(pardon my top-post)
Gad Rick! That's terrible!
I assume you're not including the gas portion of your
bill, right? It sounds like you should be less than
$50/month. I have a house full of kids who leave the
lights on continuously, an aquarium with about 80-watts
of lighting on 16-hours/day, a small compressor running
7/14 for the aquarium, electric stove, dual-Opteron
computer running about 8-hours/day, a gas water heater
and clothes dryer and a whole-house fan, and have a monthly
bill of about $160 in the summer. It might get up to
about $180-190 in the winter when the forced-air heating
system is operating. These amounts include both the
gas and electricity charges.
Have you tried turning off every light/appliance/computer
in the house, then check to see if your watthour meter is
spinning? Have you tried turning off your main breaker at
night while watching the neighbor's lights? You might also
learn something by turning off each breaker while watching
the spin rate of your meter.
I remember having an issue with SDG&E when I had a boat at
a Harbor Island marina. Each slip was individually metered
and I could watch mine spin when I had the boat disconnected.
All SDG&E would do is replace the meter.
The thought occurs that it might pay you to have a licensed
electrician check things out. If he found a defect or theft
situation that could be blamed on someone else you might
have recourse to get a massive refund!
Regards,
Lew
Rick Carlson wrote:
Oddly enough, no, I am not sure my neighbor isn't running up the bill.
I bought the house used in 1980 and did not live in it for the first two
months.
The electric bills were $150. They have never been lower than $150 for
the past 26 years.
It had a pool added after-market but before I bought it. SDG&E said it
was the pool. I don't run the pumps or the heater and it goes / stays
green most of the time. Hell , it has gone so green as to have frogs
living in it! We had an above ground spa put in which hasn't been hooked
up for the past 15 years. We got rid of that last year. It is entirely
possible that when they put in the pool they 'may' have fed some
electrical over to my neighbor. Today I disconnected the electrical pool
connections from the main circuit breaker box so we will see what
happens next month.
The past years since 2000 they have been creeping up to last month's
bill which was $364
All this time I have been replacing my electrical appliances with energy
star devices endorsed by SDG&E. I heat my home with a single space
heater that I carry from room to room. And with firewood in my fireplace
in my living room.. I have never had air conditioning, I use small
freestanding fans to cool off with. Several years back I replaced my
electric clothes dryer with a gas dryer. This year I replaced my gas
water heater with an on-demand tankless gas water heater.
We have an electric oven/stove which we use once a week. the rest of the
time we eat out or use the microwave.
I run one small server all of the time. It is an Abit BP6-based computer
with dual Celeron 500's. The rest of the time we use two 32 bit
Pentium's for light to moderate computing which we turn on for use and
turn off when they are not in use. All of our monitors are low power LCD
monitors. Our networking switches(2 Netgear GS108 blue bricks), xDSL
modem, etc. are all wall-wart driven. We use inkjet printers and laser
printers which we turn on to use, and off after printing.
No HDTV, air conditioning, freezer in the garage. I listen to music with
wireless battery driven headphones.
Our neighbors started renting out their house next door (it is the same
model as mine) about two years ago. It does not have a pool but then
neither do I as far as electricity goes... They say their bill has
always been under $100 per month. Recently they had tenants move out
with new ones moving in, who immediately moved out saying half their
electricity doesn't work. After that our bill went down a bit but then
new tenants moved in (and presumably 'they' fixed the problem) and now I
have an even higher bill.
Every time I have SDG&E come out to check the problem they hang an
ammeter on their side of the main and say 'Yup, it is working.'
I looked into having solar electric installed but at the rate they say I
am using electricity it would cost me $40K just to put in a system that
would cover what I am supposedly using even after all the rebates and
discounts.
In the meantime I use X10 modules everywhere to control lights when I am
not using them and I have everything except the refrigerator turn off at
dawn when we are at work during the day. We do laundry after 10:00 PM.
Some of my lights are Compact Fluorescent Lights while others are low
wattage incandescent. My desk lamps are LED lamps as are the night
lights in the bathrooms.
Rick
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
kelsey hudson wrote:
Rick Carlson wrote:
You might find them to be a bit pricey but they are now at the price
Compact Fluorescent lamps were at a few years ago. My electric bill
for last month was over $300. I just filed a complaint with the CPUC,
again.
Jesus, Rick ... Are you sure your neighbour isn't running an extension
cord over the fence? What are you powering that could run up that kind
of electric bill?
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