ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area High Electric bills

Be sure the person is not a "light freak". Had one of these and the person would leave her light on 24hrs a day. All the light fixtures had 100w lamps. She was pulling about 10 amps all the time and complained about high bills.

I second that with SteveFehr. Measure all individual circuits with a clip on ammeter and work out which one has a high unexplained use on it.
Then trace back which appliance is the culprit.

Also the meter was checked by the POCO ? I have done field meter testing for over 10 years in the POCO and meters rarely fail.
Generally they tend to be slow when bearings wear out.
A lightning strike may damage the brake magnet sometimes but you have guaranteed damage to home appliances as well.

Electronic meters are very accurate but are known to have sometimes unexplainable errors when capacitirs fail on the internal circuitboards.

Even 40 and 50 year old meters are still well within their accuracy class.

Good luck with your findings !

You guys are on it, lighting is one of the big draws and so is the furnace as it runs a lot during the winter. They have a small fridge and a large on. Nothing by itself is large but there are 6 breakers that draw more than the usual 2-3 amps.
My wanting the recording was to get a month of readings as you all know they don't leave the lights on all the time, at least thats what they tell me.