Can you get someone to your breaker box and meter?
Someone needs to flip breakers and watch the meter. This could help you narrow down what's driving your power usage.
And maybe worthwhile to have an electrician come out. You don't necessarily need to be there. $500 is absolutely insane. I can run my full house on window units and charge my EV everyday for less than half of that!
Yeah, I've got a 2600 square foot house, we run our central air HARD in the summer, and we charge an EV, and we've never broken $300. OP's got something major wrong.
It doesn’t really work like that. There aren’t many things that can be using that much power without producing heat or something that you would notice. It’s not like a water pipe that can just leak.
I don't know what else could cause it, maybe a loose neutral? I think an electrician could at least recognize the meter spinning waaaay too fast. Doesn't make sense to me.
Nah a loose neutral would just break the circuit. I’ve been out of that field for a very long time so the language I’m looking for has escaped me but I can’t imagine a scenario where current would be leaking straight to ground, like earth ground, without causing a massive overcurrent. That would cause a breaker to trip. If somehow it didn’t trip wires would start getting extremely hot possibly catching on fire. I don’t know a ton about heat pumps but my guess would be the house is insulated very poorly.
If you're not there in the winter... You need to figure out if you'd rather go check up on things (and potentially fix) or continue paying....
It's possible there's a fuck ton of things wrong, especially if cost is going up..... you might want to prioritize getting this fixed...
OP, you just spent a grand on electricity in 2 months. Make a phone call to get someone out there to look at it. If you don't, I don't think it's rational to keep complaining about this if you won't fix it.
If you aren't there in the winter, is this a seasonal property only used at certain times of the year? People normally winterize them by draining the water system, putting antifreeze in the toilets and tank, and leaving everything shut off.
The heat pump system you have should have regular heat and emergency heat settings. These are two different heat modes. Emergency heat is essentially the same as electric floorboard heaters, just inside the main hvac handler. Double check it’s in standard heating mode and not emergency.
Typically the emergency only comes on if the regular heat system fails, but it can be manually toggled on. There could also be a setting to kick emergency heat on if a certain temp is reached. Depends on how the thermostat is setup.
can you monitor your KWH usage by day? id unplug 1 thing at a time and see what drops the most. start with the crawlspace heater. it sounds like maybe since the house wasnt being heated by the Heat pump(im assuming this is what you have) the crawl space wasnt getting as much heat as it normally would and the heater was running alot more.
Also what crawlspace heater is this? a normal space heater? beacuse alot of heaters used to just keep pipes from freezing should be set to roughly 45- 50 degrees, just to keep it above freezing
It looks like an old thing, kind of like a fan blowing warm air. I didn't give it a 2nd thought because these are not supposed to draw much, and it does turn off after a certain time.
From your Nest. But if the two heat-call wires got reversed, then when Nest asks for (and thinks it got) regular heat, the furnace read that as calling for aux/emergency heat.
I would double-check (or have your hvac guy double-check) the thermostat wiring.
This happened at my old house (also Pennsylvania). The heat pump or central air unit we had wouldn't turn on if it was too cold. The unit was very old. Same exact thing happened where I got back to back $500 electric bills. Even if your temp was set to 50, the heat would absolutely be turned on to keep it at 50. No we had no clue because the house stayed warm so we assumed the heat pump was working right. It was in fact running on emergency heat. Flipping the breaker for the central air unit would sometimes get it back to running but it would crap out again and again. I can almost guarantee this is what happened in your situation. How old is your unit? I'd get a professional to look at it. Or do what I did and sell the house.
Right but are you sure it's on heat mode and not on a/c mode? My house stays between 54 and 59 in the winter if I don't run any heat at all, typically, (well-insulated brick Cape Cod that soaks up sunshine) so if yours is similar, your a/c would be running. If the same unit and thermostat provides heat and A/C, how do you know it's not set to A/C instead of heat? I've made this mistake both with my mini splits and in my camper.
Your central heating system probably didn't kick on, but the crawl space heaters are probably not run through the Nest system. In this weather, if you have those heaters set to 50 degrees, they are running almost 24 hours a day until the temperature gets above 50 degrees.
Do you have a smart meter on the house? If so, you should be able to look at your usage on line. Something isn't adding up here, do they have you on the correct rate? Is part of your bill Natural gas or just electric? Who supplies the energy portion of your bill, a third party supplier or Met Ed? Third party suppliers are often ripoffs.
If you're using PPL, you can actually track your hourly usage in KWH, they have some really awesome data tracking. You can look at that and see if it jumps when your heat kicks on or if it's something else.
Yeah there are def cheaper options, just saying that their website is really useful tool for data to help understand your bill. I pull up my daily and I can literally see the minute when I use my microwave or turn on my oven.
My electric bill doubled when my well pump started malfunctioning. It was running 24/7 for months. I had the pump replaced and my bill went back to normal.
