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Is my electric bill too high?[SOLVED, Page 2]
Cognisseur
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey guys,
I just moved into a one bedroom apartment in NYC with my girlfriend. It's 650 square feet in size. There's recessed lighting with dimmer switches in every room. There's central air/heating which we don't have to pay for, but we do have to pay for the fan that pushes that air into our apartment when we turn it on. We don't pay for gas or water.
So we got our first bill, and covering only 13 days, it's $112.52. I'm told NYC electric prices are quite high, so here's the breakdown:
Supply: 499kWh @ 8.5311c/kWh = $42.57
Delivery: 499 kWh @ 9.6533c/kWh = $48.17
Various other fees make up the extra $20.
I've never had to pay electric bills before but this seems quite high for only 13 days; I was expecting like $50 tops for 2 weeks. I turn my computer, speakers, and monitor off every night. We only keep the lights on in the room that we're in, and usually dimmed too. Other than that... we periodically use the microwave and coffee maker? We don't even have a TV.
Air-wise, we have it on 74 during the day so it turns on sometimes to cool the place down but is usually off. We leave the fan on all night to block out noise. It's on at night, and a bit during the day. But it's just a fan, it can't possibly use that much electricity, can it?
So I'm just confused. One of three things is going on:
1. I'm using an absurd amount of electricity and paying a ridiculous price for it, but I can't figure out what I'm leaving on so much to suck up so much electricity. Are my computer/speakers/monitor still sucking up an absurd amount of juice even though I turned them off but I didn't physically unplug them? This seems like too high a bill even for that though.
2. The fan that pushes air into our apartment is physics-law-breakingly-power-hungry and completely throws our electric bill up, but I can't figure out how a single fan could do that.
3. My landlord messed something up and I'm currently paying for my AC, and maybe even the person's above me too.
Experienced PA'ers, help me out with this conundrum.
I just moved into a one bedroom apartment in NYC with my girlfriend. It's 650 square feet in size. There's recessed lighting with dimmer switches in every room. There's central air/heating which we don't have to pay for, but we do have to pay for the fan that pushes that air into our apartment when we turn it on. We don't pay for gas or water.
So we got our first bill, and covering only 13 days, it's $112.52. I'm told NYC electric prices are quite high, so here's the breakdown:
Supply: 499kWh @ 8.5311c/kWh = $42.57
Delivery: 499 kWh @ 9.6533c/kWh = $48.17
Various other fees make up the extra $20.
I've never had to pay electric bills before but this seems quite high for only 13 days; I was expecting like $50 tops for 2 weeks. I turn my computer, speakers, and monitor off every night. We only keep the lights on in the room that we're in, and usually dimmed too. Other than that... we periodically use the microwave and coffee maker? We don't even have a TV.
Air-wise, we have it on 74 during the day so it turns on sometimes to cool the place down but is usually off. We leave the fan on all night to block out noise. It's on at night, and a bit during the day. But it's just a fan, it can't possibly use that much electricity, can it?
So I'm just confused. One of three things is going on:
1. I'm using an absurd amount of electricity and paying a ridiculous price for it, but I can't figure out what I'm leaving on so much to suck up so much electricity. Are my computer/speakers/monitor still sucking up an absurd amount of juice even though I turned them off but I didn't physically unplug them? This seems like too high a bill even for that though.
2. The fan that pushes air into our apartment is physics-law-breakingly-power-hungry and completely throws our electric bill up, but I can't figure out how a single fan could do that.
3. My landlord messed something up and I'm currently paying for my AC, and maybe even the person's above me too.
Experienced PA'ers, help me out with this conundrum.
Cognisseur on
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This discussion has been closed.
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Those usage levels look pretty high.
EDIT: You might want to have a look at your meter. Check it around the same time for a couple of days and extrapolate your usage. Also check to see if what you're seeing on the meter is the same as what's on the bill.
Edit: For comparison's sake, I'm paying 3.5¢/kWh for delivery and 3.8¢/kWh for supply, but that's due to all the hydroelectric around here I suppose.
http://www.neo.ne.gov/statshtml/115.htm
Note that NY is, on average, a nickel more per kw/h than Texas.
