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HUGE electric bill increase!

K

Kremlar

Golden Member
(sorry, this will probably be rambling...)

I opened my electrical bill to find a HUGE jump last month in electricity useage.

To be more specific, 3 months ago I was averaging 65 KWH per day, 2 months ago I was averaging 55 KWH per day. Last month I averaged 145.5 KWH per day.

Total useage for last month was 4511 KWH.

I was obviously shocked. Nothing major has changed at the house (as a matter of fact we've been switching to energy saving light bulbs!!).

One major thing did occur, though - we had a few days of heavy winds and extreme cold weather. At one point, I noticed the hot tub cover had blown off our hot tub because someone failed to lock it down. I can't be certain, but I think it could have been off for as little as 8 hours to as much as a couple of days.

The hot tub is a fairly large 6 or 7 seater. I'm sure the heater and pump 1 for circulation were on during this time, trying to fight the cold weather.

I expected a lot of wasted electricity because of this, but 2500+ additional KWH shocked me.

I ran the numbers with some people on an electricity forum, and there's no way it would have jumped my bill that much.

So why the heck did my bill jump so dramatically? It doesn't make any sense to me...

I called the electric company to complain, and they say they'll send someone out to check the meter, but I'm sure they're just going to blow me off. They originally claimed that they have been estimating the electricity for the past few months because they were having problems reading the meter, but I challenged that and she backed off saying that wasn't the case (do they just say that when anyone calls with an issue??).

Here are how my bills break down.

2/11/06 - 3/14/06 (31 days) = 4511 KWH = $685.19
1/13/06 - 2/11/06 (29 days) = 1589 KWH = $245.36
12/13/05 - 1/13/06 (31 days) = 2031 KWH = $312.01
11/08/05 - 12/13/05 (35 days) = 2248 KWH = $344.71
10/10/05 - 11/08/05 (29 days) = 1725 KWH = $222.08 (this is before a rate increase)

We are in a 1 year old house. We have:

- electric oven/range
- electric dryer
- microwave
- toaster oven
- Foreman grill
- iron
- dishwasher
- refrigerator
- 11 rooms (including 2.5 baths, finished basement) - about 3600 sq feet total
- sewer pump (we have town sewer, but are below street level)
- hot tub
- flat iron (hair straightener)
- heat is forced hot air
- hot water heater

We also have a bunch of computers (that's what I do for work), but the # hasn't really increased at all.

The ridiculous jump just doesn't make sense to me.

As a matter of fact, we've spent the last 1.5 - 2 months replacing our light bulbs with energy saving CFL bulbs (which is why I thought we saw the drop 2 months ago).

We haven't added anything new, as a matter of fact we got rid of a small refrigerator.

We are a 3 person household (2 adults, 1 6 year old).

Any suggestions on trying to figure this out??

Thanks!
 
4511kWh is insanity. :Q

Shouldn't be hard to figure out what's drawing the juice though. Start flipping breakers and watch your meter.
 
Do they read every month? Ours gets lazy and estimates for a couple of months at a time, then we we get the real reading, it's always a lot higher so we get socked with a huge jump.
 
They are supposedly sending a tech out to check the meter, but we'll see how that goes.

They originally claimed they had been estimating for 3 months, but I basically said "bullsh*t" and they backed off on that. Even if they were, it seems crazy high.

It's hard to just watch the meter, because ours is not an analog wheel - it's a digital.

The reading yesterday at 3pm was 29,348. 3 hours later at 6pm it was 29,360 - we were drying clothes, cooking in the oven, etc...

13.5 hours after that at 7:30am it was 29,406 (after our showers and everything).

Something just doesn't seem right...
 
Originally posted by: Kremlar
They are supposedly sending a tech out to check the meter, but we'll see how that goes.

They originally claimed they had been estimating for 3 months, but I basically said "bullsh*t" and they backed off on that. Even if they were, it seems crazy high.

It's hard to just watch the meter, because ours is not an analog wheel - it's a digital.

The reading yesterday at 3pm was 29,348. 3 hours later at 6pm it was 29,360 - we were drying clothes, cooking in the oven, etc...

13.5 hours after that at 7:30am it was 29,406 (after our showers and everything).

Something just doesn't seem right...
Click to expand...

That's 107KWh per day, assuming that the next 10.5 hours will be the same, which I doubt since that was at night. :shocked:
 
Heaters are extremely expensive. In my last place, a few loads of laundry a day made up an extra $100 a month on my bill. The heater for your hottub has to heat water, not air, which takes a lot more power. Bigger tub means exponentially more power needed, especially in the bitter cold. Even with the top on I'm betting it's running a lot more than normal. If you want to save some money, I'd recommend draining it and shutting it down during the winter, and when you plan to use it fill it up if needed.
 
the hot tub seems plausible to me. drain it and turn it off and see if your usage returns to normal.

it is most likely you did you as much as your meter said, for whatever reason, so don't expect the electric company to lower your bill
 
your hot tub has an 11KW heater in it, if the cover was off it would run non stop in the cold to try to maintain whatever temp you had set.

our usage aver. is around 3500kw amonth
3100 sf
2 washers
2 dryers
3 HWH
then everything else would be same as you with the excep. we've been running the A/C and not the heater🙂
 
If you want to save some money, I'd recommend draining it and shutting it down during the winter, and when you plan to use it fill it up if needed.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, you're suppose to also remove the pumps if you're going to shut it down during cold weather, which I'd rather not do.

I just can't imagine that huge of a jump. I posted on an electrical/hot tub forum, and they saui the tub would have had to run at full force for 9 straight days to make up that difference, which it definitely did not do...
 
Close off the hear vents in the rooms you don't use. No sense paying to heat them.
Also if you are out of the house during the day, make sure you have a programmable thermostat to set the temperature down when you aren't there and also at night. No sense heating the house when no one is using it.

Also, turn the temperature down on the hot tub when you aren't using it. Not down too far but down at least a few degrees. It heats back up quickly. Unless you use it every day, then don't bother.
 
it could very well be the hot tub.

btw, your light bulbs shouldn't be the main usage. 80-90% of your usage is attributed to heating, cooling, and refrigeration

definitely request the meter reread. i would turn off your hot tub if possible in the winter, as suggested above.
 
If you want to save some money, I'd recommend draining it and shutting it down during the winter, and when you plan to use it fill it up if needed.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, you're suppose to also remove the pumps if you're going to shut it down during cold weather, which I'd rather not do.

I just can't imagine that huge of a jump. I posted on an electrical/hot tub forum, and they saui the tub would have had to run at full force for 9 straight days to make up that difference, which it definitely did not do...
 
Originally posted by: jlbenedict
Originally posted by: wvtalbot
Best solution if you want to keep energy costs down, vote democrat in 2008.
Click to expand...

:thumbsup:
Click to expand...

that's bull crap. i have worked as a consultant for the utilities industry, and i can tell you that's a load of poop

(btw, i'm not a republican)
 
you guys are funny, like making Hildebeast President will drop gasoline prices to $0.65/gallon :laugh:
 
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