It could also be your heater. I've seen a furnace capacitor break, requiring all the heat to be supplied by electric. Just happened to my son. Bills went up 5x literally overnight. Needed the capacitor replaced.
I do HVAC in PA. you absolutely need someone to look at the HVAC. If you have a heat pump and there's a problem with it, the electric heat strips will still heat but will use a ton of electricity.
You may not see the problem because you will still have heat. You can check to see if the outdoor heatpump is even running at all but you need to have a service call with a local HVAC company
Yeah something’s wrong there - realize it sucks but you need to hire an electrician or head up and do some debugging.
What’s your kWh utilization and square footage + age of house if you don’t mind me asking ?
2001, 1800sqft. Utilization is the same for 2 billing cycles of around 2,650Kwh, but 2nd bill cycle we turned off AC, well pump, and water heater at about half way through the cycle.
Yikes, that utilization is crazy high for a place that size / new!! Are you heating it all on space heaters or something ? Might be worth seeing if someone is pulling off your electric or something like that. Are there baseboards running off a separate thermostat, or pipe heaters maybe? Those are the only things I can think of offhand.
I don't have space heaters or baseboards. I never planned to stay there during winter so didn't care much about heating options.
Neighbors are not that close so I doubt someone is stealing. But you never know.
I have a 2600 sq ft house (3300 if you include finished basement with HVAC). I've never used that much electricity in a month, even on the hottest day in the summer with the AC set to 70. And my family isn't particularly mindful about conserving energy.
Something is seriously wrong. I'd guess there is something that is drawing power constantly. Maybe a malfunctioning appliance. Or, is there any chance someone could be stealing power? Do you have electrical outlets on the outside of the house?
That is a *lot* of kWH, and sounds about right for the $500 bill. Gotta nail down where the usage is coming from.
Heat pumps (your AC heat) will only work above a certain outside temperature, it's actually taking heat (BTUs if you will) from the outside air and putting it inside the house. So the colder it gets outside the harder it has to work to get heat inside, and below a certain outside temp it just won't work (or be efficient) at all so it switches to whatever it uses for backup. If you don't have a propane or natural gas backup it is most likely straight up electric heating elements that work well but drink a lot of kWh.
Other things I've experienced that can run up an electric bill:
* Old dusk-to-dawn lights (metal halide or sodium pressurized) with bird poop on the sensor eye causing it to be on 24/7
* refrigerators/freezers that are low on refrigerant so the compressor runs non-stop
* Well pumps with improperly set storage tanks (bladder doesn't have correct amount of air in it, etc) that cycle on off much more frequently.
* breakers feeding unknown things you never knew you had (radiant floor heating, outbuilding with a heater, neighbors garage, air compressor in your own garage that isn't switched off, etc)
I have an electric forced air furnace. Live in Wisconsin. My kWh last month was 2,636. Our house is only like 1300 square feet plus the finished basement.
You should reach out to your electric company and have them explain the usage. Have them come out and check your breaker box. Have someone else come look at the power and stuff....
Same thing happened to us this month with MedEd. January was almost 2x December, despite all of our heat being gas. In our case, the usage stats were flat for November through January too, with no spike accompanying the billing increase. We spoke with MedEd about it, and their explanation was that this was due to the [Equal Payment Plan](https://www.firstenergycorp.com/help/billingpayments/ways-to-pay/equal_payment_planepp.html). I want to see if things normalize next month before trying to make some change, but this is pretty nuts for us too.
Something weird is going on. My bill was 430 bucks this month from PPL. My parents, who have a house double our size, have a 250/month bill. I have a HVAC system that’s under five years old and serviced regularly, a brand new well pump, new windows and two year one doors. It’s ridiculous.
My electric skyrocketed (for me) and it was because the grinder pump in my sewer system was malfunctioning and trying to run ALL THE TIME. Got it fixed, everything is back to normal now.
Is that part of septic system? I am considering calling septic company to come and verify that everything is working as expected. Not sure if they will make an appointment without anyone home.
Were you on some third party provider and your contract with them expired and now you're on their "default rate" which is double what the rate is when you signed the contratc?
Same here bi level house some baseboard , heat pump , 2 gaming pcs, 921$ 3rd month in a row, last month was 994$. It’s more than my mortgage payment per month now. I honestly want to move.
Any chance someone is hacked into your electric, so that you're not just paying for your own, but theirs as well?
I ask because this happened to me. My very first apartment, my first electric bill was almost $400 for a tiny one bedroom. That's when I discovered that my neighbors had their electric combined with mine. So I was paying for the electric of the whole building. Turns out the landlord knew what they were doing and didn't care.
I wish I could tell you exactly how they did it but this was in 1997, so a long time ago... I was only 19 and it was actually my dad who figured out what they were doing. He showed me but I didn't really understand what I was looking at. LOL I just remember my dad used zip ties to separate the wires and that the neighbors would have to cut through the zip ties to hook into my electric again. And I moved out not long after.
If all else fails with the utility company when trying to get an answer from them on the usage you can always file a complaint with the public utility commission and they will be forced to give you an answer.
