Chasing Power

This started out in the rant thread, but to help keep myself straight, I'm turning it into it's own thread. 

My past two electric bills have been high, like really high. Looking at the bills, compared to last year I'm using an extra 25kWh a day, but we really haven't changed much around the house. 

We have smart meters, but logging into the basic billpay site doesn't show much. Finally with much digging and a call into the power company, I found my breakdowns of useage by year, month, day, and into hour blocks. This access has had me spending most of the day today looking through past bills, putting things together and doing some guesstimating as to what is happening at the time. 

billing period to billing period over the year. Yes, it makes it look temperature related going over the whole year, central AC in the summer and a pellet stove in the winter. a 500 watt space heater in the laundry room on the days below about 15F, 1500 watt programmable heater in my bathroom set at 63F. They were here in the previous year as well.

Major gap in usage from last year to this year, despite similar weather and house heating methods. But why? What has changed?

Obviously, some of the change is weather related. And it shows across the averages, but not neaarly enough to make up almost doubling consumption. 

So what has changed over the past year? The dishwasher was replaced and we got a chest freezer in September, which was one of the lowest usage months of the year. That's it. No new power tools, no new electronics, a couple of LED floor lamps. We have a pretty set schedule around here, and generally do the same things all the time, no major lifestyle changes, but still, massive power consumption. 

So far, I've singled out the water heater and the dryer on daily breakdowns. I've checked resistance on the heater elements in the water heater and they're good, 15 and 15.5 ohms. Thermostats are both set around 118, I get 115 from the kitchen sink eventually. It has always taken forever to get hot water around the house. It bleeds off pressure after every use, pressure relief is new as of 2020, and it always has. I need to plumb in an expansion tank, but that's a mess and another thread/headache. We have no sign of problems with the water heater other than a high electric bill. 

I'm planning to tear into the dryer tomorrow, see if there is anyhting messing with the drum or if the heating elements might be on their way out. Again, not having any signs of a problem, but I can clearly see big spikes when the dryer was running so I want to check it out anyway. 

I was planning to check the elements in the oven tonight but almost shocked myself when I went to disconnect the bottom element so I didn't. Mostly I just want a new oven, but I'm looking at all the big stuff. 

My next step is to get a Kill A Watt and check everything else out. The freezers, the antique fridge, the new LG that's already had a bad board replaced, make sure the pellet stove is only drawing the 125 watts it's supposed to be, then start checking the smaller stuff. 

25kWh a day isn't a small amount. It should be something obvious. I'll parts cannon new elements in the water heater because they're cheap and easy. Maybe try replacing the ceiling fan that liked to explode bulbs and is on a rheostat instead of a switch for some unknown reason. Keep a nose out incase a rat bit into a wire while touching a roofing nail?

I'm really grasping at straws. A big bill sucks, but without having made any major changes I'm more frustrated by where all the extra power is coming from than actually paying for it. 

It did turn out that calling and asking for information led to the power company looking into my neighborhood when I mentioned flickering lights and fans changing speed, and they have found our transformer is running at and over its limit, so they're going to replace it in the coming weeks. That's going to solve some headaches I and some neighbors have had, but it most likely won't effect my bill. 

With that much draw maybe have someone watch the meter spin and someone hit circuit breakers inside until it changes a lot?  Another thought is use IR to check the temp of the circuit breakers and see if one is hotter than the others?

In reply to Stampie :

My thoughts exactly. With that much draw, you should be able to see it. 

Have you a walked around the house to make sure there aren't any strange cords plugged in and running somewhere they shouldn't?

An IR camera is a pretty good idea. 1000 watts is a fairly significant load. It's going to generate some heat somewhere. You can probably rent one for fairly cheap. 

Do you have any sort of central heat? The thermostat for my FROG shorted earlier this year and went to full emergency heat. It was 87 degrees up there before I discovered it. 

If you have fluctuations in power it could really confuse a digital thermostat. 

Stampie said:

With that much draw maybe have someone watch the meter spin and someone hit circuit breakers inside until it changes a lot?  Another thought is use IR to check the temp of the circuit breakers and see if one is hotter than the others?

