Electric bill spike?
BOB
month for this part of the world (Texas) Rained 20 days straight. When I
started puzzling over what could have caused this increase, the only thing I
could come up with was a new toaster oven we had bought. This oven draws
1350 Watts .
Could that be the driver?
TIA
B
max
"BOB" <two...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
only if you're running a toast restaurant!
Check to see if your rates are indexed to some kind of energy supply price.
Otherwise, take the difference in KW between june and may, and divide it by
720 (number of hours in a month) and look for something (or combination of
somethings) that add up to that many watts. Check fridge/freezer doors,
dehumidifiers, floodlights...
You're sure your AC/ heat pump isn't in?
Rained for 20 days ... Is your sump pump working really hard? If it rained
a lot, sump pump plus dehumidifier can add up quickly.
If you can't find anything obviously running by mistake, turn off stuff at
home (and unplug as needed) until your meter stops spinning. If you can't
stop the meter, you have something running you don't know about. If you
find a mystery load, try opening circuit breakers until the meter stops to
help isolate... if that doens't work, call an electrician.
If i did the arithmetic right, you're looking for a ~~330 watt load running
24/7 (based on $.15/kw total service (cost of elect + other fees) charge).
let us know what you find!
.max
catalpa
"BOB" <two...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:9vtli.246$Dx2...@newssvr17.news.prodigy.net...
Does the electric bill state that the meter was read for June or is an
estimated bill?
If you had your toaster oven on for an hour a day it would only use 40.5 KWH
in a month (about $6.00 @ 15 cents KWH).
Rod Speed
Depends on how much you use it. Its a pretty simple calculation, divide
that $49 by the c/KWH rate you pay and get the KWH you got for $49
and divide that by 1.35 to get the hours it would have needed to be on
for to produce that charge.
Jim Prescott
At $.13/kwh running the toaster for the full month would cost ~$126;
how much toast do you eat? Watts to kwh (kilo-watt-hour) is just the
obvious multiplication. Running your toaster for 1 hour uses 1.35 kwh.
The first step is to see if the spike is even real. Were both this
bill and the last one based on actual meter reads or estimates? Go out
and read you meter. Compare your reading to the one on the bill,
adjusting for the number of days that have passed; does it look like
their reading was right? If the current read looks right but the prior
one was an estimate then some of that spike might be from last month.
Estimates get less and less accurate over time so if they haven't seen
your meter in a while there can be a big jump when they finally see it.
Are they saying you used more power (kwh) that usual or is it just
costing more?
If you are using more power take another reading in 24 hours and
extrapolate what that for a whole month. If it looks higher than it
should start unplugging things. Your utility, or google, can probably
tell you how to take short-term readings from your particular meter so
you can see changes right away (though with short-term readings you
have to be aware that things like refrigerators may be cycling on and
off all by themselves).
If you used the same amount of power but it cost more it may just be
that the cost went up. If you signed up for "green" power be aware
that it costs more.
My bill spiked last month just because the meter reader misread one of
the digits and we got charged for an extra 1000 kwh. I just called and
gave them a reading and they sent out a new bill.
--
Jim Prescott - Computing and Networking Group j...@seas.rochester.edu
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, University of Rochester, NY
larry
credit? (4 quarterly payments - the thanks for sticking
with us even after we charged you the highest rates in the
US the last 3 years bonus)
-larry / dallas
Phil
Actually it would be 454W. ($49/mo * 1kWh/$0.15 * 1mo/0.720 Kh)
--
Phil
catalpa
"larry" <no...@home.com> wrote in message
news:Ftwli.2700$eY....@newssvr13.news.prodigy.net...
AFAIK in the lower 48 States Con Edison at over 18 cents per KWH has the
most expensive rates and LIPA is #2. Hawaii has rates over 19 cents per KWH.
max
wrote:
> max wrote:
> > "BOB" <two...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> >> My electric for June was $49 over what it was for May and June was a
> > let us know what you find!
> Actually it would be 454W. ($49/mo * 1kWh/$0.15 * 1mo/0.720 Kh)
you are correct... i wonder how i arrived at my figure.
Math is hard!
.max
Rick
Not enough info. You aren't telling us if your number of kilowatt hours
increased and/or if the cost per kilowatt hour increased. Rates do
generally go up in the summer months...
Rick
Logan Shaw
> My electric for June was $49 over what it was for May and June was a mild
> month for this part of the world (Texas) Rained 20 days straight. When I
> started puzzling over what could have caused this increase, the only thing I
> could come up with was a new toaster oven we had bought. This oven draws
> 1350 Watts .
I think you would notice if you went in for a midnight snack and the thing
was glowing red. You'd also notice if it were emitting heat 24/7. At
least hopefully.
Could it just be that you've switched over to summer rates? In Austin,
the rates jump up around 10% or something for the summer, where summer
is defined as May through October.
- Logan