But yeah, something is screwy with the bill, it appears. I wonder if you're actually being charged a full month, or if, like said above, you're actually paying for the HVAC. I personally keep our house thermostat on 79F in the summertime, because there's no sense paying for it when you can just wear shorts.
Three options I can see:
1. someone is stealing electricity from you(least likely but not unheard of)
2. billing mistake: meter was read incorrectly, clerical error etc
3. unexpected usage: paying for ac, do you have a breaker for hvac? or a faulty appliance
You can buy a clamp type multimeter that will go around a hot wire in your panel to see how much electricity it's draining(doesn't work on cords with the entire circuit in them though) and they make little 'killawatt' (named something like that) meters that you can easily see how much a normal plug-in appliance draws over time.
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How can I tell if it's an estimate or not? It looks like it isn't but that seems so unlikely:
Aug 28, 09 actual reading 72080
Aug 15, 09 start reading -71581
Your electricity use 499kWh
Worst case, they should send someone out there just to take a look (usually free of charge).
And I just had a 31 day reading and used 250 kwH with 2x computers, 2 tvs and lighting / ceiling fans.
To help save more, you said water usage is free but how is your water heated? If you have a hot water tank, turning down a couple degrees can help. Also turn down your fridge/freezer. Those are the big consumers in the house. Lights are nothing.
Hot water is free too
Also, if the bill says "actual reading," that does mean that they sent someone out to read the meter.
That still seems incredibly high for 2 people for 13 days though.
I used to live in a place where the landlord installed a new cooling system for the building without informing any of the tenants, apparently ran the electricity for it from my unit's meter, and lo and behold, I got a 300% increase in usage the following month. I would look into something along those lines.
what about in the winter when you run heaters
We have central heat that's built into my apartment price. It's pretty reasonable since the entire building runs off of the same furnace.
I think your bill is messed up. There's no way you should be able to use that kind of power in a 1-bedroom apartment in 13 days.
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What's your usage? In the winter months, mine is roughly 450 kwh. In June of this year it was 517 when it was plenty hot, and then it skyrocketed to 730 in July and 664 in August. I keep the temp at 83 when I'm gone and at 78 or 79 when I'm there, most of my bulbs are CFL, but I do have my computer on often and I do wonder just how much energy it generates directly, and through extra heat that needs to be cooled.
This apartment is roughly 760 sq ft, and was supposed to have been cheaper than my places in the past because it's newer and should be better insulated.
Are there sites that have data on average local power usage? I assume those plug-in meters like the Killawatt won't tell you how much your AC is using since there's no handy outlet for it?
The problem with getting them to re-read the meter is that they make it extraordinarily difficult to make an appointment.
Still, OP's usage is roughly twice as high as mine, considering mine was over 31 days. And I'm cooling down here in Houston.
One thing I forgot to mention earlier, furnace fans are actually quite power-hungry. I'm not entirely sure why, but the fan on our AC/furnace uses more electricity than nearly everything else in the house combined (lights, LCD TV, computers, etc.), with the sole exception of the air conditioning condenser.
(Roughly, the A/C condenser takes about 3 kWh, the furnace fan 1.5 kWh, and typical usage of everything else is around 1 kWh.)
If it's trying to force air through a blocked or clogged filter, it's going to need more pressure to do it, which means more current drawn by the motor. Also, it's probably not the best for your health. Replace the filter. :P
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My two-bedroom apartment runs about $30 a month, but I think electricity in Seattle is hella cheap.
My parents are the type who would just pay instead of ask questions about their electric bill, which seems to fluctuate oddly. My brother was trying to figure out if we were somehow paying for our neighbor's electricity as well.
What's your opinion on that so called "phantom drain" of electronics, those which are left plugged in at night?
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Good news. I called them up and it's all solved. Apparently the prior resident didn't get a final reading or something so they "estimated" my start reading. I guess the "estimate" was that she didn't use any electricity in the last month that she lived there or something.
Anyway, my bill went down from 499kWh to 170kWh over 13 days. Still a bit more than I thought I'd be using but really I'm not complaining.
Thanks all!
A month has about 24*30=720 hrs. So all your electronics might add up to...what, small tens of kWh even in the worst case? Wouldn't make a dent in my bill, though of course the aggregate effect across a city or a state is a metric fucktonne of joules.
EDIT: Good for OP!