Why did my electric bill more than triple in one month?

[marmer]

Gas stove, gas heat, gas dryer, gas water heater. Water heater is new. We keep the stats low and turn off lights. This month the electric bill is four times what it usually is. What happened? Rate change, or some hidden current drain I should try to find?

[memebag]

Gas stove, gas heat, gas dryer, gas water heater. Water heater is new. We keep the stats low and turn off lights. This month the electric bill is four times what it usually is. What happened? Rate change, or some hidden current drain I should try to find?

Look for wires going to your neighbors' houses.

[musicman]

was the meter read accurate?

[sevfiv]

Yikes - definitely check your kWh usage, your rate for that bill, and cross reference the number on your meter.

I had a huge jump like that once, but it turned out to be a problem with the AC unit running inefficiently (and it wasn't summer, but still).

[ihop]

If they don't send someone out to read the meter every month, they could have been (under-)estimating your usage for the last 2-3 months, then when they come out & actually check the meter they tack the remainder onto the latest bill.

[marmer]

Yikes - definitely check your kWh usage, your rate for that bill, and cross reference the number on your meter.

I had a huge jump like that once, but it turned out to be a problem with the AC unit running inefficiently (and it wasn't summer, but still).

My wife called the power company and they told her how to check the meter, and they said the reading was correct. But check this out:

(1,966 sq. ft. house)

November 10 - December 9: 580 kWh @ $.149

Dec. 9 - Jan. 14: 802 kWh @ $.149

Jan. 14 - Feb. 10: 3475 kWh @ $.159

WTF? 802 to 3475 in one month? When it's not even A/C season? Last June and July we used 1600 and 1300, respectively.

My wife is seriously freaking out because she thinks we have a hidden fire hazard somewhere. We're going to call an electrician, but any guidance we can get is greatly appreciated.

[sevfiv]

With a small hike in your rate and no unusual activity on your part, something else seems to be sucking your electricity (faulty appliance? neighbor?).

That's a huge jump, even if you average it out over the past couple months...can you look up how many kWh used this time last year?

[kylejack]

Check your old bill to see if the 804 was an actual meter reading or an estimate. There may be a small note on that bill stating that it is "estimated usage" due to no meter reading being taken for that month. These estimated usages are notoriously small and then you get hit with a whopper on the next bill from both months. This happened at our house after Ike.

[marmer]

Yeah, this is very strange because our provider (Stream Energy) gives us a little bar graph of usage over the last 12 months. Nov-Dec 2007 looked very much like Nov-Dec 2008: 600 - 800 kWh-ish, with then small incremental increases in the spring until the peak of 1600 in June 2008. Then similar incremental decreases as the weather cools in the fall. All very reasonable. Now, we keep the back gate locked and I don't think I've ever seen a meter reader. Maybe my wife has but she's never mentioned it. A/C and fridge are all new-ish (actually, the A/C is ten years old, the fridge is about five.) I'd be willing to bet we didn't run the A/C compressor at all in the month of January.

What else should we be looking for?

[memebag]

Yeah, this is very strange because our provider (Stream Energy) gives us a little bar graph of usage over the last 12 months. Nov-Dec 2007 looked very much like Nov-Dec 2008: 600 - 800 kWh-ish, with then small incremental increases in the spring until the peak of 1600 in June 2008. Then similar incremental decreases as the weather cools in the fall. All very reasonable. Now, we keep the back gate locked and I don't think I've ever seen a meter reader. Maybe my wife has but she's never mentioned it. A/C and fridge are all new-ish (actually, the A/C is ten years old, the fridge is about five.) I'd be willing to bet we didn't run the A/C compressor at all in the month of January.

What else should we be looking for?

Wires and heat. Either something is using that power inside your house, which will produce heat, or the power is going somewhere else, which will need a wire.

[Houston19514]

My wife called the power company and they told her how to check the meter, and they said the reading was correct. But check this out:

(1,966 sq. ft. house)

November 10 - December 9: 580 kWh @ $.149

Dec. 9 - Jan. 14: 802 kWh @ $.149

Jan. 14 - Feb. 10: 3475 kWh @ $.159

WTF? 802 to 3475 in one month? When it's not even A/C season? Last June and July we used 1600 and 1300, respectively.

My wife is seriously freaking out because she thinks we have a hidden fire hazard somewhere. We're going to call an electrician, but any guidance we can get is greatly appreciated.

Before you go to TOO much trouble, I'd check and re-check those meter readings again. The bill should show the actual reading, not just the usage. Compare that to what the meter currently says. Obviously, the current reading should be just slightly higher than the reading on your bill.

Also check to make sure this is not an "estimated" reading.

I had an electric company in the past (in another state) that would from time to time, for no reason at all, decide not to read the meter and do an "estimate". Oddly enough, every single time they did an estimate, they estimated WAAAAYYYY high. Your bill looks just like some of those I had. Is your electricity provider by any chance owned by AEP?

[marmer]

Before you go to TOO much trouble, I'd check and re-check those meter readings again. The bill should show the actual reading, not just the usage. Compare that to what the meter currently says. Obviously, the current reading should be just slightly higher than the reading on your bill.

Yes, the bill does show the reading, and when she talked to the power company, the reading that she got from the meter was, like you said, close to but slightly higher than the value on the bill.

Also check to make sure this is not an "estimated" reading.

I had an electric company in the past (in another state) that would from time to time, for no reason at all, decide not to read the meter and do an "estimate". Oddly enough, every single time they did an estimate, they estimated WAAAAYYYY high. Your bill looks just like some of those I had. Is your electricity provider by any chance owned by AEP?

