HELP!!! My electric bill TRIPLED! **UPDATED- RESOLVED**

[kristenrice]

First of all, I have our electric bill set up for an automatic charge to my Visa (Disney, of course) on a monthly basis. We are not on any sort of budget plan so our bill is for our actual monthly usage. Over the last year, including the summer when we run our central A/C, we have never exceeded 1100kwh in a month. Over the winter months, we average about 800. I just looked at our bill for February and it was over $200! It shows that we had a usage of over 2000 kwh! We were gone in WDW for a week and unplugged our electronics (everything but the refrigerator) so I have no idea how we could have tripled our energy usage in 1) a short month and 2) a month where we weren't even home for a week!

I e-mailed the electric company and let them know that there must have been an error in our meter reading. What other recourse do I have? I KNOW that this amount cannot be right. Does anyone have any experience with this? Should I cancel my automatic payment? It is not a huge financial burden if we paid it and then receive a credit if (and hopefully when) an error is found.

 

[LisaNJ25]

Are you able to read the number on the meter and call it in? They should be able to compare it to the numbers it was billed at.

 

[My2BabiesLexis&Dill]

When we went to Disney last year for 2 weeks, our light bill was over 200.00 for the month. And we wasn't there. Our usual bill runs about 100.00 a month. I couldn't figure out why the bill was higher. So DH told me to pay it and be quite. So that's what I did. If you find out a reason from your company, please let us know.

 

[mickeyfan2]

A vacationing neighbor is a great way for me to lower my electric bill. I run extensions from their outdoor outlets and power all of my stuff with their electric.

 

[seashoreCM]

Do you have an electric water heater? Could there be a leak in one of the water pipes on the hot side, elsewhere in the house?

That can run up your electric bill really high.

Disney hints: http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

 

[Kim in SPR]

It's possible they estimated your reading. They do that here a lot and it seems like their estimate is always substantially more. Like the other poster said, you can compare your meter reading to your bill or call it in to see if there is a difference. Actually, I think our bill may actually state "estimate" on it somewhere in small writing.

 

[starwood]

Since you were away - could they get in to read your meter. Our meter is on the outside so they don't have to get in but I know that DM's meter is inside and if she isn't home they estimate.

 

[bdcp]

They also sometimes estimate for several months and then actually read it and it's higher because the estimation was too low. Your bill should show what the reading was, so check your meter and see what it shows currently and see if it's possible it was misread. I don't know how big your home is but our electric bill is on budget and it's almost $200/month every month. In the summer, it would be much higher if we didnt' use budget billing. We have gas heat so in the winter, even though the blower is electric, it doesn't use as much elec. as the A/C does. Also, did your utility rates go up a lot recently? With the increased cost of oil, electric companies charge more to make up for that.

 

[clh2]

Last year, we got an electric bill that made us go I don't remember the amounts, but our usage was double.

We went through each circuit, and figured out what was going on.

Our well pump was on the fritz, and was constantly on for basically the month.

Luckily, when well pumps fail, they usually just fail, we at least got some notice that it needed to be fixed. We took care of this one pronto.

And... the electric bill returned to normal.

So - make sure that all your electric stuff is running properly.

I would also consider checking in to the estimated vs. actual reads. If this was an actual, maybe they estimated "low" for a couple of months, and now, on an actual read they are "making up for it".

 

[Not so Dumbo]

You didn't just get a new t.v.?
Just saw a news story about how all of the new flat screen HIDEF t.v.'s are energy hogs. They tested a 42" Panasonic plasma and it was drawing 280watts. Depending on the size and type of t.v. they said it could increase your electric bill by upto $200/mo

 

[stitchlovestink]

A vacationing neighbor is a great way for me to lower my electric bill. I run extensions from their outdoor outlets and power all of my stuff with their electric.

glad I don't leave near you!!

 

[Adi12982]

sometimes they estimate readings for bills. . .

This can hurt you if the overestimate OR if they underestimated the previsou month when they came this month they put it all (what you spent this month AND what they underestimated from the last one).