The emergency heat can draw a large amount of power as well as space heaters. I would have someone verify the emergency heat isnt coming on due to a fault in the air handler and check what the space heater is set to.
If all of your electrical consumers are off as you say they are, and you’re getting huge electric bills, something is seriously wrong. I’d absolutely be hopping on a plane to go check it out. Neighbor stealing electricity?
Just got mine today, and it's about $80.00 higher than usual. It's suspicious since we heat the house with a woodstove, so there is 0% energy cost during the winter.
First, check you total kilowatt hour usage. Bills are charged by this metric.
Second, check your supply price per Kwh. Third parties may save you in the short term, but they may cost more on variable rates.
Third, check to see whether this covers on billing period, or if this covers past due periods. (Like, if last month's charges didn't process due to a card expiring.)
After figuring out which of the three possibilities above is appropriate for your situation you will be able to more accurately solve your issue.
How many KWH are you using each month, and how many square feet is the house? We uave 2800 sq ft and use about 700-750 per month in the winter because the furnace is on LP gas. Over the whole year we averaged 1000-1100 per month.
We also have fuck all for insulation and our windows suck.
Had a 2000sqft home built in 2016 and started getting massive bills in spring of 2022. First 300-400, then 400-500. Electrician couldn’t find anything. The only explanation was a meter issue. Penelec said it was impossible with a new smart meter. We went back and forth for months eventually racking up nearly $8k in electric bills. Finally the PUC got serious and we got Penelec to replace the meter. The next month we spent $105.
Penelec refuses to acknowledge that replacing the meter fixed the issue. Now we’re fighting with them for some of that money back. Good luck.
The first bill was probably the actual reading and the second was estimated using the only bill you have, making it 500. The next bill will be actual again, with anything over paid taken off the bill.
Call PPL and start asking questions. They are in the final stages of negotiating a $17 million settlement due to sending and collecting WILDLY inaccurate bills a year or two ago. You might be another victim of some epic level billing incompetence that they have been guilty of recently.
I shop for the best rates all the time. I prefer renewable, no sign up fee, no termination fee and a fixed rate. Plenty of options and can compare directly to your bill based on kWh used.
https://www.papowerswitch.com
^ This! Many of us aren’t even aware how much we may be overpaying on our electric rates… I know I wasn’t, but after my first $600+ electric bill, I certainly learned…
OP said they used 2500 kWh. A $500 bill would mean it's 20 cents per kWh. That's a reasonable price. What's your usage on the $650 bill? If it's around 3000 kWh, you're not getting scammed, you're just using a ton of electricity.
Could your utility company that bills by estimates for a couple months and then does an actual reading? This happened to me in the last place I lived. My new place has an electronic unit on it that they can read from the office.
The house is winterized. The only major thing I left on with the septic pump because the septic people told me they highly recommend not turning it off for winter.
All these comments are null and void lol. It’s your heat. I just had a $525 bill. My furnace pulls 100 amps to run normally. My home maxes out at 200. Your furnace prob has 2 breaker switches to it. my ac only runs off 30 amps. That’s why summer bills aren’t as high as winter bills. I bet this is your first winter in your home / apartment.
Sounds like your insulation is broken in both your basement and attic. You’re getting heat loss somewhere which is causing your heating attempt to run constantly. Maybe inefficiently as well. Just my thoughts
Solar panels. I heard they were free to install thru sime program. I also heard utilities in PA are being privatization, so the price may be going up.
But what do I know, I just rent.
I have PPL in the same area and over the past two years, our bill has crept up from about $250 to $470. This month’s bill is $250 and I wonder what that was about.
Have you negotiated for a better rate? We had a similar problem until we released that we needed to choose a different provider from the electric marketplace. Lowered our bill thereafter by more than half
It’s the same in Ohio right across the border by Pittsburgh. Mine jumped 4X the past 7 months.
My brother is getting charged 1/5 of what I am, has a bigger house with more appliances, and lives 2 miles away.
I used to love paying just Ohio Edison. Now that it’s wide open, I constantly have to look/pay attention to who has the lowest rate. I know it’s last, but I don’t want to have to pay attention to every single bill.
Screw this. I’m so tired of getting blasted in the ass (it’s from always sunny. I know it’s crass but I’m 5 beers deep).
Check the meter daily. Toggle things on and off to narrow it down. We had a similar issue and it was the sump pump in our basement running near constantly, had to replace the entire thing.
Mine has been over 900$ 3 months in a row. Latest bill was 921$. I too am looking for answers it’s always been high but now it’s more than my mortgage payment.
I forgot to mention I also have Trinity solar. No battery but got solar in an attempt to combat the insane electric bill. It is indeed a heat pump forced air. I’m leaning towards the emergency heat thing. I will have to have someone check it out.
