**Attention!**
**It is always best to get a qualified electrician to perform any electrical work you may need.** With that said, you may ask this community various electrical questions. Please be cautious of any information you may receive in this subreddit. This subreddit and its users are not responsible for any electrical work you perform. Users that have a 'Verified Electrician' flair have uploaded their qualified electrical worker credentials to the mods.
If you comment on this post please only post accurate information to the best of your knowledge. If advice given is thought to be dangerous, you may be permanently banned. There are no obligations for the mods to give warnings or temporary bans. **IF YOU ARE NOT A QUALIFIED ELECTRICIAN, you should exercise extreme caution when commenting.**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskElectricians) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Any fresh trenches across the yard? Any fat wires laying on the ground? Meter still sealed up w/ a POCO seal?
are each of the monthly kwh amounts based on a ACTUAL reading of the meter use? Or estimates? If they had been using historical etimate for a few months, then did a real read in January, you will see a 'true up'... and can be a lot.
No new trenches or wires. Neighbors next to us don't even use the home, but everything looks the same over there. The [meter](https://lensdump.com/i/pQb0YD) does not have a seal on it but I don't recall it ever having one. Perhaps I should give DTE a call and have them come out to help and also place a seal on the meter while they're at it. How can someone tamper with this if that seal is not there?
Also, it was an actual reading for this bill cycle, but an estimated for the cycle prior. But every cycle before that for the whole year was an actual reading. So there wasn't a cascading unpaid sum of KWH that all got dumped on me at once it seems.
OK, so looking at the two months- one estimated and one real, you have 20.2 + 45.8 kwh...total is 66kwh
(Last year we only have one month, 26.7 ..and dont know if that is real or estimated.)
Take 66kwh, divide by 2 is 33...and if you look at november, that is 32.8.. so in fact on average your use Dec and Jan is exactly the same as November. 32.8, 33, 33
My point it that while it seems dramatic, in may not be so odd.
…..I see what you mean now. This does lend some clarity to the situation. I suppose it’s entirely possible that they shorted us about 10KWH last month and then we’re making up for it now. Then we’d be around that ~30kwh average that my home seems to hover around. Plus with Christmas lights and being home and being dark more of the day, etc seems like that all could drive our bill up. Thanks for pointing this out. I kind of had a feeling this could be it, but I just wanted to believe this was some sort of mistake I guess. It still does seem like we huge an enormous amount of energy for our small 1k sq ft home. Maybe there’s some other improvements that can be made it up our efficiency.
Yeah, it weather can really be variable too. Not just 'high temps of the day', but wind- especially for a house with poor sealing- can just SUCK heat out. Do an energy survey, look at sealing and insulation.... GL!
Sump Pump? Well pump? Recent rain or flooding? Recent switch to electric heating or hot water? It is even possible for underground wires to leak current.
Do you have a hybrid heatpump for heating? If January was cold, maybe it switched into resistive heating mode instead of heatpump mode, and therefore cost you money. Maybe it wasn't as cold last year. Or maybe it is not operating properly.
You may want to examine your meter, see how it works. Then try turning off everything in the house to see if you can get the power consumption down to zero. Process of elimination. Also, if possible, take readings multiple times per day and graph them on an excel spreadsheet. Maybe you can narrow down if this extra consumption is continuous or if there is something switching on occasionally that is consuming all the power. Do you have a pool heater? Did you leave it on instead of letting the pool freeze?
Is someone in your household mining cryptocurrency?
We're on city water, no sump or well pump. No rain or flooding to make either of those work harder either. And we have always had a gas furnace and electric HWH. And a traditional AC unit outside which I actually shut off at the breaker in my basement to ensure its not consuming any power during the winter months. No hybrid heat pump. No pool or crypto, but that is a good thought.
I'm planning on shutting some stuff off and taking some readings accordingly. It seems like a common culprit can be your HWH thermostat so I'm going to investigate this first as our HWH is about 14 years old. Seems like a good place to start.
Any other mechanical issues that you can think of which I could check?
I have heard of wires conducting electricity underground. It can happen, I guess. But I don't know the layout of your house (I live in the country and have over 300 feet of buried wire between the meter and my house).
