Strange Electric Usage Mystery

17 years ago

Hey everyone,

I have a bit of an odd problem, one which I'm sure gets addressed quite often. The gist of it is that my electric bill just doesn't make sense to me. I feel that it shows that we are using an odd amount of electricity, but that the bar graph on the bill itself doesn't make sense. For instance, I used 23 kw/h daily in november and december. I then literally removed my electric stove from the premesis and started cooking with wood (not to save money, but because I'm nutty!), turned down the hot water heater's thermo and stopped doing a few other moderate-use electrical things. WHen I got my Jan bill, it read exactly the same amount as nov and december. Odd thing is that our stove was from the 70s and I used it MANY times a day (I work out of the house) and so I figured it must have been using decent electricity. I ran the oven for a few hours at 400 degrees to bake bread at minimum once a week.

Anyways, here's the background: I have a 700 sq. ft. house. it's practically a shed. It's very well insulated (floors, walls, ceilings, etc) but that doesn't matter as I heat with wood and coal, and haven't used the furnace at all this year. We still have the full tank of oil we had LAST February, and who knows when that was from! We have a TV but only use it to watch DVDs a couple times a month. We don't have a washer/dryer, AC, or an electric stove and all of our lighting is very low watt and not used very often, since I am the only one up late at night and just sit here in my office with the 20 watt desk lamp on for a few hours reading. The only major appliance we use is this CRAPPY old refridgerator we are going to soon replace. It seems to be running nearly all of the time! The big culprits are electric hot water & a well pump for our 500 foot well. The electric co. says we have been using an avg of 23 kw/h DAILY. It's odd, because they say we're using 3 more Kw/h than last jan and that was when we were using more appliances, etc. Also, our electric consumption for august and september was the lowest point on the graph, measuring in at just 13 kw/h daily avg. It spikes seemingly random months, and for the past 3 has been exactly the same: 23 kw/h. I went out on a whim and stared at our analog meter for what seemed an eternity yet they were either not moving at all or my eyes are failing me. I wrote down the numbers and will check them tomorrow.

Sorry for being so verbose, I'm just supercharged with frustration this evening after getting my $145 bill, the same as my Mother who has 1200 more sq.ft. than us and uses her electricity like it's free (drying clothes 3 times a week, long hot showers, TV on all day for the dog, etc.)

Thanks in advance! I just need simple advice to track down this beast!

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Comments (7)

distincthead
Original Author
17 years ago
I forgot to mention that all of the wiring and permanent appliances & features (such as furnace, hot water heater, septic) are from 1997 or later, the last of which was installed in 2003. Our house has 90 AMP service. It was totally gutted to nothing but the frame, floorboards and rafters and remodeled. It didn't have running water (just a manual pump surface well) or a septic, and only had 2 outlets and an electric toilet. All the old electric was completely replaced with quality, modern stuff and was done very well and far surpassed code. There is only 1 problem, which is that there are 2 underground conduits running wire to two outdoor lamp posts which, though I replaced the switch and lamps themselves, no longer work. I know it's the wiring somewhere, could this be leaking my juice to ground?
jamesbodell
17 years ago
Look at the bill, was it a meter read or estimate? They used to read the meter every other billing cycle, but now they do it almost every cycle with the wireless meter read equipment. If an estimate, they caluclated on past usage, and next month should be lower by two months delta! It should say on the bill somewhere if it was a read or estimate. You can also call in your reading yourself. Good luck
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distincthead
Original Author
17 years ago
It says "actual read" on the bill. We also have one of those analog meters, but it is from the late 90's and has a rather large circuit board on the front of it that obviously weren't there when i was growing up. I was thinking it could be a sending unit, since I am home literally all day every day and I don't recall ever having seen or heard the meter reader or his vehicle. My oversensitive dogs haven't heard him either. :-/
davidandkasie
17 years ago
old fridge running all the time could be one culprit. another could be the lamp posts, if the wires are partially grounded, but if that were the case i would think that the meter would be moving some at all times.

read your meter, if possible read it every day. write the readings down, and then compare them to the bill.

an electric water heater will use a good bit of juice, but unless you use tons of hot water and it is constantly having to reheat cold water, it should not be that bad.
normel
17 years ago
Check your usage over several days with everything as it is now. Then disconnect the wires running to the lamp post at the switch and monitor the usage for the same amount of time. See if there is an appreciable difference.
xtenson
17 years ago
I'm curious about leaking electricity to ground...Can that happen? Are there other "leaks" that can be traced and eliminated? How?

Some background on my mystery usage:

We are fortunate to have a weekend house and a weekday house. Our weekend house uses 4-5x the amount of electricity as our weekday house. I can't figure out why. Needless to say we are only in the weekend house 2 nights per week and the weekday house 5 nights per week (on average). Weekdays the two flat screen TVs and associated stereo equipment are on 4-5 hours a day. Weekend house has no TV or stereo...The range/oven and dryer is gas at both houses, the heat and hot water is oil at both. Except for the weekend house being larger (but not 4x larger), all else is fairly equal. I never understood why the weekend house sucked more electricity than the weekday house. I even purchased an electricity meter that plugs into the wall to compare the electric usage of the refrigerators...exactly the same! No all night on lights at either house. Any help?!

This is pretty significant for us since electricity is 19 cents a kilowatt hour in CT!!
DavidR
17 years ago
Because the neutral of your electrical service is grounded for lightning protection, a grounded appliance with defective insulation can cause a current to flow even when the appliance is off. I had a refrigerator which did this when the automatic defrost heating element ruptured; sitting in the dirty water in the clogged defrost tray, the element created a somewhat high resistance path to the refrigerator's metal frame. Nobody was shocked since the frame was grounded. The current simply flowed to ground. It wasn't a high enough fault current to trip the breaker, so it was months before I realized anything was wrong.

Breaks in the insulation in underground cables can also cause this. In extreme cases you'll see snow melt off the ground above, but a lower current leakage won't show many if any such symptoms.

I have heard of water pumps causing this kind of leakage, too.

Even a small leakage current can be a real energy waster since it is happening 24 hours a day.

Strange Electric Usage Mystery

Comments (7)

distincthead
Original Author

jamesbodell

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distincthead
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Strange Electric Usage Mystery

Comments (7)

distinctheadOriginal Author

jamesbodell

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distinctheadOriginal Author

davidandkasie

normel

xtenson

DavidR

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distincthead
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distincthead
Original Author