Electricity bill outrage!!!

[TexasTerp]

Last week I got our bill for the Dec 9, 2009 - Jan 10, 2010 period, it's $645!!!!! I've already called Pepco to come out and inspect the house but now I'm in the process of analyzing all of the total utilities usages for the past 6 months we've been in the house. After charting the electricity use per day, from Aug 9 to Dec 9 each month saw an avg 46.62% increase in usage!! From Dec 9th to Jan 10th saw an increase of 68.51% in usage at 132.64Kwh/day (over the previous month)!! What astounds me even more is that 4 out of the 5 of us in the house weren't even there for 2 of the 4 weeks in the billing period, which meant the lights were out, the computers were off, and we weren't using the water heater. The heating is a gas based system, water heater is electric but the water bill does not correlate to the increase in total electricity usage. I went outside and read the meter, if my calculations are correct,in the last 10 days we are averaging 208kwh per day!!! That's a 56.81% increase over last month!!!! This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and projects that our bill for the Jan 10 - Feb 10 bill will be $1290.

can someone explain this to me?? it doesn't make any sense, I'm putting in a dispute with the electric company for the usage for the past 6 months. This is insane!!

[pureaudio]

Any random extension cords running outside your house and into the neighbors? Other than that, all I have to say is that sucks.

[Jean]

Maybe they did it for the lulz?

[george graves]

Reading the old meters is hard to do if you don't know the trick: Ever other dial rotates backwards.

Something is up.

[mrsleeve]

meeter is outta calibration

[Red88]

I've got two words for you.

Solar. Panels. Are. The. Best. God. Damn. Thing. In. Your. Life. --In the summer.

[Holland]

I've got two words for you.

Solar. Panels. Are. The. Best. God. Damn. Thing. In. Your. Life. --In the summer.

I don't think they get as much sun as we do.

[mrsleeve]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Its cloudy in MD way more than it is in the SW desert

[myinfernalbmw]

I would venture to bet the neighbors are using your electricity to power their grow operation.

[jeff_b]

Start throwing circuit breakers in your main panel off until the dials stop. If the entire place is powered down, and the meter still runs, someone's tapping into your electricity.

[TexasTerp]

meeter is outta calibration

I think this is what's wrong, if you guys saw the way he wires are run to the meter you would shit your pants, they are completely exposed, not even contained in the normal metal tubing or any other insulation. it's literally hanging on the side of the house. I've been dealing with our landlord to get it fixed if it turns out that's the problem then I'm suing our landlord immediately.

I'll post up my numbers and charts tonight or tomorrow. I'm analyzing the numbers from all our utilities based on a detailed timeline of the last 6 months. so far the chart of the daily/monthly use increase percentages (ie avg daily use of month compared to that of the previous month) eerily resembles a Fibonacci sequence. I'll let y'all know how everything corresponds to the water and gas usage over the same time period.

This is not exactly the type of math i was expecting to do today

[Mike325]

Start throwing circuit breakers in your main panel off until the dials stop. If the entire place is powered down, and the meter still runs, someone's tapping into your electricity.

This is a good idea. You could also just have a faulty meter, which might suck big time because even if it is proven by your electrical company that it is faulty, you might still have to pay the bill because they are shit heads. Fight this to the very end, then fight some more.

[e30vert]

If you have a pool then the timer for the off position may have fallen off or corroded which would allow the pump to run non stop for days/weeks on end. If no pool then this is not a concern. I had a pool client that had the off tripper switch corrode real bad and become non-functional. The months bill was over 800 $. He fought it , but even if it is a faulty device the circuit had already "consumed" the power and he was liable. So for a 3 dollar part on an intermatic time clock it cost him 7 hundred and so dollars once you subtract his normal monthly useage fees.

[accident]

this happened to us a few months ago. guy read the meter wrong. find out what their meter reading is and then go look at yours.

[ACMF74]

kinda jacking the thread but I was pissed about my home heating bill.

it averaged around 600 a month to heat it in the cold months.

last year I installed a wood burning stove and now my bill averages around 70 to 150 :o