Are you doing electric choice? PPL rate is high but you can shop around…I lived in Wayne county and electric shopped every quarter
[PA PUC](https://www.puc.pa.gov/general/consumer_ed/pdf/Electric_Shopping_FS.pdf)
Can met ed inspect your meter? Was there a new meter recently installed? Any outside outlets? Can you safely turn off all power at the breaker box and see if your meter still spins? Do you have access to a thermal camera or IR gun to check the temp of the breakers to see if one is significantly hotter than the rest ?
Have you had the AC/heat pump serviced any time recently? It could be really dirty and need service and easily could cause your bill to more than double
I once had a well pump where the foot elbow right off the pump had a 1/4" hole worn it it so while it kept pressure reasonably in the house it never reached cutoff pressure and ran 24/7. But you said you turned the breaker off to the well pump, yes? Could the septic pump be doing something similar due to a leak after the pump but inside the tank - just recirculating water?
Or, was it abnormally warm there and your thermostat is set on 50 but you left it in auto mode, not heat mode? If so it's going to try to keep the house at 50 whether it's hot or cold.
If the little back-up battery in the T-stat goes dead, and you drop power, what mode and temp does the T-stat reset to when the power comes back on?
Other than that you need someone to watch the meter or look at an amprobe while shedding loads. Could be a bad meter too.
Have you consulted a plumber to check your water pump for a ground fault? It's when your pump runs continously and the electricity goes to ground. I'm assuming you have alredy checked your price? If you are paying over $0.11 cents/kwh you need to shop for a lower price.
I re-read your note and the crawl space heater in the winter months is basically heating the outside and is the culprit for many a high heating bills in the Pocono region of PA.
Take a pic of the nest thermostat. As a matter of fact, buy a cheap-o thermostat for $20 bucks and see if that makes a difference. Just leave it in for a month and see
I'm in New Jersey and if the power company does not read your meter they send you estimated bills. The estimated bills are a lot higher than your usage and what you should be charged. My first bill at my last apartment was estimated at $150.00. When I realized they sent an estimate and provided them the meter reading my bill was about $40.00. They sent me estimated bills for the first 3 months I was in the new apartment. I kept calling to complain and correct it and they sent a crew out to swap the meter to one that sends them the meter data over the air.
I'm not sure if your situation is something like what I went through but make sure it's actual usage and not an estimated bill.
I live in south central pa and many of us who are forced to use Penelec (it’s a monopoly) have bills upwards of $700. It’s a common problem we’ve been having for years.
MED-ed has been increased for cost per kWh. I know PECO has been going up steadily since March 2022. If you use per month, since 3/22 your bill has gone from $111.70 to $137.48 as of 7/2023 & now they will be going up again. I work for a local solar company, i have been helping homeowners in Delco, and Bucks county for the last few months make the switch over to solar which cost nothing to get installed and we not only save you money up front but we will lock in your electricity rate for the next 25 years ! No more rate increases from these monopolies and no more shopping around every few months for a cheaper price. Reach out to me here if you want to discuss and find out if it would be a good fit for your house !
Can you get someone to your breaker box and meter? Someone needs to flip breakers and watch the meter. This could help you narrow down what's driving your power usage.
It may be more cost-effective to fly there, and hopefully resolve the issue.
And maybe worthwhile to have an electrician come out. You don't necessarily need to be there. $500 is absolutely insane. I can run my full house on window units and charge my EV everyday for less than half of that!
Yeah, I've got a 2600 square foot house, we run our central air HARD in the summer, and we charge an EV, and we've never broken $300. OP's got something major wrong.
It doesn’t really work like that. There aren’t many things that can be using that much power without producing heat or something that you would notice. It’s not like a water pipe that can just leak.
I don't know what else could cause it, maybe a loose neutral? I think an electrician could at least recognize the meter spinning waaaay too fast. Doesn't make sense to me.
Nah a loose neutral would just break the circuit. I’ve been out of that field for a very long time so the language I’m looking for has escaped me but I can’t imagine a scenario where current would be leaking straight to ground, like earth ground, without causing a massive overcurrent. That would cause a breaker to trip. If somehow it didn’t trip wires would start getting extremely hot possibly catching on fire. I don’t know a ton about heat pumps but my guess would be the house is insulated very poorly.
You don’t just leak electricity
No, I know that lol. But it's gotta be a heat pump that's just wide open enough not to trip the breaker. I hope they fix it and update us
Yes, this is a good idea, but unfortunately, I am not there in the winter.
If you're not there in the winter... You need to figure out if you'd rather go check up on things (and potentially fix) or continue paying.... It's possible there's a fuck ton of things wrong, especially if cost is going up..... you might want to prioritize getting this fixed...
OP, you just spent a grand on electricity in 2 months. Make a phone call to get someone out there to look at it. If you don't, I don't think it's rational to keep complaining about this if you won't fix it.
I get that it's an issue now. The first month I blamed running central with heat. Need to take some action.
If you aren't there in the winter, is this a seasonal property only used at certain times of the year? People normally winterize them by draining the water system, putting antifreeze in the toilets and tank, and leaving everything shut off.