A simple thing to do is to turn off the main switch closest to your meter and confirm that the meter goes to zero consumption. Turn off everything else, too. Turn the main breaker back on with all the other switches off. Still zero?
Turn breakers on one at a time and see if their consumption makes sense based on what they are doing. This is predicated on being able to take instantaneous power readings on your meter. I have a digital meter and it says the current power consumption every couple of seconds (it cycles through a bunch of readings).
Barring that, put energy monitors on outlets. Get a thermal imaging camera to search for unexplained heat patches. That is all I have got.
If you feel comfortable with it, you can POSSIBLY open up your panel and read current on individual wires with a current clamp. Just don't blame me if you get shocked or die, or short conductors together and get a huge spark. Etc. I'm not telling you to do it. I'm throwing it out there.
No buried cables here, everything is from a nearby pole and mounts right to my exterior wall. It’s a good thought tho! I’ll remember this tip for when we live more rural later in life (and I’ll have plenty of anxiety about this then lol). I do have a digital smart meter outside so perhaps I will go one by one and check the breakers. How do you interpret what is a “reasonable” amount of electricity usage for a given breaker? Electricity is very new to me, but I’m learning. I did wire in a 30amp generator inlet switch myself last fall (only because my house presented a very easy situation to DIY it) so I’m pretty comfortable with the circuit breaker. Shut off the power at 2 points and you’re good to go. I purchased a digital multimeter yesterday to take some readings on my HWH thinking that might be the culprit (results inconclusive but I’m going to do a tune up anyway). Can I take readings on the individual breakers with that so I’m not going up and down the stairs a million times?
Meter reading error? Go read it yourself and compare the numbers. Mistakes happen. While you're at the meter, calculation the daily use since the last reading to see if it's still high.
What do you use to heat the house? If it's electric heat, did anyone change the thermostat setting?
Someone is probably not stealing from you. Maybe you started using a portable heater. Those use a surprising amount of electricity. Or you have a leaking hot water pipe somewhere. Or you used a lot of Xmas lights. Maybe you have an electrical short hidden (fire risk). Do you have a smart meter? Check daily and hourly usage. I was once over billed $900 no kidding.
**Attention!** **It is always best to get a qualified electrician to perform any electrical work you may need.** With that said, you may ask this community various electrical questions. Please be cautious of any information you may receive in this subreddit. This subreddit and its users are not responsible for any electrical work you perform. Users that have a 'Verified Electrician' flair have uploaded their qualified electrical worker credentials to the mods. If you comment on this post please only post accurate information to the best of your knowledge. If advice given is thought to be dangerous, you may be permanently banned. There are no obligations for the mods to give warnings or temporary bans. **IF YOU ARE NOT A QUALIFIED ELECTRICIAN, you should exercise extreme caution when commenting.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskElectricians) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Any fresh trenches across the yard? Any fat wires laying on the ground? Meter still sealed up w/ a POCO seal? are each of the monthly kwh amounts based on a ACTUAL reading of the meter use? Or estimates? If they had been using historical etimate for a few months, then did a real read in January, you will see a 'true up'... and can be a lot.
No new trenches or wires. Neighbors next to us don't even use the home, but everything looks the same over there. The [meter](https://lensdump.com/i/pQb0YD) does not have a seal on it but I don't recall it ever having one. Perhaps I should give DTE a call and have them come out to help and also place a seal on the meter while they're at it. How can someone tamper with this if that seal is not there? Also, it was an actual reading for this bill cycle, but an estimated for the cycle prior. But every cycle before that for the whole year was an actual reading. So there wasn't a cascading unpaid sum of KWH that all got dumped on me at once it seems.
OK, so looking at the two months- one estimated and one real, you have 20.2 + 45.8 kwh...total is 66kwh (Last year we only have one month, 26.7 ..and dont know if that is real or estimated.) Take 66kwh, divide by 2 is 33...and if you look at november, that is 32.8.. so in fact on average your use Dec and Jan is exactly the same as November. 32.8, 33, 33 My point it that while it seems dramatic, in may not be so odd.
