Somehow we're using an insane amount of electricity, ideas?

[Scouzer]

We recently moved from our old 1050 sqft, no garage townhouse into a new city where we have a 1369sqft townhouse with a single garage.

Our maximum electrical usage in the old house was 350 kWh, with 275 kWh being typical.

In the new house we used 1100 kWh last month and 1200 kWh this month. It has an electric heated garage which I understand is expensive, but I have the heater next to off (maintains 10 celsius) plus the ambient temperature outside is only around 0 degrees, so it's not like there's a large differential. The garage is also partially underground so it only has one exterior facing wall--the door.

To offset the power hungry garage the new place has a HE furnace + water heater (natural gas) whereas the old place did not. I also used a space heater liberally in the old place and haven't taken it out once here.

What the hell is using all the power? Any ideas? Should I get the meter inspected? It's a brand new house with a new smart meter.

 

[wirednuts]

its the heater in the garage. you barely use any electricity, so a little bump seems like a lot on paper.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Appliances? Different size water heater? Poor insulation?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Garage heater

 

[who?]

Check for extension cords going to a neighbors or to a camper or to a homeless camp.

 

[Scouzer]

its the heater in the garage. you barely use any electricity, so a little bump seems like a lot on paper.

I guess that makes sense sadly. My power bill went from $60 to $300 a month .

Our appliances are more efficient too.

 

[who?]

Is the garage door well insulated?

 

[wirednuts]

I guess that makes sense sadly. My power bill went from $60 to $300 a month .

Our appliances are more efficient too.

well i dont know how accurate your estimates are. that is a big price difference, thats for sure. electric heat is expensive though.. in my 600sqft apartment i regularly see $140 bills but everything is electric. in the winter ive been over $200

 

[Chaotic42]

I guess that makes sense sadly. My power bill went from $60 to $300 a month .

Our appliances are more efficient too.

$300/mo for 1200KWh? Dear God.

 

[IronWing]

It's probably your video card.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Garage. They leak heat like a colander leaks water.

 

[Scouzer]

Is the garage door well insulated?

Well insulated, dunno. It is an insulated door anyway. There's no obvious giant gaps under the door or anything.

well i dont know how accurate your estimates are. that is a big price difference, thats for sure. electric heat is expensive though.. in my 600sqft apartment i regularly see $140 bills but everything is electric. in the winter ive been over $200

I bought the appliances myself and nearly all of them were at the bottom or very near the bottom electric usage for its category.

It's probably your video card.

As part of my move I did make the switch from a laptop to desktop PC. This accounts for some small percentage of the increase.

 

[wirednuts]

700kwh used last month for me- $112 total after taxes for me. really, thats pretty normal but damn its a lot of money

 

[wirednuts]

scouzer- its pretty easy to tell what is drawing the most load. have someone go outside to the meter and watch the dial spinning. turn off circuit breakers until the meter stops spinning, then turn back on one by one to see what makes it really spin good.

once you have the circuit narrowed down, you should know whats drawing all the power.

 

[Scouzer]

scouzer- its pretty easy to tell what is drawing the most load. have someone go outside to the meter and watch the dial spinning. turn off circuit breakers until the meter stops spinning, then turn back on one by one to see what makes it really spin good.

once you have the circuit narrowed down, you should know whats drawing all the power.

Unfortunately it's a digital meter that only updates on in full kWh increments.

 

[pontifex]

damn, how did you use so little electricity before? I live by myself in a 1100 square foot house and my usage is regularly 900kwh+ each month. it's about $100 a month.

the house does have electric heat but I usually keep it low or off in certain areas.

 

[Jeff7]

its the heater in the garage. you barely use any electricity, so a little bump seems like a lot on paper.

Yeah. Wow. Maybe I've got some crazy drains of power or something...I use more than 275-350kWh even in the winter, when there's no air conditioner running. I would guess that the old refrigerator is adding a fair bit, but its compressor isn't running continuously, so I'm not so sure.



Something else: Make sure that these bills are for actual usage, and not just estimated values, though...I guess that's probably not going to be the cause of consistently high usage values.

I happened to remember one billing cycle where I got hit with a bill that was somewhere around 3x what I would have expected.
They did a reading in April, but then didn't do another one until after the summer was mostly over, which is my peak-usage period. The estimated values they used were quite low, so then they had to make up all that slack with the actual reading. It's an old building, with lousy insulation in the walls, if there even is any, so the air conditioner gets a workout.

 

[BUTCH1]

My house has pure electric central heat, it's just a heating element at the end of the blower box, builders loved 'em in the '70's because they were cheap rather than installing a proper furnace but I rarely use it, if we do it's a $300 bill easily, I bought a small 18KBTU propane heater and if gets cold we use that, about 1/5 the cost of electric..

 

[2timer]

Hey OP, I have a brilliant idea: if your electricity bills jumped up significantly after moving to a townhouse with a heated garage, I'M GUESSING IT'S THE GARAGE HEATER.

Common sense, you heard of it?

 

[Scouzer]

Hey OP, I have a brilliant idea: if your electricity bills jumped up significantly after moving to a townhouse with a heated garage, I'M GUESSING IT'S THE GARAGE HEATER.

Common sense, you heard of it?

In February I used 1100 kWh with the garage heater set to 20 degrees while it was -20 outside.

In March I cranked the garage heater to its lowest setting--10 degrees--while it was 0 degrees outside. I used 1200 kWh.

Explain that, asshole.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Sorry Scouzer, I think 2timer might be another escaped Phoenix politician.

 

[Paladin3]

In February I used 1100 kWh with the garage heater set to 20 degrees while it was -20 outside.

In March I cranked the garage heater to its lowest setting--10 degrees--while it was 0 degrees outside. I used 1200 kWh.

Explain that, asshole.

Man, I just want to fist-bump you after that reply.

 

[SagaLore]

Check the closets, I think your SO is hiding a sybian...

 

[LikeLinus]

In February I used 1100 kWh with the garage heater set to 20 degrees while it was -20 outside.

In March I cranked the garage heater to its lowest setting--10 degrees--while it was 0 degrees outside. I used 1200 kWh.

Explain that, asshole.

Well asshole, the topic in the OP was the questionable jump between 350 kWh in your old place to the 1100-1200kWh range of the new place that has a heated garage. Now reasonable logic would dictate that the added overall square footage, PLUS the added electricity to heat an poorly insulated garage would lead us to believe it's the Garage causing the spike.

But the difference between the 1100 to 1200 kWh jump is probably your girlfriends reliance of her 110v vibrator because you're just not cutting it in the bedroom.

Any questions? eh?

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Check the closets, I think your SO is hiding a sybian...

They make those that run on 240 amp?