Electric bill vent

elannis · January 2012

We got our electric bill this month. Normally it's like 30$, but this month it was 215$. I don't understand how it does that. It shows a graph of the last 12 months usage and they're all way down and then the last one is like 6 times as high. We're calling them to find out what happened, but I just can't think of anything that would make it spike up that high.

Our fridge has been acting wonky lately. Would that pull enough juice to do that?

loves2shop4shoes · January 2012

I'd call and be like WTFBBQ...

jorja86 · January 2012

I would call them. I would first verify that you were charged correctly, and then ask them if they have any recommendations about which appliance would be most likely to be causing that kind of spike.

That sounds pretty ridiculous though. What kind of heating do you have? Did you recently turn that on or anything?

Swazzle · January 2012

Wow that's insane! I would definitely call them. Our electric bill goes up in the winter because our heat is electric but never, ever that much.

TheMutleys · January 2012

Do you live in an apt or a house? Do they come out and read your meter? Do you have access to your meter? Were you home more during the last month?

elannis · January 2012

I would say that not much has changed in the last month. I got an electric blanket, but I don't use it all that much and I've only had it for about 2 weeks now. I'm usually pretty good about leaving off stuff that we don't need to use and making sure FI does the same.

We live in an apartment and I would say that we've been gone more this last month with the holidays. We usually unplug stuff when we leave for more than a day, too.

I'm not sure if they come out to read the meter, but I assume they do and yes, we do have access to it.

elannis · January 2012

Our bill goes up a little in the summer and in the winter, but it has NEVER been this high before.

Blue & White · January 2012

Electric heaters also pull a ton of electricity (space heaters). I doubt that would jump your bill up that high though.

My favorite is the gas bill - we used less gas in Dec than Nov, but the price of gas went up, so the bill went up like $30. Really, guys? Not cool. Thank God only our heat is gas so this will be over once the winter is over.

elannis · January 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_not-engaged-yet_electric-bill-vent?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special%20Topic%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:136Discussion:c047851f-049a-4439-8efa-b29560b2db5cPost:452ee9f0-e199-46c9-b86b-82ce769dbcdc">Re: Electric bill vent</a>:
[QUOTE]Electric heaters also pull a ton of electricity (space heaters). I doubt that would jump your bill up that high though. My favorite is the gas bill - we used less gas in Dec than Nov, but the price of gas went up, so the bill went up like $30. Really, guys? Not cool. Thank God only our heat is gas so this will be over once the winter is over.
Posted by Blue & White[/QUOTE]

Space heaters are awesome, but we don't have one. We usually just put on layers, lol.

We haven't even messed with the thermostat much except to turn it down when we leave for a long weekend or something like that. We've always done that though, so I don't think that would be it.

TheMutleys · January 2012

If you have access to it, I would go take a gander. Turn everything off and see if it is spinning like crazy. Meters CAN malfunction. You can also request for them to come and test your meter.

Shockingly, companies have been known to read or record meter readings incorrectly.

elannis · January 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_not-engaged-yet_electric-bill-vent?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special%20Topic%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:136Discussion:c047851f-049a-4439-8efa-b29560b2db5cPost:667e9d36-57af-4102-ba84-ee9a1dc2f2a4">Re: Electric bill vent</a>:
[QUOTE]If you have access to it, I would go take a gander. Turn everything off and see if it is spinning like crazy. Meters CAN malfunction. You can also request for them to come and test your meter. Shockingly, companies have been known to read or record meter readings incorrectly. ;)
Posted by TheMutleys[/QUOTE]

I think I'll try that. I have little to no knowledge on electricity and all that goes with it, and have never needed to know before, but I'll try that and see what happens. I hope you're right and it's messing up because I really can't see how it can't be messed up somewhere.

Swazzle · January 2012

Does your electric company come out & read your meter EVERY month or do they do an estimate? At my last apartment they would estimate it for like 3 months in a row, it was always higher than it should be but we paid it. Then they'd come out & do an actual reading & we would have a couple months where we were credited for overpaying & basically didn't have a bill.

elannis · January 2012

Ok, I'm a dummy, so forgive me, but there are two boxes for our apartment. One has a horizontal disc that looks like it spins with 5 or 6 meters above it ranging from 0-9 and then another one that gives an actual number : 1420.

FI said that on the bill the kilowatt hours used was 220 last year on this month and this time it said 1,919. Is that the number I'm seeing?

It said 1420 when I looked earlier and this time I unplugged everything that was on, even the fridge, and it was the same. Does that mean it's working right or not or am I wrong and looked at the wrong thing?

Beads921 · January 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_not-engaged-yet_electric-bill-vent?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special%20Topic%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:136Discussion:c047851f-049a-4439-8efa-b29560b2db5cPost:32eb455c-0688-4030-a677-0e3d6fe03fb5">Re: Electric bill vent</a>:
[QUOTE]Does your electric company come out & read your meter EVERY month or do they do an estimate? At my last apartment they would estimate it for like 3 months in a row, it was always higher than it should be but we paid it. Then they'd come out & do an actual reading & we would have a couple months where we were credited for overpaying & basically didn't have a bill.
Posted by rdr716[/QUOTE]

<div>This exactly. Except our experience was opposite - they estimated for about 3 months then when they did a read we got a huge bill since they had been underestimating (their estimates were based on the previous year...when the apartment was unoccupied). After that one incident, the estimates were better (although still low) and we didn't have much of an issue.</div>

elannis · January 2012

I don't know if they do an estimate or not, but the bill is 7x what it normally is, so I don't think that'd be the issue either. FI knows more about this stuff than I do, so he's going to look in about an hour and a half when he comes home for lunch.

elannis · January 2012

Ok, the good thing to all of this is that I finally figured out what one of the light switches in the kitchen is commected to, lol. I've always been too lazy to try to figure it out, but now I know that it turns on the plug in the living room that we've never used because the couch was always in front of it up til last week when I rearranged the living room.

Stina51286 · January 2012

Since you said your fridge has been wonky lately, I would pull it away from the wall, clean the floor under it, vaccum the back out, and take the thing off the bottom in the front and vaccum that too. We did that and our bill went down $5-$10. As for the meter thing, the other ladies might be right, Id ask them to come out and check to make sure its working properly.

elannis · January 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_not-engaged-yet_electric-bill-vent?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special%20Topic%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:136Discussion:c047851f-049a-4439-8efa-b29560b2db5cPost:33bca7a8-0f81-4e64-a1eb-d80a761bb097">Re: Electric bill vent</a>:
[QUOTE]Since you said your fridge has been wonky lately, I would pull it away from the wall, clean the floor under it, vaccum the back out, and take the thing off the bottom in the front and vaccum that too. We did that and our bill went down $5-$10. As for the meter thing, the other ladies might be right, Id ask them to come out and check to make sure its working properly.
Posted by Stina51286[/QUOTE]

Well I know the floor and the back is clean because I spilled 32 oz. of wine on the counter next to the fridge the other week and had to pull the fridge out to clean back there, lol. I'll check the front though.

Is it possible that the fridge can mess up so much to make it jump from 30 to 215 dollars though?

Stina51286 · January 2012

I wouldnt say that much but a tad it could.

elannis · January 2012

Update: FI called them again on his lunch break and read them what the meter said. Apparently they didn't check it this month. It was based on last month and somehow they read the meter wrong. It's still going to be higher than what it normally is, and we think we've been doing laundry more often because of the holidays and that's what's contributing, but now it should be around 80$ instead of the 215$.

Electric bill vent

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