Huge Electricity Bill - Help

[tsetsaf]

We are staying on the side of family right now. We arrived a couple months ago. First month electric bill went up a little... from $120 to $160. This last month from $160 to $800!!!!

Trying to figure out what the heck happened. It has been colder but we only run a 1500 watt electric heater (it has been running 24/7 since we got here). We did put heat tape on the water lines (40 feet of tape total). That is it.

Obviously this is strange and according to family all our fault. We are being told to turn off the heater, stop running laundry and basically being cut off.

We were planning on rolling on in a week anyways BUT we really want to try to find the culprit. (and yes we will be paying the $680 difference)

Can it be the:
1. heat tape
2. Space heater
3. well pump (we draw straight off of it)

Something else?

[2oldman]

5500 kw..wow, that's some usage.

Roughly 185kw/day, 185/24=7,700 watts

Something's consuming 7,700 watts, on average, every hour of every day. Is a factory tapping into your line?

[wrgrs50s]

Key word: Welder....... energy hog

[tsetsaf]

Electric company will be coming out to look in the next few days.

In the meantime it is all our fault (of course).

Regarding the heat tape shorting to ground. I will take a look at it tomorrow (good suggestion).

Thanks for the math on the electric heater. That is amazing so there is 1,000 right there. Combine that with extra electric from the heat tape, holiday lights on the home, and welder and we clearly bumped them in to a higher tier.

coolbreeze01 - well said. We were getting ready to move on this next weekend/ early next week anyways.

[CavemanCharlie]

You said they were doing lots of welding???? Welders use a lot of power.

Are they just trying to trick you in to paying for their welding project?

[gsander1]

Block heater. 1.5 kw X 24 hours X 30 days = 1,080 KWH
Electric heater same 1,080 KWH
Heat tape .75 Kw 540 KWH
Everything else ?

[CavemanCharlie]

spud1957 wrote:
I had an extension cord that had a slight crack in the insulation and was laying in the damp grass. It caused a partial ground which resulted in a pretty high power bill.

Unplugged the cord, problem gone.

Not saying that is the cord but you may have a partial ground somewhere.

My brother once had a heat tape that did the same thing. Are you sure the heat tape is not shorted out???

This was decades ago and the insurance company took pity on him and paid part of the bill since the heat tape was at fault. I doubt they would do anything like that now.

[spud1957]

I had an extension cord that had a slight crack in the insulation and was laying in the damp grass. It caused a partial ground which resulted in a pretty high power bill.

Unplugged the cord, problem gone.

Not saying that is the cord but you may have a partial ground somewhere.

[toedtoes]

tsetsaf wrote:

- We set the thermostat to 68 during the day and 55 at night.
- We do run the electric heater non-stop otherwise we would burn through way too much propane. It was agreed upon with our family. (as is we went through a bottle every other day)
- There was a real cold spell during the billing cycle (Christmas thru New Years) with daytime highs in the low 20's and nighttime lows below freezing.

So, the outside temps were below freezing to low 20s, you had your propane furnace set to 55 and 68, and you were running the electric heater to reduce the propane use. Seems to me that using an electric heater to keep an RV at those temps could easily increase usage a lot.

As others have mentioned, once you reach a set usage, the cost will go up exponentially due to overage fees, penalties, etc.

[dave17352]

something is screwy there

[jjj]

If it was me I would be using propane during the day and electric at night when you do not need higher heat when sleeping. Propane is fairly cheap right now.I live in Cali and when you start getting up in tier 4 your looking at .21 cent a kilowatt not too high but it adds up when everything is using electricity.This past month here was cold and my natural gas bill exceeded my electric bill.

[DownTheAvenue]

A 1500 watt space heater running 24/7 will consume 1080 kilowatts hours by itself.

[John_Joey]

tsetsaf wrote:
Can it be the:
1. heat tape?

Not very likely

tsetsaf wrote:
2. Space heater?

That will add for sure, but not that much.

tsetsaf wrote:
3. well pump (we draw straight off of it)?

I would check to make sure the pump is not running non stop. This will for sure run up the electric bill. How did you run the line. Should be after their tank.

tsetsaf wrote:
Something else?

I doubt it's your RV.

[tsetsaf]

From the bill
5500 kilowatts

500 Base
5000 Over

[tsetsaf]

Thanks all here are some answers to the open questions:

- We have a tankless water heater. Only uses propane and 12 volt
- We set the thermostat to 68 during the day and 55 at night.
- We do run the electric heater non-stop otherwise we would burn through way too much propane. It was agreed upon with our family. (as is we went through a bottle every other day)
- There was a real cold spell during the billing cycle (Christmas thru New Years) with daytime highs in the low 20's and nighttime lows below freezing.
- The house water is split. The home has a tank in line with the system. We are on the "yard" line which has no tank.
- Our family heats their home with Propane
- They did do some serious metal working during that period with welding and such
- Old Biscuit may be on to something regarding the overages and such. I have yet to personally see the bill but was told there were a bunch of overages and such added on.

We are running a test on the system now. We checked the meter today and will run as is for 24 hours. Check again tomorrow and then unplug the heat tape. Check again in 24 and turn off the heater, and on and on.

[westernrvparkow]

Was the well in usage before you arrived, or is it separate from the house? If it is separate, there is a possibility there is a leak in the pipe from the pump. If that is the case, the pump can run 24/7 and if the well is fairly deep, the pump can draw a huge amount of when running.