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excessive electric bill

5

5020s rock

Member
this site has become part of my daily routine and i value MOST of the input. a friend of mine was saying his electric bill is $200/month.
mine is $40.very similiar situations,non-farm,size of house,same provider. has anyone encountered this,and if so,what did they do?
something is just not right....he has called the elect.co. but they give him bs. can a person get help from utilities commission or other place? thanks
 
My bill jumped 1 month from less than $100.00 to over #250.00. Thermostat on electric water heater was stuck.
 
Take my advice or not, your bill is probably the one in question, or it will be. That has been my experience anyway. Tell him to get a qualified electrican. You view from a distance.
 
5020s rock
Aren't you the lucky one. I haven't had a $40 electric bill even with no water well pump since Heck was a pup(he died 10 yrs ago from old age). There's only 2 living in my small insulated barn with no kids running up the electric bill. Even heating with wood in the Winter I can't get my elec. bill down to $40.
 
mstas has hit the nail on the head. Need to check the whole house over and make sure something is not running continuously. Could be anything from water heater to a freezer. A/C may have a problem that is causing it to draw more current when running. But also take into account the extra high temps we have had across the country. My MIL had really high electric bill till we replaced the A/C unit after the compressor went out. Just some things i have experienced over the years.
 
$40 is extremely low for an electric bill if your house has any of the following; A/C, Elec Water heater, or a dehumidifier. Like others have said he could hire an electrician to check his place out. But a bill of 100-150 bucks is pretty average these days. I've lived all over the country/world the last 10 years and don't think my elec bill was ever less than 100 during the summer.

-Paul
 
Two suggestions.

Keep your mouth shut or your will be the one to go up, not his down. $40 is dirt cheap!

Have him turn off those grow lights over the wacky tabacky plants.

Gene
 
good subject--he has well water, his bill has always been that bad. i am thinking stray voltage ,meter problem,feed line problem
 
my neighbor lady in houston asked me to look
at her house aas she had high electric bills.
the meter was spinning and she had everthing turned off. she also said that the ground post would steam after a rain. i called the electric co and told them the house was wired wrong, the hot wire was hooked to ground and someone could be electricuted. they had a man there in less than an hour and corrected it. the refused to rebate for the big electric bills
 
A 40 dollar electric bill is a greater mystery than a 200 dollar one.

First off, are you being billed at the same rate? Commercial or residential? Usually the first few hundred kw-hrs are discounted for residential customers.

Is he consuming four or five times as many kw-hrs as you? It's possible one of your meters is wrong, but not real likely. More likely that he has a few appliances that pull a lot of current. Old refrigerators, for example. (We have three refrigerators and a freezer, a fact that comes to mind every time I write a check to Detroit Edison.) It's not uncommon for air conditioning to double, triple or even quadruple power consumption in summer.

Did he maybe sign up with an alternate power supplier? In many states, you can buy your power from companies other than your local utility. Some of these companies run scams where your rate is actually higher than the utility.

There's a device called a "Kill-a-Watt" that you can plug between an appliance and outlet to monitor actual power consumption. It's a good tool for running down 120V appliances that are power hogs.
 
thats cheap all around ...mine has run between $150 to $200 per. mo. all year round for several years..1800sq. ft. only wife & I on city water...I don't think $40 would run a light bulb a mo. around here....take care
 
I wouldn't tell anyone that you only pay $40/mo. There is something wrong with your meter. The least I pay, without A/C, is about $100 for 1000 kw-hrs.

My A/C may add $60 to my bill during the 100 degrees days.

BYW, I do very little around my house. I'm the only person living there part of the time.

George
 

Tell him to shut off his pump for a few hours, as in overnight, to see if it maintains pressure with pump off.
 
Starting last year our electric supplier charges a august horsepower charge for irrigation. They get $2100 a year on one place I have. ($26 per h.p.)Talk about b.s. but you gotta pay it or it's lights out!
 
A well pump will easily pull $40-60 each month just for it. Then if he has an electric water heater that will be another $40-50. The rates are very much different from one company to another.

I have two rental homes that are exactly the same. I do mean the same. They are the same floor plan just built a mile from each other. They both have older couples that rent them. The only difference is the electric companies. The one is on REA and the other is Alliant Energy. The one on Alliant runs around $175 each month. The one on REA runs around $100 each month. They both use just about the same kilowatts of electric. The rates are just much higher on Alliant. I have raised cane with them for the twenty years we have owned the house and never can get anything done.

I have a set of building that where on Alliant and the minimum bill was $35 each month. We only have grain bins there. I had them remove the complete service. Even with it shut off they where charging me $5.95 per month for the pole that the meter was on. I just take the generator over when ever we want to use the bins. It is more secure that way any how. Plus it saved me on the insurance since the building do not have any electric in them.

The bigger companies are ripping off their customers. They charge us for building more lines/plants etc. and then get a rate increase from the PUCO committee when they get the lines/plants done. It is all just a shell game to steal from the the consumer.

Remember when they deregulated the electric grid?? We where supposed to be able to buy the electric from any supplier. Do any of you know of anyone that has been able to do that other than larger users like factories?
 
have him turn everyting off and see if the meter
is spinning. if it is not, throw each breaker or turn in each fuse at a time and see if the meter
starts to spin. if it starts to spin with everthing off, you have found a problem. send us a reply when you have found the problem, would like to know what it is.
john bowers
 
another good idea. total power down.
we both have the same supplier,aep. one of the stocks mentioned. that irrigation charge is so bocus....yes,bs. we had a $500 bill/month back in the day but were milking cows,hauling milk and farming big. the bill was justified.
 
