High electric bill

Hello PHers,

My bill has been extremely high in my opinion... I was curious if others shared in that experience. In the cooler months where I don't use AC its about $150/mo. This past month it was $215 - using the AC at night/evening/weekend.

Its a 1 bedroom basement, insulated. Pretty small... id say 500-600 sq ft.

There is a section of the basement blocked off where the other tenant who lives in the top floors has a washer dryer. Allegedly, this is not connected to our bill...

Thoughts?

Unplug everything in the house and goto the electric meters in the basement see if the reader goes up anyway. this includes the smoke/carbon alarms (most modern ones are also attach to electric too with battery backup)

do you have tv or dvr or computers and any electronics plug in? they tend to eat electric when not in use. this inculdes plugs they eat electric when not plug into devices to charge.

a friend on park place just had her meter reading done wrong and her bill came in at $1,200 for June.

could be a misreading.

I do have a fair amount of things plugged in, but it still seems a good $50-100 too high...

Ive been good about turning off lights when not in use, and I'm not home M-F during the day...

vidro3 said:

a friend on park place just had her meter reading done wrong and her bill came in at $1,200 for June.

could be a misreading.

yeah double check the numbers from their bill and go down stairs to see if the numbers are close.

Vid,

This isn't a new occurrence... its been elevated (imo) since Ive moved in.

I have more lights in this apartment, but my usage was ~$60-80/mo in sunset park. Same electronics, etc...

I strongly recommend plugging as much as possible into surge protectors which you then turn off when not in use.

Especially things like electronics/tvs/videogames etc use so much power when not in use.

One of the lovely things about ConEd is you pay $30 plus dollars just for the joy of getting electricity from them. That doesn't cover any actual use. Then your fridge sucks a whole heck of a lot of energy, and then all the vampire electronics that stay on and sucking juice even when they are turned off.

I agree though, that that bill seems too high. Who told you the washer/dryer isn't on your cable bill?

I would do armchair warrior's detective work and if it still shows up as high usage then I think it's likely you're paying for their machines. Wouldn't another option be, though, to wait until your neighbors use the machines and then go check to see if your meter goes up?

Yea I will definitely do the unplugging thing and check to see if they meter is still moving. Best time would be when the washer is on but I can't hear it =(

The landlord said the washer/dryer arent on my bill. That seems weird though because they're on the same level... It could have even been wired mistakenly on my bill...

$150/mo seems excessive to say the least. Something tells me half the house is running off your meter. Unless you're running a lot of electronics 24 hours a day I would think that your bill shouldn't be more than $75. Hell, I live in a two family house with one meter and two washer/dryers and three a/c and the landlords budget is only $160/mo. Something is seriously wrong.

Your bill is too high. If your own investigations don't turn up anything call Con Ed to investigate. I have heard of more than just washer/dryers being "mistakently" plugged in to a renter's electric bill. Let us know what happens.

I haven't had that space/appliance combo in a while, but I do know that just running our window a/c at night last summer pretty much doubled our bill. I would definitely investigate, but it might be that.

You can also call Con-Ed and ask about power usage for your unit for the same month in previous years to see if it always goes up a lot in the summer.

In a larger apartment, with tons of electronics, I am paying half as much. You have a problem. Call Con Ed.

CFL

Kill-o-watt

Smart Strips with Auto-Shutoff.

Turn your fridge off and order in / take out instead (haven't tried this myself)

So I unplugged everything for an hour and the meter did not rise even 1 KWH. Granted they weren't running their central air (which we dont have) or their wash/dryer/water heater (water heater is in the basement).

I think there is definitely something going on... I run 2 computers 24/7, lights 6 hours/day, LCDtv is on 4 hours/day, 5k BTU (EE) AC is on ~12/hours when hot out.

Should this = $215?

actually, maybe.

why are the computers on 24/7?

12/hrs for the A/c seems long, too. at least increase the temp by a degree or two.

I'm an electricity miser and was pissed when my bill was $68 this month.

Also, get the level payment plan. see how much you are paying per Kwh. Con Ed gave me a deal where I'm capped at liek 12 or 13 cents I think.

Billing Estimator used to work well

http://pulpsite.brinkster.net/home.aspx

may need to use IE.

but their data is a bit messed up these days.

