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I'm hoping someone here will have some advice, since the power company doesn't seem to care, as long as they get paid.
For months now, my power bill and energy consumption have been very high. I have a 4br/2ba house, but I'm the only person here. It's very well insulated and gets lots of sun, so I keep the heat (forced air) set at about 62 degrees during the day and lower at night. I also have a propane stove, but using that exclusively made no difference. The garage is heated, but I have that heat turned off. All the lights have CFL's and I'm very careful to not leave lights on. I don't even own a TV, so that's not an issue. The water heater was replaced 1 year ago. I usually do laundry once, sometimes twice, a week (electric dryer) and run the dishwasher no more than twice a week. The refrigerator is at the lowest setting. I make it point to turn things off and even unplug them when I'm not using them. Lately, I've started flipping the circuit breakers off to see if that helps.
What other steps can I take to try and figure out what is drawing so much power?
What's your bill? Did it suddenly increase when you replaced your water heater? Have you looked outside to make sure a neighbor hasn't plugged into your house? Have you read your own meter?
Look at your bill, it should state the number of kilowatt-hours you used. National average is something like 800-1000. You need to look at KWH and then look at the price per KWH - you can control your useage but can't do much about the price.
What kind of heat do you have? If it's the ceiling-cable type straight resistive heaters, these are not very efficient.
What part of ID are you in? When I lived in Idaho Falls, the power rate in town was quite reasonable, but that was 30 years ago so things may have changed.
The rate for power is very reasonable. You have to join a co-op here and there is a $36 membership fee every month. Including the membership fee, my bill has gone from an average of $80 a month to $300 a month or more (as high as 2200 KWH), but it didn't happen until several months after the water heater was replaced. I did check to see if someone had plugged into my house and can't find anything. I don't know why I haven't been recording daily meter readings, but I'll start doing that.
Check the meter and make sure it isn't moving when you think you aren't consuming any power. If there is some discrepancy, then it could be a defective meter (unlikely) or else there is actually some device in your home that is sucking power. The next step would be to use a clamp-on amp meter ($20 on amazon) to check the main leads going into the breaker box, and the individual circuits going out of it.
I too have noticed an increase in my KWH over the past few winter months. I bought a new energy efficient furnace & central a/c in June. I thought my winter power usage would go down with this new efficient furnace. Well I've decided it's either the amount of power it uses to run efficiently or my humidifier that's increased my KWH usage. Or maybe my 12 year old fridge is sucking the KWH. I've been in my 32 year old home for 12 years. I have a spreadsheet of all of my utility costs over the past 5 years. I knew the summer time KWH would increase because of my central air. Thought the winter usage would be the same or less. I was wrong.
How long have you lived there? Is your thermostat for your furnace set to "fan" instead of "auto"? How old is your fridge? Did you get a new power meter? Is your dog/cat wasting electricity when you're not home?
The rate for power is very reasonable. You have to join a co-op here and there is a $36 membership fee every month. Including the membership fee, my bill has gone from an average of $80 a month to $300 a month or more (as high as 2200 KWH), but it didn't happen until several months after the water heater was replaced. I did check to see if someone had plugged into my house and can't find anything. I don't know why I haven't been recording daily meter readings, but I'll start doing that.
2200 is a lot of power. What is your main source of space heat in the house? If you are using electric resistance heat as your main source of heat, as cold as it gets in Idaho, that's your explanation.
Have to add, that if you *are* using resistance (as opposed to some sort of heat pump) that *all* your other energy saving efforts - the CFLs, turning down the 'fridge, etc - are exactly 100% cancelled out by the resistance heating system using exactly all of the power you saved at other places in the house.
2200 is a lot of power. What is your main source of space heat in the house? If you are using electric resistance heat as your main source of heat, as cold as it gets in Idaho, that's your explanation.
Have to add, that if you *are* using resistance (as opposed to some sort of heat pump) that *all* your other energy saving efforts - the CFLs, turning down the 'fridge, etc - are exactly 100% cancelled out by the resistance heating system using exactly all of the power you saved at other places in the house.
I have an electric furnace and with the heat at 62, even if it's very cold outside, it only comes on a couple of times in a 24 hour period. Today it's in the 30's and I have the heat turned off. I'm not sure if it makes any difference, but I keep the doors and floor vents closed in the guest bedrooms and bathroom.
I also have propane. It's one of those stoves that looks like a woodstove. For two months I used that as the only heat, just to see if it made a difference to my power bill. It did not.
Did you make sure the power company didn't raise your rates? We got our bill last month ($752) with a nice little note that they're setting up a tier system. The people that use more power will pay more per KWH. That puts us on the high end. We've been trying to insulate the house - it's about 80 years old and had no insulation short of some newspaper and old clothing / blankets - in the walls when we bought it. We've had insulation blown in to the attic under the floorboards, added insulation in the walls as we've removed old paneling and drywall to replace it with new. We stopped using space heaters and had central heat and air installed. We shut down the second floor totally and closed off half of the first floor. And even with all that, our electric usage is way out of control. It's just hubby and I. I know we can't do much about the heat as we have 3 exotic pets and have to keep the room they're in extra warm during the month, but for our bill to more than double in a single month was a shock. And to find out now that we'll be billed at a higher rate for each month of service..... ouch!
$752 I guess I shouldn't complain about my $300 bill, except that I'm so careful about not wasting power.
They did raise our rates as of January 1st, but compared to most of the country, the rate is still very low. It's the big KWH numbers that I need to get rid of.
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I guess I shouldn't complain about my $300 bill, except that I'm so careful about not wasting power.