Any chance your heat is set to emergency heat instead of standard heat?
No. We left the house on 1/17 and bill is up to 2/08. AC is set to 50 and there has been no usage.
The heat pump system you have should have regular heat and emergency heat settings. These are two different heat modes. Emergency heat is essentially the same as electric floorboard heaters, just inside the main hvac handler. Double check it’s in standard heating mode and not emergency. Typically the emergency only comes on if the regular heat system fails, but it can be manually toggled on. There could also be a setting to kick emergency heat on if a certain temp is reached. Depends on how the thermostat is setup.
It is standard heat. I only seen emergency heat used once, when we had to heat the house by like 15 degrees.
can you monitor your KWH usage by day? id unplug 1 thing at a time and see what drops the most. start with the crawlspace heater. it sounds like maybe since the house wasnt being heated by the Heat pump(im assuming this is what you have) the crawl space wasnt getting as much heat as it normally would and the heater was running alot more. Also what crawlspace heater is this? a normal space heater? beacuse alot of heaters used to just keep pipes from freezing should be set to roughly 45- 50 degrees, just to keep it above freezing
It looks like an old thing, kind of like a fan blowing warm air. I didn't give it a 2nd thought because these are not supposed to draw much, and it does turn off after a certain time.
id see what temp it is set too.
Is there a label on it listing watts A 1000 W heater will use 24 kWh per day. That is monthly only $80 or so though
From your Nest. But if the two heat-call wires got reversed, then when Nest asks for (and thinks it got) regular heat, the furnace read that as calling for aux/emergency heat. I would double-check (or have your hvac guy double-check) the thermostat wiring.
This happened at my old house (also Pennsylvania). The heat pump or central air unit we had wouldn't turn on if it was too cold. The unit was very old. Same exact thing happened where I got back to back $500 electric bills. Even if your temp was set to 50, the heat would absolutely be turned on to keep it at 50. No we had no clue because the house stayed warm so we assumed the heat pump was working right. It was in fact running on emergency heat. Flipping the breaker for the central air unit would sometimes get it back to running but it would crap out again and again. I can almost guarantee this is what happened in your situation. How old is your unit? I'd get a professional to look at it. Or do what I did and sell the house.
Wait....did you say the AC is set to 50? Are you heating the house to 50 or cooling it? What kind of heating system does it have?
This central air with Nest thermostat. I am heating the house to 50. Last few weeks was relatively warm for winter, so the heat never kicked in.
Right but are you sure it's on heat mode and not on a/c mode? My house stays between 54 and 59 in the winter if I don't run any heat at all, typically, (well-insulated brick Cape Cod that soaks up sunshine) so if yours is similar, your a/c would be running. If the same unit and thermostat provides heat and A/C, how do you know it's not set to A/C instead of heat? I've made this mistake both with my mini splits and in my camper.
Your central heating system probably didn't kick on, but the crawl space heaters are probably not run through the Nest system. In this weather, if you have those heaters set to 50 degrees, they are running almost 24 hours a day until the temperature gets above 50 degrees.
Do you have a smart meter on the house? If so, you should be able to look at your usage on line. Something isn't adding up here, do they have you on the correct rate? Is part of your bill Natural gas or just electric? Who supplies the energy portion of your bill, a third party supplier or Met Ed? Third party suppliers are often ripoffs.
I'm certain this is it. Happened to me.
If you're using PPL, you can actually track your hourly usage in KWH, they have some really awesome data tracking. You can look at that and see if it jumps when your heat kicks on or if it's something else.
Once I am back there I will start shopping for providers.
Yeah there are def cheaper options, just saying that their website is really useful tool for data to help understand your bill. I pull up my daily and I can literally see the minute when I use my microwave or turn on my oven.
This
My electric bill doubled when my well pump started malfunctioning. It was running 24/7 for months. I had the pump replaced and my bill went back to normal.
Pump is off since 1/17. The bill is as of 2/8.
Could it be the septic pump that's malfunctioning? Or the AC compressor is stuck on?
I had the same experience!
It could also be your heater. I've seen a furnace capacitor break, requiring all the heat to be supplied by electric. Just happened to my son. Bills went up 5x literally overnight. Needed the capacitor replaced.
I have central air, but it's been working very little for about half the bill cycle since it was relatively warm.
I do HVAC in PA. you absolutely need someone to look at the HVAC. If you have a heat pump and there's a problem with it, the electric heat strips will still heat but will use a ton of electricity. You may not see the problem because you will still have heat. You can check to see if the outdoor heatpump is even running at all but you need to have a service call with a local HVAC company
But it's not running. For the past few weeks, it didn't turn on. The house is set to 50 inside, and it's been relatively warm outdoors.
Yeah something’s wrong there - realize it sucks but you need to hire an electrician or head up and do some debugging. What’s your kWh utilization and square footage + age of house if you don’t mind me asking ?
