.
He is always pushing hydronic-radiant-floor-heat. It is becoming very popular in my area.
I would like to retrofit it in my own home.
steelersman said:
My returns run under the house in the crawl space. One was split open and sucking in cold air in the winter. It was also where the mice were getting in. Of course we have gas heat. I figured out that and two sizeable air leaks to the outside were costing me almost $100 a month, by how much the usage went down after fixing all three.
The other two leaks were a dryer vent with no damper and a 2" gap under the furnace room door, the furnace room of course being vented to the outdoors.
jrannis
Senior Member
- Location
- Fort Lauderdale/ Miami
steelersman said:
We have slab on grade construstion in South Florida. No basements due to the high water table here.
I would rather have my supply lines under the slab than in my attic.
steelersman
Senior Member
- Location
- Lake Ridge, VA
I've never seen them in the attic either. They are always run inside the walls or ceilings around here. At least they're accessible if something goes wrong if they're not in the slab.jrannis said:
451F
Member
Faulty AHU design
Faulty AHU design
Circa 1985, a fan coil unit on a heat pump-water circulation system is equipped with electric backup heat to prevent freezing in the winter.
In the summer the room would become cold and the fan would shut off but the cool water would continue to circulate. When the cold air from the coils would fall over the thermostat for the backup heat the heater would come on. The solution we chose was to install a relay on the backup heat circut that would only come on when a fan coil thermostat was manually set to heat.
Faulty AHU design
Circa 1985, a fan coil unit on a heat pump-water circulation system is equipped with electric backup heat to prevent freezing in the winter.
In the summer the room would become cold and the fan would shut off but the cool water would continue to circulate. When the cold air from the coils would fall over the thermostat for the backup heat the heater would come on. The solution we chose was to install a relay on the backup heat circut that would only come on when a fan coil thermostat was manually set to heat.
- Location
- Simi Valley, CA
Has it always been that high or is it just lately?
The reason I ask is my bill was about $130 for two months and then suddenly it was $580. Turns out they had underbilled me for two months and then wanted to make it all up in one month, but when they did the billing the usage put me in the 5th tier which is billed at about 200%. Two months later and I'm still messing with them about it.
The reason I ask is my bill was about $130 for two months and then suddenly it was $580. Turns out they had underbilled me for two months and then wanted to make it all up in one month, but when they did the billing the usage put me in the 5th tier which is billed at about 200%. Two months later and I'm still messing with them about it.
$1000. a month bill would be 13.88 KWH at .10 cents. Thats over 50 amps. You should be able to run your amp meter over each branch and find the source or feel each breaker for warmth. Should be obvious.
dbuckley
Senior Member
- Location
- Canterbury, New Zealand
Here in New Zealand there was a case a little while ago of a huge growing operation in the middle of Auckland; the growers had their own 11KV transformer and had patched it into the PoCo's underground MV cables.
Links to the news story.
I read in the news that New Zealand is the pot growing capital of the world; despite it being illegal we have a chain of stores dedicated to supplying the kit one needs: the Switched On Gardener...
piratesmokey
New member
From what I know ( which is not near as much as i think i know ) the neutral carries the unbalanced load back to the power lines. If the house load is not evenly distributed among the two bus bars then there will be a higher than usualy nuetral load which is basically wasted power that they are paying for and would make the bill higher than normal. It is easy enough to check by just throwing an amp meter on the neutral and seeing if it has more than just a few amps on it. Would be pretty rare on a house I would think. I usualy find high neutral loads on bigger buildings with many panels, but maybe just by some dumb luck most the lights and recepts are on one bus bar leaving more unused things like the dishwasher, hood fan, and stuff on the other. Still don't know that this would cause a bill to be that outrageously high though. Just a thought ^__^
- Location
- Windsor, CO NEC: 2017
- Occupation
- Hospital Master Electrician
I disagree. A watt is a watt. It doesn't matter if the load is 120V or 240V.
- Status