I posted this message on the HVAC forum and they suggested I post it here as well.

"I recently received a Progress Energy Bill for $535....thats up about $400/month. I called PE to complain since they had just installed a new digital meter. They have been out several times to check the meter and maintain that the meter is fine. In the meantime I had a HVAC guy from my office come by to take a look at my HVAC system because PE claims that some applicance in my home is causing the spiked kilowatt usage. The HVAC guy didn't see a problem. I went from 88kwh per day last year in June to 202kwh per day this June. PLEASE HELP. I can't afford another bill. What should the HVAC guy be looking for?"

Thank you for whatever help you can offer.



[This message has been edited by Kimmiejoe (edited 09-02-2006).]

are you positive the original meter was correct?

sound's like you work for a contractor (have them put in an energy demand meter to verify the new meters operation)

Thanks Mahlere
I don't know if the old meter was completely accuarate, but I do know that my bill should never be $535 or $611 which is what I've paid for the past two months. In the past my bill was no more than $150, until february when it got to $260.

I don't work for a contractor, but the HVAC guy who manages our system at work came out to the house.

The HVAC forum guys told me to by a Kill-A-Watt tool to plug in everything in the house which I will do today, but how do you plug in the HVAC system?

This is a long shot, [ but has been known] ...is there any possibility someone else could have tapped into your supply after the meter?

Turn everything you own off at the switches, including the lights, for a few hours. Keep the consumer unit/meter and cabling hot. Is the meter still adding?

Alan

I cracked my meter. After they replaced it my bill came to $350.. normally its about $80.

I called about six times. before it got resolved and I only recieved a $100 credit.

In my case everything was messed up. The old meter was about 10,000 off from what my bill was saying. And then when they put the new meter in my bill was still saying the old meter reading... when the meter reading should of been zero.. because it was a new meter.

Make sure you compare the meter reading on your bill with the one on your meter. I would do that twice a yr. reguardless.

I know in michigan they aren't very accurate in meter readings. It might not be an accuratge thing, its probably they just estimate the readings for years without actually doing readings.



[This message has been edited by Trick440 (edited 09-02-2006).]

Alan Benson / Trick440

I considered that someone might be stealing electricity from me, but I suspected that if they were I would see some type of cable near the house, but I don't see that.

I have been making note of the meter readings daily. I'm averaging about 200 kwh/day. Last year this time it was only about 80kwh/day. When I turn the HVAC off at the breaker it drops to about 10kwh/day. I had a HVAC guy look at it, but he found nothing.

I'm looking for an electrician in the area to come out to the house.

I suspect that a heater in the AC is stuck on. Is there back up electric heaters for the system?

Larry

Ask a neighbor with a simular sized house and what his is.... Just to gage... As suggested you may have been getting a deal for years.


Willing to try out something? Shut off the main breaker for an afternoon.... If it is still registering tell your POCO to get back out and refund some money! Seen some spin on their own - even one that went backwards while off, then spun like a top with a 100 watt lamp on. If it is not spinning/calcing Kw on its own, turn breakers on one at a time and find out what is on each, and the amperage is of each. You may find that it may not be the usual suspect. Who knows you may find that some neighbor has an extension cord hooked up to your landscape outlets and run over to his grow room.

If it is the AC, it could be any number of things. Even an open window and it never cycles off....

Either way, have your electrician look at the whole works, and see if his assesment matches up via calculation and actual usage vs. what the meter says. (We really can't do that from here... )

Ask your electricity retailer or POCO for an exact final reading of the old meter.
If there was an under estimation done over the last year there might be a correct catch up reading hence a very high bill.
Was the old meter a clockdial or cyclo type ?

Also a misreading is a possibility when the meter was taken off may cause the high final reading before the meter got changed over.
A 10,000 unit reading error is a lot of money.

As said above check for an illigal tap into your supply.

Put a checkmeter in series with your kWh meter.

200 kWh a day is an enormous amount off power, have you done a check with a clip on ammeter on your supply?

200 / 24hrs = 8.333 kW load per hour.
8333 / 110 volts = 75.7 Amps total.
In case of a 2 phase supply add the readings up and see how far you are off.

Ferraris disc meters in general are very reliable long term. The few times they may go fast is only when exposed to a lightning strike which can destroy the flux of the brake magnet. But you certainly would have damage to your electrical appliances too.

Electronic meters do have faults too when capacitors become faulty on the internal circuitboards.

Isolate circuits at you mcb panel one at the time while checking the meter at the same time and see which one causes the biggest drop in usage, (flashing LED)

If it is your HVAC, check the load on the circuit concerned (amps) and get the serviceman in or sort it out yourself.

LarryC - There is a switch on the thermostat that says 'emerg heat' but I've never moved the switch to that position. I'm not eve sure I understand emergency heat.

E57 I spoke to my neighbors about 2 years ago when everybody's bill got so high one Feburary, so I know that my bill was about the average for my house size. For 5 years, I used about 80kwh/day until now when i'm using 202kwh/day.

RODALCO - I'm sorry, but you're speaking greek to me. I'm keeping all the text from this forum so when I get someone to come out I can give him/her all your ideas.

I'm going out today to purchase a Kill-a-Watt tool and a new thermostat. I'll check the readings from other appliances and see if anything is going berzerk. I recently noticed that when I turn off the thermostat i can just barely hear air still blowing. I wonder if 'off' doesn't work.

recheck the hvac system. if you are dropping from 200kwh to 10 kwh, it points a strong suspicion at the hvac. get a second opinion.