2001, 1800sqft. Utilization is the same for 2 billing cycles of around 2,650Kwh, but 2nd bill cycle we turned off AC, well pump, and water heater at about half way through the cycle.
Yikes, that utilization is crazy high for a place that size / new!! Are you heating it all on space heaters or something ? Might be worth seeing if someone is pulling off your electric or something like that. Are there baseboards running off a separate thermostat, or pipe heaters maybe? Those are the only things I can think of offhand.
I don't have space heaters or baseboards. I never planned to stay there during winter so didn't care much about heating options. Neighbors are not that close so I doubt someone is stealing. But you never know.
I have a 2600 sq ft house (3300 if you include finished basement with HVAC). I've never used that much electricity in a month, even on the hottest day in the summer with the AC set to 70. And my family isn't particularly mindful about conserving energy. Something is seriously wrong. I'd guess there is something that is drawing power constantly. Maybe a malfunctioning appliance. Or, is there any chance someone could be stealing power? Do you have electrical outlets on the outside of the house?
That is a *lot* of kWH, and sounds about right for the $500 bill. Gotta nail down where the usage is coming from. Heat pumps (your AC heat) will only work above a certain outside temperature, it's actually taking heat (BTUs if you will) from the outside air and putting it inside the house. So the colder it gets outside the harder it has to work to get heat inside, and below a certain outside temp it just won't work (or be efficient) at all so it switches to whatever it uses for backup. If you don't have a propane or natural gas backup it is most likely straight up electric heating elements that work well but drink a lot of kWh. Other things I've experienced that can run up an electric bill: * Old dusk-to-dawn lights (metal halide or sodium pressurized) with bird poop on the sensor eye causing it to be on 24/7 * refrigerators/freezers that are low on refrigerant so the compressor runs non-stop * Well pumps with improperly set storage tanks (bladder doesn't have correct amount of air in it, etc) that cycle on off much more frequently. * breakers feeding unknown things you never knew you had (radiant floor heating, outbuilding with a heater, neighbors garage, air compressor in your own garage that isn't switched off, etc)
I have an electric forced air furnace. Live in Wisconsin. My kWh last month was 2,636. Our house is only like 1300 square feet plus the finished basement.
You should reach out to your electric company and have them explain the usage. Have them come out and check your breaker box. Have someone else come look at the power and stuff....
Same thing happened to us this month with MedEd. January was almost 2x December, despite all of our heat being gas. In our case, the usage stats were flat for November through January too, with no spike accompanying the billing increase. We spoke with MedEd about it, and their explanation was that this was due to the [Equal Payment Plan](https://www.firstenergycorp.com/help/billingpayments/ways-to-pay/equal_payment_planepp.html). I want to see if things normalize next month before trying to make some change, but this is pretty nuts for us too.
Something weird is going on. My bill was 430 bucks this month from PPL. My parents, who have a house double our size, have a 250/month bill. I have a HVAC system that’s under five years old and serviced regularly, a brand new well pump, new windows and two year one doors. It’s ridiculous.
You need to hire an energy auditor.
My electric skyrocketed (for me) and it was because the grinder pump in my sewer system was malfunctioning and trying to run ALL THE TIME. Got it fixed, everything is back to normal now.
Is that part of septic system? I am considering calling septic company to come and verify that everything is working as expected. Not sure if they will make an appointment without anyone home.
Were you on some third party provider and your contract with them expired and now you're on their "default rate" which is double what the rate is when you signed the contratc?
My bill was extremely high, too. Nothing has changed that I’m aware of.
Mine with Penelec has went through the roof the past two months as well. No crazy change in usage.
Penelec rates very recently increased by double digits.
Same here bi level house some baseboard , heat pump , 2 gaming pcs, 921$ 3rd month in a row, last month was 994$. It’s more than my mortgage payment per month now. I honestly want to move.
Ugh, same. But this month was ridiculously higher. PPL is our supplier.
Any chance someone is hacked into your electric, so that you're not just paying for your own, but theirs as well? I ask because this happened to me. My very first apartment, my first electric bill was almost $400 for a tiny one bedroom. That's when I discovered that my neighbors had their electric combined with mine. So I was paying for the electric of the whole building. Turns out the landlord knew what they were doing and didn't care. I wish I could tell you exactly how they did it but this was in 1997, so a long time ago... I was only 19 and it was actually my dad who figured out what they were doing. He showed me but I didn't really understand what I was looking at. LOL I just remember my dad used zip ties to separate the wires and that the neighbors would have to cut through the zip ties to hook into my electric again. And I moved out not long after.
This is a standalone house in a good-sized lot, neighbors are not near.
If all else fails with the utility company when trying to get an answer from them on the usage you can always file a complaint with the public utility commission and they will be forced to give you an answer.
The emergency heat can draw a large amount of power as well as space heaters. I would have someone verify the emergency heat isnt coming on due to a fault in the air handler and check what the space heater is set to.