Should not be such a mystery.
Look at both electric bills.
It will tell the number of KWh you are being billed for.
My most recent bill shows 2340 KWh for July. And $168.00 for just a house with an air conditioner.
That would be 7.179 cents per KWh.
Might be something very wrong with one of your meters, most likely the $40 one.
And by the way, what your electric meter is supposed to be doing is adding up the KiloWatt-hours (KWh) of electricity that you are using. And the total number of KWh that you use per month is what you pay for.
 
Heck here in The people's republic of Wisconsin your base charge, taxes and user fees will have you over $40. The only way I could see a $40.00 electric bill is if I was selling power back to them
 
I have run into this on underground service. The aluminum will oxidize if there is a pinhole in the insulation. It will get wet, heat up and dry, then do it again.

You should see voltage drop on a phase.
 
Most households should not use over 1000 gal for domestic use, no irrigation. But for the sake of argument lets say 2000, at 6 gal. a min. thats 333 min. A pump like that should use no more than 1.5 kw that I get for .10 per kw. I come up with $.83 to pump 2000 gal. at 50 psi! Maybe John T or someone can go over my numbers bu I think I'm close. I have also done the math on my sprinkler pump pumping 40 gpm out of the lake and we can water our large lawn twice a week for about $5.00 a month!
 
his bill has always been that bad.
Click to expand...
If his bill has always been that bad, then that's probably normal for him.
If you've told him your's is $40, I hope he doesn't call and complain!
Mine is never less than $100 any time of year.
 
All I know is I have two different electric services that only have a well pump on them. No other electrical drawn. They both will run $30-50 each month.

As for water usage I think your numbers are way off. I had my well go bad here at the house. So I had to haul the water for a few weeks so we had water. The kids where still home. So we had five kids and two adults on the house system. A thousand gallon water tank would last 3-4 days. So that would be more like 9000-10000 gallons each month. I have rentals on city water that the water/sewage is billed by the gallon. They usually run 8500-12000 gallon each month. Depending on how many people in the family.

Another thing to conceder is the depth of the well. My well at the house is not very deep, at 180 feet. The main well at my son's house is at 1200 feet to get good water. So the electrical needs on a well pump very a lot depending on the depth of the well. My home pump is a five horse power pump so I know it would use much more electric than your figures.
 
I just checked my electric bill. I wish I had not. LOL The wife usually pays it.

1550 kwh peak usage $221.41
energy cost 25.45
Transmission charge 28.07

2017 kwh off peak 111.46
energy cost 33.12
transmission charge 36.53

Time of day meter
charge 3.52
Basic service charge 11.05

sales tax 4.71

total $475.32

So I would like to have either of your electric bills. I know Alliant is outrageously high but I can't get any other service. I feel raped each month.
 
That makes a big difference! We get by with 1/2-1 hp pumps for domestic water.
The well at our home has a + 12 ft water table and the cabin well is -2 ft, usually flows but we are very dry here. How much is your basic meter fee? At the cabin we pay $36 before we start paying $.12 per kw!
 
$40 bucks I'd keep my mouth shut I haven't seen that since the early 70s.
Mine run from $80 to $110 depending on the weather.
Walt
 
We have natural gas service AND electric service through the same utility company. After one years service, they'll average your bill over a year and that's what you pay. Any adjustments (up or down) are done on Decembers bill. The house is heated with gas (and a fireplace) Shop is heated with wood stove and electric radiant heat (Mostly at night when I'm not in the shop to maintain stove) House is air conditioned, and wife likes it cold enough to hang meat....:) Water heater is electric. 1700 sq ft house, 22,000 sq ft shop (10' walls, 5/12" pitch roof, open attic) My COMBINED gas/electric bill is currently $155 month. Usual December adjustment is around $50 to $75 max.
 
Total electric home and in a cold winter and a hot summer our bills will run as much as $200 a month...In the Spring and Fall they will be around $80-100 a month..
 
$40.00? I pay about that amount for electric service on a vacant farm with one night light on a grain bin (service fee+KWH. Do you mean $40.00 just for the KWH or for the service fee and KWH. Jim
 
My oldest sister had that problem once. Pesterd the power company to death so they finally put her in a brand new meter. Her bill went up another $75 with the new meter. Sometimes it's best to keep your mouth shut. Better hope he doesn't mention your's cause it's too low.
 
A friend of mine had a higher than normal bill and it turned out that his wires going down the well were bad. Leaked, but not enough to trip the breaker. Took a while to find it.

Areo
 
(quoted from post at 17:27:50 08/04/12) Should not be such a mystery.
Look at both electric bills.
It will tell the number of KWh you are being billed for.
My most recent bill shows 2340 KWh for July. And $168.00 for just a house with an air conditioner.
That would be 7.179 cents per KWh.
Might be something very wrong with one of your meters, most likely the $40 one.
And by the way, what your electric meter is supposed to be doing is adding up the KiloWatt-hours (KWh) of electricity that you are using. And the total number of KWh that you use per month is what you pay for.
Click to expand...

How would you like to be paying $.19/KWH like we pay here in tax free NH.
 
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