That's what I was thinking. Kill a circuit at a time til something changes. 

Toyman! said:

Do you have any sort of central heat? The thermostat for my FROG shorted earlier this year and went to full emergency heat. It was 87 degrees up there before I discovered it. 

If you have fluctuations in power it could really confuse a digital thermostat. 

There is an oil boiler. Haven't used it since last December, but, finally shut off the breaker for it today. While working in the garage I would randomly hear a solenoid noise from it's direction, but never thought much of it. 

But no, no other central heating, pellet stove upstairs and the mentioned space heaters.

Digital thermostat on the wall controls the AC only, and it's in "off" mode on the switch. Old fashioned analog thermostat is on an adjacent wall, and set at like 45 because it's tied to the boiler system and oil prices are just insane.

Is the neighbor tapped into your meter?

(kidding, but not kidding)

I don't think you have a mechanical problem. I think you have a human problem. 
 

Did somebody have different work from home patterns?  A teenager with a new electronic device?  Somebody mining crypto in the basement?  Kids teach an age where they are up every night until 3AM on the internet?  Someone leaving windows open?  
 

Someone in your household has changed a pattern and isn't fessing up. 

My first thought would be to look for a hot water drip. That will run up both bills. The next would be to make sure they didn't do an estimated bill. Check the meter and confirm the usage.

Duke energy estimated 9 months of bills at my new shop. Long story, short. They gave themselves a no interest loan of about $1500 by basing usage off the previous tenant in the space. It has a smart meter and they still couldn't seem to read it. 10 phone calls over two weeks and they gave me a refund. Two months later they sent me a $2400 bill to "catch up" the balance on the, you guessed it, estimated billing. My actual bill is around $70.

You mentioned installing an expansion tank, are you on a well by chance?  I had an issue where the pipe directly above our well pump had a leak, and the well pump was cycling excessively for quite a long time.  Never noticed any pressure problems in the house.  Only discovered it when we lost power one day and noticed the generator was loading every 30 seconds or so.

Had a noticeable power bill jump over a 12 month period on a separate occasion.  I had kids living at home during that time and assumed it was due to their habits.  Turned out the relay for the emergency HVAC heat strips in the air handler had failed closed.  They were powered even when the AC was running.  Surprisingly, the AC still worked, although not as well.  Took three separate technicians over a few months time frame (frustrating story) to find the cooling problem.  

In reply to jgrewe :

Digital meters, actual readings every month, and no wheel to watch spin around unfortunately. Our line from pole to meter is underground, and there are no extension cords without my name on them on the property. 

I went after all the easy low hanging fruit in December when I got our largest bill to date, and with January's bill even bigger, I'm cracking down and checking everything else. 

In reply to RevRico :

You should have two dashes just below the numbers on the meter. Those simulate the spinning wheel in the old style meters. 

You might also consider something like this. It will monitor 16 separate circuits in the panel as well as the mains and report to your phone. $164 but it may save you a lot more than that. Amazon Link. 

SV reX said:

I don't think you have a mechanical problem. I think you have a human problem. 
 

Did somebody have different work from home patterns?  A teenager with a new electronic device?  Somebody mining crypto in the basement?  Kids teach an age where they are up every night until 3AM on the internet?  Someone leaving windows open?  
 

Someone in your household has changed a pattern and isn't fessing up. 

I'm home almost all day every day. Younglings are in school, wife works morning shift. Weekends everybody is here, but our TVs sure as hell don't pull that kinda power. What's fun is seeing spikes at times nobody was home.

I'm the only computer literate person in the house as well, and the desktop is rarely on. Chromebooks, again, not big on consumption so even when Thing 1 is up all night she doesn't really use anything. 

As much as I want to blame the teenager, there nowhere for her to hide anything this power hungry, at least not on the house meter. The garage meter has been $15/month since we moved in. 

Something kicked on November 12-15 somewhere that really started drawing power. 