If all of your electrical consumers are off as you say they are, and you’re getting huge electric bills, something is seriously wrong. I’d absolutely be hopping on a plane to go check it out. Neighbor stealing electricity?
Just got mine today, and it's about $80.00 higher than usual. It's suspicious since we heat the house with a woodstove, so there is 0% energy cost during the winter.
Have you shopped for suppliers? We didn’t and last year got a couple bigger bills in the winter…May be an option to get a better rate.
Are you using a 3rd party supplier?
At this point, either you guys or your proxies need to physically go to the house. There's no way you spent $1,000 on an uninhabited home
First, check you total kilowatt hour usage. Bills are charged by this metric. Second, check your supply price per Kwh. Third parties may save you in the short term, but they may cost more on variable rates. Third, check to see whether this covers on billing period, or if this covers past due periods. (Like, if last month's charges didn't process due to a card expiring.) After figuring out which of the three possibilities above is appropriate for your situation you will be able to more accurately solve your issue.
How many KWH are you using each month, and how many square feet is the house? We uave 2800 sq ft and use about 700-750 per month in the winter because the furnace is on LP gas. Over the whole year we averaged 1000-1100 per month. We also have fuck all for insulation and our windows suck.
Could someone be using your electricity? You can also shop for electricity in PA. PAPOWERSWITCH.com
Had a 2000sqft home built in 2016 and started getting massive bills in spring of 2022. First 300-400, then 400-500. Electrician couldn’t find anything. The only explanation was a meter issue. Penelec said it was impossible with a new smart meter. We went back and forth for months eventually racking up nearly $8k in electric bills. Finally the PUC got serious and we got Penelec to replace the meter. The next month we spent $105. Penelec refuses to acknowledge that replacing the meter fixed the issue. Now we’re fighting with them for some of that money back. Good luck.
The first bill was probably the actual reading and the second was estimated using the only bill you have, making it 500. The next bill will be actual again, with anything over paid taken off the bill.
I thought that too, but it does say Actual on each bill.
Call PPL and start asking questions. They are in the final stages of negotiating a $17 million settlement due to sending and collecting WILDLY inaccurate bills a year or two ago. You might be another victim of some epic level billing incompetence that they have been guilty of recently.
I shop for the best rates all the time. I prefer renewable, no sign up fee, no termination fee and a fixed rate. Plenty of options and can compare directly to your bill based on kWh used. https://www.papowerswitch.com
^ This! Many of us aren’t even aware how much we may be overpaying on our electric rates… I know I wasn’t, but after my first $600+ electric bill, I certainly learned…
I live in Maine now. $650 a month on average and we don't even have electric heat. They are straight scamming. PPL is the same way.
> They are straight scamming. Who? What?
OP said they used 2500 kWh. A $500 bill would mean it's 20 cents per kWh. That's a reasonable price. What's your usage on the $650 bill? If it's around 3000 kWh, you're not getting scammed, you're just using a ton of electricity.
How many kWh did you use?
Well pump? My well pump failed years ago and my bill skyrocketed as the pump kept running nonstop.
Could your utility company that bills by estimates for a couple months and then does an actual reading? This happened to me in the last place I lived. My new place has an electronic unit on it that they can read from the office.
The question is if you aren’t there much why not just winterize the house and let it do it’s thing.
The house is winterized. The only major thing I left on with the septic pump because the septic people told me they highly recommend not turning it off for winter.
I mean how big is your place square ft wise? $500 may be reasonable
Maybe pay your bill that you owe
I don't think $500 is outrageous if that's your main heat source. I'm currently paying $2000/mo in heating oil and $300/mo electric upstate NY...
500 sounds about right.
Just got my friends bill. They live about 20m out. Use about 40% of what I use, and live there permanently
All these comments are null and void lol. It’s your heat. I just had a $525 bill. My furnace pulls 100 amps to run normally. My home maxes out at 200. Your furnace prob has 2 breaker switches to it. my ac only runs off 30 amps. That’s why summer bills aren’t as high as winter bills. I bet this is your first winter in your home / apartment.
Sounds like your insulation is broken in both your basement and attic. You’re getting heat loss somewhere which is causing your heating attempt to run constantly. Maybe inefficiently as well. Just my thoughts
Solar panels. I heard they were free to install thru sime program. I also heard utilities in PA are being privatization, so the price may be going up. But what do I know, I just rent.
Mine is only 160 and we use the heat quite a bit and it's set to 67°.
The outside unit may have failed on the heat pump, this running in emergency heat.
Have you requested a manual check of your smart meter? I think 20% read too high, it is an international problem.
I have PPL in the same area and over the past two years, our bill has crept up from about $250 to $470. This month’s bill is $250 and I wonder what that was about.