I don't know about AEP. It's Stream Energy, which is maybe related to Centerpoint? Considering that what we see on the meter is close to what we see on the bill, maybe they have been estimating low for several months? Way low? But still, why would our power usage be way over what our neighbors use? This bill is higher than our mortgage payment. And my wife is kind of an energy efficiency nut anyway, so we are pretty darned careful with our lights, appliances, etc.

The little spinning indicator is not spinning wildly, just kinda normal. My wife just went through the house turning appliances on and off and couldn't see any visible change to the spinning speed. We know more or less how fast it spins normally, and it spins a little faster when the A/C is on.

Her current plan is to file a formal dispute with the power company and have them check to see if the meter is faulty.

[sidegate]

Yeah Reliant's notorious for this kind of thing. I had the same thing. I e-mailed them and told them I wasn't paying my bill until I got a correct read. Hey presto next bill I got a correct read. If you used their oh-so-convenient automatic pay system you wouldn't know until the money was on your credit card or worse still out of your bank account. Those plans are convenient for nobody but the utility.

[jb4647]

Gas stove, gas heat, gas dryer, gas water heater. Water heater is new. We keep the stats low and turn off lights. This month the electric bill is four times what it usually is. What happened? Rate change, or some hidden current drain I should try to find?

This is why I've been a proponent of Smart Meters. I think utilities like this should be able to be tracked in real time by the consumer like your cell phone minutes. It's too late to wait till your bill arrives by the middle of next month to do anything about today's usage.

[sidegate]

That would certainly help if there was a power drain but not if the utility just pulls a number out of their *ss come billing time as is often their wont.

[SamHouston]

I'm thinking this is all due estimated meter reads. Probably the easiest way to check your usage is just track it every day (or week). It shouldn't be too hard to figure out a monthly rate from that to see if it was a one-time true up from a few months of estimates (they are allowed to go at least 6 mos. I think) or if you are actually consuming the high rate.

[RedScare]

Yeah, this is very strange because our provider (Stream Energy) gives us a little bar graph of usage over the last 12 months. Nov-Dec 2007 looked very much like Nov-Dec 2008: 600 - 800 kWh-ish, with then small incremental increases in the spring until the peak of 1600 in June 2008. Then similar incremental decreases as the weather cools in the fall. All very reasonable. Now, we keep the back gate locked and I don't think I've ever seen a meter reader. Maybe my wife has but she's never mentioned it. A/C and fridge are all new-ish (actually, the A/C is ten years old, the fridge is about five.) I'd be willing to bet we didn't run the A/C compressor at all in the month of January.

What else should we be looking for?

I had something like this happen to me about 6 years ago in January. Some thermostat wires got crossed and the heater and AC were running simultaneously. Resulted in a very large bill. Go look at your meter. If the disk is spinning rapidly, start turning off lights and appliances at the circuit breaker. If you are running up 115 kwh a day, that disk will be spinning wildly. You ought to be able to isolate which appliance is causing it. Frankly, only a couple of them could do it, AC, stove or dryer.

[marmer]

Since this all started, we've been taking readings several times a day. We've been checking with refrigerator running, not running, heater on, etc. We know the A/C compressor is not on because it's right outside our bedroom window and it's pretty loud when it comes on.

Nothing has made the meter spin anywhere near as fast as it does in June and July. We can see tiny variations in speed when the heater or refrigerator comes on, but it's still at most moderately slow. If we calculate forward 30 days from the usage of the last 24 hours, we're on track to use just over 600 kWh, which is reasonable. That's with cooking (gas stove), computer use, dishwasher, laundry, etc.

One strange thing is that the reading from last night, about 10 pm, is LOWER than the reading from about 2 pm. Is it running backwards? Yes, we are reading it correctly. (alternating clockwise and counterclockwise) I'm beginning to think we really do have a rare meter malfunction.

[RedScare]

Well if it is running backwards, don't get rid of it.

My old meter used to get stuck in the fall, winter and spring, when my usage was lower. I had several months where my electric bill was between $10 and $14. I almost cried when Centerpoint showed up one day and gave me a shiny new meter that spun much faster.

[marmer]

OK. I am the OP and we're starting to get upset. Three weeks ago they replaced our meter with a digital one. Usage since then has been tiny (not much heater or A/C, gas appliances.) We paid an estimated payment based on what our likely actual use was pending the "evaluation" of our old meter. Now that they are sending us past due and penalty notices my wife called again and was finally told they didn't find anything wrong with the old meter. Previous usage for the last twelve months has been normal and reasonable and, according to the utility company, NOT estimated.

No one she can talk to has any kind of technical or electrical background, and they don't understand that if we were pulling that much power from any source we would have either had a fire, or more likely, a tripping circuit breaker. We have buried power lines to the house; no one is tapping off the wire or running an extension cord.

To make matters worse, they told my wife that we are being charged a higher rate than the one they advertised because "our usage is too low." Man, that's what I like to see. Our conservation efforts are really paying off!

Seriously, what should we do next? Based on the last month or so of monitoring, an electrician is not going to find anything unusual.

[C2H]

The electric and utility companies in Houston are screwing us over. I remember getting a $250 bill for a one bedroom, 450 square foot apartment in one month. I asked the electric company to test the meter and they gave me a new meter. They took the old meter and said they tested it. Of course, according to them the test was ok. I went to calling the Attorney General and the Public Utility Commission. Nobody helped me.