Electric Bill

[David Moore]

Guys,
My monthly electric bill at one of my locations has been running from $500 - $650 consistently over the past 4 years. Two days ago I received my February bill and it was for almost $1,000. Nothing has changed as far as business.

I called the electric company and they said there's nothing they can do.

Has anyone experienced such a jump and if so what could cause it?

Thanks,

 

[MEP001]

Look at the rate between the two bills and see if it has changed. Either the usage or the charge per kilowatthour has increased.

 

[pitzerwm]

If you demand it they will change out and test the meter. I had this happen at my house and even though they said there was nothing wrong with the meter, it went back to normal the next month. Did you see if he misread the meter?

 

[JMMUSTANG]

Was it an estimated bill?

 

[Rudy]

Believe it or not, I've got the opposite problem. Instead of $400-$650/mo., my bill has been $115 EXACTLY for the last 5 months! The bill is not estimated, but says ACTUAL reading. We are in the midst of car wash season, and there's no way this is right.

What happens when they find out something isn't right?

 

[jjw]

DM: You may have bad wiring thats buried in your conduit. Let's call it leaking. Pull off cover to breaker box and check amps with nothing on in each of the circuts that are most likely to have the problem, IE: vacs. I had this happen, drove me crazy. A vac island was drawing eight amps with nothing running. Ended up pulling the wires on two vac islands, such fun. The guy that built the wash ran #12 wire to two vacs at 35 ft. Should have been #10 for that load. So over time the wire toasted but didn't flash. jjw

 

[Jeff_L]

Rudy - You may get away with it for awhile, but you might want to say something soon. I had a similair problem at my house where they replaced my water meter to one of those digital ones. That way the water people just drive down the road and the meter transmits the reading to their truck. For nearly 8 months my home water bill was $16/mo even. I finally "turned myself in" and they came out to fix it. They said since I told them about it, and it was their error, they weren't going to back charge me. I had been told that they could go back in my records and estimate what my bills should have been based on previous years. I figure they may have done that if they had found the error before me.

 

[David Moore]

Thanks for the clarity. The average price per Kwh of electricity had doubled. They corrected the problem and my bill was cut in half.