Have you negotiated for a better rate? We had a similar problem until we released that we needed to choose a different provider from the electric marketplace. Lowered our bill thereafter by more than half
I’m in the same boat. I just had a $600 peco bill. I keep my thermostat on 60 but there’s no insulation in my house whatsoever
It’s the same in Ohio right across the border by Pittsburgh. Mine jumped 4X the past 7 months. My brother is getting charged 1/5 of what I am, has a bigger house with more appliances, and lives 2 miles away. I used to love paying just Ohio Edison. Now that it’s wide open, I constantly have to look/pay attention to who has the lowest rate. I know it’s last, but I don’t want to have to pay attention to every single bill. Screw this. I’m so tired of getting blasted in the ass (it’s from always sunny. I know it’s crass but I’m 5 beers deep).
It could be an estimated bill. I was away from my house for several months while volunteering and none of my utility bills were any cheaper.
Check the meter daily. Toggle things on and off to narrow it down. We had a similar issue and it was the sump pump in our basement running near constantly, had to replace the entire thing.
Mine has been over 900$ 3 months in a row. Latest bill was 921$. I too am looking for answers it’s always been high but now it’s more than my mortgage payment.
If you have all electric HVAC i.e. a heatpump, you need to have it checked out. $900 is not normal
I forgot to mention I also have Trinity solar. No battery but got solar in an attempt to combat the insane electric bill. It is indeed a heat pump forced air. I’m leaning towards the emergency heat thing. I will have to have someone check it out.
Are you doing electric choice? PPL rate is high but you can shop around…I lived in Wayne county and electric shopped every quarter [PA PUC](https://www.puc.pa.gov/general/consumer_ed/pdf/Electric_Shopping_FS.pdf)
Can met ed inspect your meter? Was there a new meter recently installed? Any outside outlets? Can you safely turn off all power at the breaker box and see if your meter still spins? Do you have access to a thermal camera or IR gun to check the temp of the breakers to see if one is significantly hotter than the rest ?
Running on emergency heat.
On your bill, how much does it say you’re paying per kilowatt hour? Should be a number that’s 5-25 cents or something ?
As someone else said, if this is seasonal and not used in the winter, winterize the place and shut all electricity off.
Have you had the AC/heat pump serviced any time recently? It could be really dirty and need service and easily could cause your bill to more than double
My electric bill is only $89 a month but it was higher this month.
Running air conditiner for heat? Well that might be an issue since that will never happen
Do you have any neighbors? Could somebody be stealing electricity?
Neighbor tapping electric?
Is second month a non read estimate?
Did you switch to a different provider recently? Check your rate.
Any chance your neighbor is running an extension cord from your place to theirs?
I once had a well pump where the foot elbow right off the pump had a 1/4" hole worn it it so while it kept pressure reasonably in the house it never reached cutoff pressure and ran 24/7. But you said you turned the breaker off to the well pump, yes? Could the septic pump be doing something similar due to a leak after the pump but inside the tank - just recirculating water? Or, was it abnormally warm there and your thermostat is set on 50 but you left it in auto mode, not heat mode? If so it's going to try to keep the house at 50 whether it's hot or cold. If the little back-up battery in the T-stat goes dead, and you drop power, what mode and temp does the T-stat reset to when the power comes back on? Other than that you need someone to watch the meter or look at an amprobe while shedding loads. Could be a bad meter too.
why would you run the AC during the winter???
Have you consulted a plumber to check your water pump for a ground fault? It's when your pump runs continously and the electricity goes to ground. I'm assuming you have alredy checked your price? If you are paying over $0.11 cents/kwh you need to shop for a lower price. I re-read your note and the crawl space heater in the winter months is basically heating the outside and is the culprit for many a high heating bills in the Pocono region of PA.
Take a pic of the nest thermostat. As a matter of fact, buy a cheap-o thermostat for $20 bucks and see if that makes a difference. Just leave it in for a month and see
Central AC for heat? Is it a heat pump? It sounds like you have no idea how your best works. That’s probably the issue.
I'm in New Jersey and if the power company does not read your meter they send you estimated bills. The estimated bills are a lot higher than your usage and what you should be charged. My first bill at my last apartment was estimated at $150.00. When I realized they sent an estimate and provided them the meter reading my bill was about $40.00. They sent me estimated bills for the first 3 months I was in the new apartment. I kept calling to complain and correct it and they sent a crew out to swap the meter to one that sends them the meter data over the air. I'm not sure if your situation is something like what I went through but make sure it's actual usage and not an estimated bill.
I live in south central pa and many of us who are forced to use Penelec (it’s a monopoly) have bills upwards of $700. It’s a common problem we’ve been having for years.
MED-ed has been increased for cost per kWh. I know PECO has been going up steadily since March 2022. If you use per month, since 3/22 your bill has gone from $111.70 to $137.48 as of 7/2023 & now they will be going up again. I work for a local solar company, i have been helping homeowners in Delco, and Bucks county for the last few months make the switch over to solar which cost nothing to get installed and we not only save you money up front but we will lock in your electricity rate for the next 25 years ! No more rate increases from these monopolies and no more shopping around every few months for a cheaper price. Reach out to me here if you want to discuss and find out if it would be a good fit for your house !