Good Luck

cremate said:

So I unplugged everything for an hour and the meter did not rise even 1 KWH. Granted they weren't running their central air (which we dont have) or their wash/dryer/water heater (water heater is in the basement).

I think there is definitely something going on... I run 2 computers 24/7, lights 6 hours/day, LCDtv is on 4 hours/day, 5k BTU (EE) AC is on ~12/hours when hot out.

Should this = $215?

In my experience -- yes.

computers are energy hogs.

Stop being a slave to your fans and air conditioning and try having a picnic by the river where it is windy and cool. A small trip to the Bayside area will yield wonderful cool spots. Try it for a change. Who knows you might like it and you might lower you carbon emissions footprint.

Computers are serious energy hogs, particularly if they're actually on and not sleeping. Still seems high, though.

Some other suggestions:

- Energy Star recommendations for A/C temp is 78, which I find works just fine if you also have a ceiling fan (very cheap to run).

- CFL or LED bulbs radically lower electrical costs.

Do all this, and then call ConEd.

vidro3 said:

actually, maybe.

why are the computers on 24/7?

12/hrs for the A/c seems long, too. at least increase the temp by a degree or two.

I'm an electricity miser and was pissed when my bill was $68 this month.

Also, get the level payment plan. see how much you are paying per Kwh. Con Ed gave me a deal where I'm capped at liek 12 or 13 cents I think.

I run 1 (low power) media server. 1 is my personal one, I shut the monitors down etc... Sometimes I remote in, perhaps Ill start putting it to sleep...

Well after work, its like 88deg in my apt with no AC so I run it 7pm->7am basically, while im in the apt.

After delivery my KWH is 27cents/ea

mishaps said:

Computers are serious energy hogs, particularly if they're actually on and not sleeping. Still seems high, though.

Some other suggestions:

- Energy Star recommendations for A/C temp is 78, which I find works just fine if you also have a ceiling fan (very cheap to run).

- CFL or LED bulbs radically lower electrical costs.

Do all this, and then call ConEd.

Damn I run my AC at 68. Im using 1 5k btu for the whole place which is not recommend, but Im using a floor fan to blow it into the other room. Works well to keep things comfy. Im a big guy and tend to sweat a bunch just sitting around (sometimes with the AC on)

i just began switching out for CFL mini 9 watters so well see if that helps.... Plan to do the power strips as well. and put my cpus to sleep...

In addition to doing the unplugging thing, couldn't you also check your breaker box? I would think that an electric dryer would be on its own circuit breaker (but I could be wrong, and someone here will let me know if I am.) See if you can ID what every breaker controls. If there's a mystery breaker, and its on (or closed, or whatever the term is) then maybe that's for the dryer.

The next time you hear the neighbor's washing machine or dryer going, you could flip all of the circuit breakers for your apartment. If you hear the machine stop (and/or the neighbor cursing) that would tell you the neighbor's machines are on your circuits, and are running at your expense.

booklaw said:

The next time you hear the neighbor's washing machine or dryer going, you could flip all of the circuit breakers for your apartment. If you hear the machine stop (and/or the neighbor cursing) that would tell you the neighbor's machines are on your circuits, and are running at your expense.

Breakers are on their side

BKChickie said:

In addition to doing the unplugging thing, couldn't you also check your breaker box? I would think that an electric dryer would be on its own circuit breaker (but I could be wrong, and someone here will let me know if I am.) See if you can ID what every breaker controls. If there's a mystery breaker, and its on (or closed, or whatever the term is) then maybe that's for the dryer.

Good idea. i will check that out.

breakers should be in every apt. hmm probably sharing electric with them if you're breakers are on their side. you are so screwed.

Damnit

I went through the same thing in my last rental in williamsburg. my electrical bill was pretty high and i was convinced my neighbors energy use was being charged to me just because of the way the building was wired. i had a breaker box in my apt and i did that exact same test. I flipped some switches and heard my neighbors curse in spanish that the power went out. I moved into the coop apt i own about 7 years ago and had the thing rewired. i have the AC blasting a big LCD tv and a computer running atleast 5 times a week. at most my electrical bill is like $40 a month. you are getting screwed big time buy the sound of it.

Will your neighbors allow you to enter their apartment to test the circuit breakers, if you explain your concerns?