Utility Bills

[SkwerI]

Steve, he'd have to leave the hot water running full blast 24-7, leave his oven on with the door open and run every electrical appliance in his house full time to use 4000 kwh per month.

 

[Al Smith]

Could it be a water leak in the hot water?

Assuming it's an elecric hot water heater,that is .

Really though a bad lower element will make them spin the meter for sure .

The only way you are going to track it down is with an amp meter .Of course it could be just a bad reading on the meter too .

Now then 77 degrees isn't bad .If you get the humidity out of the air it's cool enough . I've got a programable thermostat which I could make about 6 different settings during the day if I so choose to but I just leave it at one .

Every so often a certain someone gets a hot flash and I've got to lower it a tad bit .

 

[wiley_p]

We were told that we would see a 20% increase in utility bills this year alone, and it has happened in our area.

 

[woodworkingboy]

At least you guys have an electric utility company that needs to get approval when wanting to raise rates.

 

[darkstar]

Yall heard about the great ASH spill here in Tennessee ?TVA is having to raise our rates as its costing so much to clean it up.Talk about pita ful management.

 

[stehansen]

I heard about that. It's crazy huge.

 

[Frans]

Yall heard about the great ASH spill here in Tennessee ?.

According to the 'experts' this ash does not pose a threat to humans.

Uh huh. So don't worry folks! Just go about your business, nothing to see here.
The EPA is on the job (just as soon as they get back from vacation).
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/us/27sludge.html

Neither the authority nor the E.P.A. has released the results of tests of soil or the ash itself. Authority officials have said that the ash is not harmful, and the authority has not warned residents of potential dangers, though federal studies show that coal ash can contain dangerous levels of heavy metals and carcinogens.
“You’re not going to be endangered by touching the ash material,” said Barbara Martocci, a spokeswoman for the T.V.A. “You’d have to eat it. You have to get it in your body.”

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation also released a statement saying there was no indication of risk unless the ash was ingested.

 

[stehansen]

Steve, he'd have to leave the hot water running full blast 24-7, leave his oven on with the door open and run every electrical appliance in his house full time to use 4000 kwh per month.

I think it comes out to 5500 watts going 24/7 for the whole month. A water heater uses 5500 watts, a window AC unit 750 or so, oven 3400 watts (how many brownies is that?). My point being is if it is indeed a valid bill, an air conditioner can't do that and usually the water heater is the big electricity user in a home. Even though a oven and a clothes dryer are also big users it takes effort on your part to make them go and you are going to know that you are using huge amounts of juice whereas a hot water leak under the house or something like that is out of sight. Are my calculations correct on the wattage? I figured 4000 khs divided by 720 hrs which comes out to 5.5 therefore 5500 watts right? And you are right Brian, that would have to be some huge water leak.

 

[lumberjack]

Looks right to me, Steve.

 

[SkwerI]

Butch, around here you can call the power company and they can come out and do an energy evaluation to see where you may be able to conserve power. Perhaps if you call them up they can make an appointment for a tech to come out and evaluate your power usage.

 

[NeTree]

I think you may have a neighbor tapping into your service or something. Even with the bigscreen tv, you're not burning 4K kwh per month. That's enough power for 2-3 houses.

I only average about 1,200 kWH a month...
with an electric water heater, electric clothes dryer, two air conditioners, and a jacuzzi.

 

[Greenhorn]

Going through the same crap, huge bill last month. Just put a solar powered vent fan in the roof over my bedroom, seems to help out. I think I am paying too much , just a pain to switch to another co.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I called, they're gonna reread the sucka.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

MB.. you need to learn to read your meter also... The estimations that were referred to earlier in this thread happen a lot here. And it really SUX when they carry on for a while with it.

 

[lumberjack]

That's what, 2.5mwh discrepency, or better. That would mean if they get it wrong 100kw a month low on their estimation, it'd take 25 months for that large of an error to occur.

 

[Burnham]

Could just be a typo entry error the reader made on his/her field data recorder.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

A lot are just plug in at this point Burnam. But yes, data entry is a huge cuprit in any industry.. Good call.

 

[Burnham]

Still using manual entry here. Manual read of analog meter dials, for that matter, so an error there could happen too.

 

[Che]

From Butch's initial post:

My buddy's minimum wage groundie told me his was 900.

That doesn't sound good for the home team. What's your electric company's name, Butch?

 

[MasterBlaster]

City Of Alexandria Utility Dept.

 

[Frans]

Digital meters are supposed to be more accurate.
Butch, are you gonna schedule a person to come out and measure all the different things you have running?
Someone mentioned this earlier in this thread. Something about the utilities coming out and doing a free evaluation.

no matter what, your bill doesn't seem right to me. Something is wrong.

Are you running some kind of huge Cray computer

 

[Mr. Sir]

It's easy enough to check the meter yourself, Butch. Just go see if it corresponds to your last bill.

 

[MasterBlaster]

My guess is they merely read the meter wrong.

A few years back, I had a water bill for 600 bucks. It seems the meterperson added an extra zero.

 

[squisher]

Do like Brett said. Up here the meter reading is printed on the bill. Check it, then you'll know.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Yes, I've done that and that's why I called.