This is just a list mostly for myself but might shine some light to another set of eyes.

Always on

• 5 ceiling fans
• Pellet stove
• Light above kitchen sink that the switch doesn't work on, LED bulb (switch hasn't worked in over a year)
• 2 dehumidifier in basement year round
• Standing freezer
• Chest freezer
• LG fridge that already had one board replaced
• Antique fridge
• 3 night stand LED lights
• Heater in my bathroom set at 63 in eco mode, last 2 years this was about $5/month with new kWh pricing it's about $8/month
• 4 inch vent fan in my bedroom
• My bathroom exhaust fan which was replaced in August because the old one quit spinning
• 40 gallon Rheem HWT
• 85 watt bucket heater for chickens

Occasional use

• Electric oven
• Electric cooktop new in 21
• Dishwasher new in September and new again in October
• 2 55" LG TVs
• 200 watt sound bar
• Xbox Series X
• Microwave
• Basement 4 foot LED TUBES
• Pellet smoker, plugged in but unused mostly
• Washer and dryer
• White noise machine
• 32" tv and chromebook in teenagers room
• LED floor lamp in teenagers room
• LED lights in the ceiling fans
• 500 watt ceramic space heater only when outdoor temps are below 15 degrees
• Old gaming computer turned on for maybe 3 hours a month

Known problems from previous owner

• Grounds in outlet boxes either cut off or soldered together and screwed to the boxes
• Electrical taped romex splices everywhere. Not even wire nuts, just wire stripped twisted and taped.
• Service entrance from meter to 100 amp switch to 2 separate breaker panels
• Power line was split going to the dryer outlet, insulation totally split through the black wire inside of the panel, found and replaced, but with that lack of care probably not the only one
• Screw in fuse panel for oil burner I replaced with a modern sub panel shortly after we moved in
• At least one outlet gets power from multiple breakers
• We suspected we had a floating neutral somewhere because lights randomly dim, fans change speeds, sometimes the lights will almost go completely off, but First Energy says that's their transformer being overloaded

All the windows have plastic taped over them because they leak like hell, all the AC vents are shut and the breaker removed from the outdoor panel box for the AC.

City water and a septic tank, so those other low hanging fruit don't apply.

Best guesses I've come up with are HWT elements maybe not firing properly even though they're resistance is good, the dryer elements slowly dying, or the oven slowly dying. Those three things do match with a lot of high usage on the hourly breakdowns, but not all of it. 

In reply to Toyman! :

that's what i was thinking. we know Rev's got at least one E36 M3ty neighbor. maybe they're stealing power at night? FWIW, that used to be a leading cause of house fires in poor neighborhoods in Detroit.

RevRico said:

and the breaker removed from the outdoor panel box for the AC.

*that's* where your E36 M3ty neighbor is plugging in...

For some reason this made me think of when my wife told me that in the Summer, the A/C always has the accounting offices too cold.  Each of the ladies in the department has an electric space heater under their desk cranking out heat to keep from freezing.  I had to laugh.

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

RevRico said:

and the breaker removed from the outdoor panel box for the AC.

*that's* where your E36 M3ty neighbor is plugging in...

 

No, I think that's saying that there's no possible way it's the AC because he's pulled the breaker out.

This change, I don't think it's human-generated unless there's someone mining crypto or running a grow op, and that can be a little hard to hide in a single-family household. I'm interested to see what the conclusion is. I think I'd take a good look at that new freezer and make sure it's not running constantly due to an open door or thermostat failure.

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

Almost every woman I worked with at my last office had a space heater under her desk. Same reason.  There were at least a dozen of them.

I agree with getting a thermal imager or similar and start digging. Unless you do find some nefarious power stealing, given what you've said about the existing wiring, there may be some wire going bad somewhere, basically turning itself into a resistance heater.  Just enough draw to heat up the wire, but not enough to be an actual short that would trip the breaker. 

If you don't have one, now may be a good time to draw up a basic electrical plan for your house showing all of the receptacles and other power devices and what breaker the are connected to. Then you can more easily create a plan to start the process of elimination. 