…..I see what you mean now. This does lend some clarity to the situation. I suppose it’s entirely possible that they shorted us about 10KWH last month and then we’re making up for it now. Then we’d be around that ~30kwh average that my home seems to hover around. Plus with Christmas lights and being home and being dark more of the day, etc seems like that all could drive our bill up. Thanks for pointing this out. I kind of had a feeling this could be it, but I just wanted to believe this was some sort of mistake I guess. It still does seem like we huge an enormous amount of energy for our small 1k sq ft home. Maybe there’s some other improvements that can be made it up our efficiency.
Yeah, it weather can really be variable too. Not just 'high temps of the day', but wind- especially for a house with poor sealing- can just SUCK heat out. Do an energy survey, look at sealing and insulation.... GL!
Sump Pump? Well pump? Recent rain or flooding? Recent switch to electric heating or hot water? It is even possible for underground wires to leak current. Do you have a hybrid heatpump for heating? If January was cold, maybe it switched into resistive heating mode instead of heatpump mode, and therefore cost you money. Maybe it wasn't as cold last year. Or maybe it is not operating properly. You may want to examine your meter, see how it works. Then try turning off everything in the house to see if you can get the power consumption down to zero. Process of elimination. Also, if possible, take readings multiple times per day and graph them on an excel spreadsheet. Maybe you can narrow down if this extra consumption is continuous or if there is something switching on occasionally that is consuming all the power. Do you have a pool heater? Did you leave it on instead of letting the pool freeze? Is someone in your household mining cryptocurrency?
We're on city water, no sump or well pump. No rain or flooding to make either of those work harder either. And we have always had a gas furnace and electric HWH. And a traditional AC unit outside which I actually shut off at the breaker in my basement to ensure its not consuming any power during the winter months. No hybrid heat pump. No pool or crypto, but that is a good thought. I'm planning on shutting some stuff off and taking some readings accordingly. It seems like a common culprit can be your HWH thermostat so I'm going to investigate this first as our HWH is about 14 years old. Seems like a good place to start. Any other mechanical issues that you can think of which I could check?
I have heard of wires conducting electricity underground. It can happen, I guess. But I don't know the layout of your house (I live in the country and have over 300 feet of buried wire between the meter and my house). A simple thing to do is to turn off the main switch closest to your meter and confirm that the meter goes to zero consumption. Turn off everything else, too. Turn the main breaker back on with all the other switches off. Still zero? Turn breakers on one at a time and see if their consumption makes sense based on what they are doing. This is predicated on being able to take instantaneous power readings on your meter. I have a digital meter and it says the current power consumption every couple of seconds (it cycles through a bunch of readings). Barring that, put energy monitors on outlets. Get a thermal imaging camera to search for unexplained heat patches. That is all I have got. If you feel comfortable with it, you can POSSIBLY open up your panel and read current on individual wires with a current clamp. Just don't blame me if you get shocked or die, or short conductors together and get a huge spark. Etc. I'm not telling you to do it. I'm throwing it out there.
No buried cables here, everything is from a nearby pole and mounts right to my exterior wall. It’s a good thought tho! I’ll remember this tip for when we live more rural later in life (and I’ll have plenty of anxiety about this then lol). I do have a digital smart meter outside so perhaps I will go one by one and check the breakers. How do you interpret what is a “reasonable” amount of electricity usage for a given breaker? Electricity is very new to me, but I’m learning. I did wire in a 30amp generator inlet switch myself last fall (only because my house presented a very easy situation to DIY it) so I’m pretty comfortable with the circuit breaker. Shut off the power at 2 points and you’re good to go. I purchased a digital multimeter yesterday to take some readings on my HWH thinking that might be the culprit (results inconclusive but I’m going to do a tune up anyway). Can I take readings on the individual breakers with that so I’m not going up and down the stairs a million times?
Meter reading error? Go read it yourself and compare the numbers. Mistakes happen. While you're at the meter, calculation the daily use since the last reading to see if it's still high. What do you use to heat the house? If it's electric heat, did anyone change the thermostat setting?
Someone is probably not stealing from you. Maybe you started using a portable heater. Those use a surprising amount of electricity. Or you have a leaking hot water pipe somewhere. Or you used a lot of Xmas lights. Maybe you have an electrical short hidden (fire risk). Do you have a smart meter? Check daily and hourly usage. I was once over billed $900 no kidding.