Kimmie, about the emergency heat switch:

A heat pump moves heat from one place to another. In fact, if you turned a window A/C around in the window, it would heat the room, even in the winter. A heat pump does the same thing with a reversing valve.

However, once the outside temperature drops below a certain point, there is not enough heat energy in the air to support the freon evaporation outside, and the heat pump can no longer keep up with the demand for heat.

At this point, typically when there is a 2 to 3 degree difference bewteen the desired and actual temperatures, the unit brings on a supplementary heat system, electric strip heaters in an all-electric house and in many other houses.

You can also engage this auxiallary heat manually with the emergency (or aux) switch. The compressor may or may not shut off at this point, because it still contributes a little heat, but the efficiency plummets drastically.

I'm lucky in that my house has gas, and the backup heat system is a gas furnace. While most people hate to see that little light, which means large electric bills, we're comfy in using the gas furnace on purpose, and not running the compressor at all.

Larry Fine,

Ahhhh yes Gas Heat. I remember it fondly. The house I had in Chicago had gas heat and it was magnificent. My new house in North Carolina is all electric (big mistake).

Thank you for the emergency heat explanation, I actually understood that.

The HVAC guy is here as I type and he found that my tray was full of water, so he emptied it and vacummed out this pipe that water should drip out of....no water was dripping. He also found that the "heat strips" were on. He disconnected them and will come back tomorrow with some relay things. He thinks there is something else wrong because the unit doesn't stay on long enough to satisfy the temperature I've set it to. he will figure that out tomorrow when he returns.

I'll let you know what my kwh usage is after he has fixed everything. Hopefully it will be back down to the norm.

I did mention all of your suggestions to him. He smiled and was very pleasant, he knew I was regurgitating something I'd heard someone else say.

Whew, sucks to be me.

[This message has been edited by Kimmiejoe (edited 09-04-2006).]

[This message has been edited by Kimmiejoe (edited 09-04-2006).]

I might be speaking for more people than just me, but I for one am glad you asked questions before charging in and causing havoc on your system. Surf around these forums long enough and you'll know what I mean. Good luck with your bills!

The auxiliary heat strips in your heat pump are the reason the POCO's promote the things. If the outside temp. drops to anywhere near freezing, the strips kick in and the profits of the utilities go up. Heat pumps are very inefficient below 30 degrees, except as revenue generators. They have the system capacity to handle summer air conditioning loads so they encourage you to use heat pumps, knowing that few people realize how much electric heat costs. BTW, from a system efficiency perspective, looking at the btu's of coal burned at the generating station and the btu's from your bathroom space heater, you get about 2% efficiency...distribution system losses. Burn wood, it involves the labor of 1 or 2 men; burn nat. gas, propane or elect. heat and you have to pay the labor of 1,000 men...go figure

Almost Fried, you might want to recheck your calculations--I think they're off by a decimal place or two.

Good idea. It's 1/10th the price of oil here BTU/BTU at present [as cordwood].

Been looking at 'wood pellet/granule' boilers/furnaces/stoves recently, as 'er indoors objects to hauling logs into the house, [ and not amused by my quip to "make 2 trips" either! ].
Pellets look good from an economy and enviromental viewpoint [ recycled carbon ]. Went trawling the net and even found some folks in the States burning corn [ maize? ] in similar machines, due to it's low price as a fuel. Might be tempted to get a shredder-chipper for my old Renault tractor's pto and make my own!

Alan

Solar Powered: Which ones!

Don't the pellet fed units require electricity to feed the pellets?
Hard to burn a fire in a power outage

Yep and nope! The ones I saw at an agricultural show last week had NiCd battery backup for the air fan:- the screw feed does stop though, so in a prolonged outage, it will go out. Auto-ignition models exist.
The screwfeed pushes the fuel up a burn tube, from a bulk bin, to meet air slits or 'tuyeres' near the tube top, fed by a fan. The fire is actually 'upside down', the ash comes out at the top and falls off the edge of the 'volcano' and drops into a pan. On tickover, the feed runs for a few seconds several times an hour to keep the fire in, chip controlled of course. On full demand a searing white flame appears, [ these models had glass doors and were actually space heaters, not furnaces or boilers ]. The vendor must have been confident about the efficiency - he had two machines running in an open-front mobile, with the exhausts straight into the sales area with no flues. But this is France- just up the rue a roadside sausage-griller was pushing out enough blue acrid smoke to give Arnold a seizure!

Alan


ps. The pellets BTW were about $140 a ton, = c. 180 US Gallons of diesel oil on a calorific comparison. They are delivered by 'tanker', blown in to the store by air blast.

A concern I have about pellet stoves is the complications of the machine, too many parts to wear out and fail, causing you to buy this years flashier, more flimsy model. The pellets are a commercial commodity, subject to price gouging, synthetic shortages, and you again, have a fuel that came to your door via a network of producers,accountants, marketing staff, wholesalers, retailers, etc.,etc. When you buy your firewood from the man down the road, you feed him, get warm, your fuel dollars circulate in the local economy(at least the portion he doesn't spend at wally world) your personal politics can matter. Buy a Vermont Castings or other reputable stove with no moving parts other than doors and draft system, burn big chunks of wood that are properly dried and you have a much more efficient heating system.