Here's some items I found curious;

Always on

• 5 ceiling fans  - Maybe try turning these off
• Light above kitchen sink - Replace the switch and turn this off
• 2 dehumidifier in basement year round  - Are these the kind that only run when elevated humidity is detected?
• Antique fridge - Curious how much this is using and how much it's really being used.
• 3 night stand LED lights
• Heater in my bathroom set at 63 in eco mode, last 2 years this was about $5/month with new kWh pricing it's about $8/month - Sounds like you found $8/month to save here
• 4 inch vent fan in my bedroom - You sure like your fans.
• My bathroom exhaust fan which was replaced in August because the old one quit spinning - Try taking Beano?  What's with all these fans??
• 40 gallon Rheem HWT - Can you insulate this or otherwise improve efficiency?  Something I should do at my house..

Will your power company do a free energy audit? Something is clearly wrong. Maybe your meter is out of calibration. Maybe someone is stealing power.

pres589 (djronnebaum) said:

Here's some items I found curious;

Always on

• 5 ceiling fans  - Maybe try turning these off
• Light above kitchen sink - Replace the switch and turn this off
• 2 dehumidifier in basement year round  - Are these the kind that only run when elevated humidity is detected?
• Antique fridge - Curious how much this is using and how much it's really being used.
• 3 night stand LED lights
• Heater in my bathroom set at 63 in eco mode, last 2 years this was about $5/month with new kWh pricing it's about $8/month - Sounds like you found $8/month to save here
• 4 inch vent fan in my bedroom - You sure like your fans.
• My bathroom exhaust fan which was replaced in August because the old one quit spinning - Try taking Beano?  What's with all these fans??
• 40 gallon Rheem HWT - Can you insulate this or otherwise improve efficiency?  Something I should do at my house..

 

Why are these always on?  The ceiling fans are just an energy waste, but the vent fans also increase your HVAC load so they do double damage.

Looking at the list of known problems from previous owner has me wanting to tell you to get an electrician in there... FAST.

• Grounds in outlet boxes either cut off or soldered together and screwed to the boxes - this might not be a biggie if you have metal boxes as the box is usually grounded, no need to hook up a wire to the ground lug.
• Electrical taped romex splices everywhere. Not even wire nuts, just wire stripped twisted and taped.  Big issue, check local code but splices not only have to be wire nutted but inside a box.
• Service entrance from meter to 100 amp switch to 2 separate breaker panels  If properly done, not a problem.
• Power line was split going to the dryer outlet, insulation totally split through the black wire inside of the panel, found and replaced, but with that lack of care probably not the only one  Old wire?  With age I've seen some insulation so brittle that you couldn't touch it.
• At least one outlet gets power from multiple breakers  WTF?!?!?!?  Get that fixed ASAP
• We suspected we had a floating neutral somewhere because lights randomly dim, fans change speeds, sometimes the lights will almost go completely off, but First Energy says that's their transformer being overloaded  All that can be caused by the other stuff you listed too.

Huh.  I just paid my bill for last month.  Just a tick under 3000 kWh.  Looking over the last 12 months, that's the second highest.  Last February was just over 3000.  I'm always happy if the usage for the current month is no greater than the usage for the same month a year ago.  Teenagers, for all their environmental awareness, really seem to enjoy long, hot showers.  And wives.  Wives like long hot showers too, but I only have one of those. 

ProDarwin said:

Why are these always on?  The ceiling fans are just an energy waste, but the vent fans also increase your HVAC load so they do double damage.

Yes!  Any exhaust fan running constantly is an energy hog.  Let's just say it's a 100 cfm exhaust fan.  100 cfm x 60min/hr x 24hr/day = 144,000 cubic feet exhausted per day.

A 2000 square foot home with 8' ceilings contains about 2000 x 8 = 16,000 cubic feet.

So that fan will pull out ALL the heated air in that house and replace it with air at whatever temperature it is outside NINE TIMES A DAY.  Then your heating system has to work to bring that cold air back up to your setpoint.