Can you check your bills and see if they estimated?? On our bills (pepco, online) they put an asterisk (*) by an estimated reading.

 

[DiznEeyore]

Last year, we got an electric bill that made us go I don't remember the amounts, but our usage was double.

We went through each circuit, and figured out what was going on.

Our well pump was on the fritz, and was constantly on for basically the month.

Luckily, when well pumps fail, they usually just fail, we at least got some notice that it needed to be fixed. We took care of this one pronto.

And... the electric bill returned to normal.

So - make sure that all your electric stuff is running properly.

A similar thing happened to us, only it was because we hadn't vacuumed the coils under the fridge in a while. When we realized that, it cut our bill immediately!

 

[dpayne1969]

this happened to us here as well,we had the ice storm & ran the generator for a whole week,got the electric bill & about died because I could not believe it had increased when we did not even have electric for a whole week.

I tell ya everything is on the rise big time except our paychecks

 

[EthansMom]

Doublecheck the utility cos. reading against your actual meter. It may be that they estimated your meter reading (often happens during winter months) and that their estimate was very high. Or they may have accidentally swapped your neighbors meter reading with yours... that happened to a family member of ours.

If the meter reading was accurate, then you need to track down an electrical hog in your house. You may have left a refrigerator door open for an extended period of time, or had a water heater running non-stop, or something along those lines. If it's a problem that hasn't been rectified, then you'll continue to burn through a lot of electricity.... a good way to check would be to take a reading from your meter tomorrow morning and then the next day, subtract to get the daily use and compare that to the average daily use from old bills.

Also, check your current bill against old ones to see if your billing rate has changed.

Good Luck!

 

[kathianne]

You didn't just get a new t.v.?
Just saw a news story about how all of the new flat screen HIDEF t.v.'s are energy hogs. They tested a 42" Panasonic plasma and it was drawing 280watts. Depending on the size and type of t.v. they said it could increase your electric bill by upto $200/mo

OMG! Are you serious! We are considering buying a new flat panel tv, but not if it jumps the electric bill that much! We'd need a second job to pay for the electric!

 

[cbrfan]

We had that happen to us once. So I went outside and read the meter myself. Sure enough, they had looked at it wrong and overstated the end meter reading by 1,000 units. It just evened itself out on the following month's bill.

 

[kristenrice]

Thank you all for the ideas. I don't think that it was an estimated reading because I can't imagine that they "estimated" that I would almost triple my electric comsumption this month.

We have a gas water heater so that's not it....
No new appliances or TV's....
I'll have to look into how much our electric fireplace was run. After I bought it last year, we ran it about 2 hours a day and our electric bill skyrocketed. At that time, I knew it was the fireplace so we now very rarely run it with the heat on. When we do run it, we set a timer and it is not run for more than 15 minutes a day. It hasn't affected our electric bill yet this year. In fact, since we were gone for part of this month, it was used LESS than normal.

No neighbors siphoning from outdoor outlets...none of them work (the outlets, not the neighbors )

The meter is outside so they were definitely able to read it. I am going to go outside tomorrow and check it. It's been raining all day so I didn't want to go out and get soaked.

 

[Princess April]

A similar thing happened to us, only it was because we hadn't vacuumed the coils under the fridge in a while. When we realized that, it cut our bill immediately!

Not trying to hijack this thread but..... can anyone explain this to me??? Not trying to be dense but I am a first time homeowner and I have never heard of this??? Can any on explain this to me, like how it's done???? P.M. me please...... obviously I need help

 

[kristenrice]

UPDATE:

Ok, It was my fault . A few months ago, I had misplaced my Disney Visa so I temporarily stopped the automatic billing. When I found my Visa 2 days later, I re-activated the automatic payments. Apparently, I somehow missed a payment so this statement (for the $200+) was for TWO months of service, plus a late fee. I believe it is all good now. I went back and checked my Visa statements and verified that there was indeed a month with no charge to the electric company.