Electricity Sticker Shock

[chesebert]

I am looking at my December 2016 electricity bill and I am having a bit of a sticker shock. We used a whopping 3566kWh of electricity in December!!

We have no other utility other than electricity. We live in a 1400 sqft apartment and we heat/cook with electricity. The average outside temperature for our location was 25F in December. We have PTAC units in different rooms and only turn on units when we are actually using that room. We keep the PTAC around 68F with the room averaging 62F. The usage for the summer months never go above 1000kWh per month. During the months where we did not use the PTAC units, we averaged less than 400kWh per month.

In the last week, I have made efforts to seal off cracks/openings where air from the outside could get through. Although my efforts will not be reflected until next month's bill (hopefully significantly less). Anything I missed that can potentially decrease my electricity usage?

If you also rely primarily on electricity for heating/cooling needs, how much energy do you use?

[No Name Guy]

Holy shit.  I just did the math.  That is 4.8 kw running non stop. For scale, that is 3 space heaters and 3 old school 100 watt bulbs 24/7.   I'm all electric in a slightly smaller place and use 1/2 that in the Seattle area for 2 people (cook for 2, showers, etc).

[Laserjet3051]

I am looking at my December 2016 electricity bill and I am having a bit of a sticker shock. We used a whopping 3566kWh of electricity in December!!

We have no other utility other than electricity. We live in a 1400 sqft apartment and we heat/cook with electricity. The average outside temperature for our location was 25F in December. We have PTAC units in different rooms and only turn on units when we are actually using that room. We keep the PTAC around 68F with the room averaging 62F. The usage for the summer months never go above 1000kWh per month. During the months where we did not use the PTAC units, we averaged less than 400kWh per month.

In the last week, I have made efforts to seal off cracks/openings where air from the outside could get through. Although my efforts will not be reflected until next month's bill (hopefully significantly less). Anything I missed that can potentially decrease my electricity usage?

If you also rely primarily on electricity for heating/cooling needs, how much energy do you use?

This sounds very suspicious. can you systematically turn everything off in your house, and follow your electric meters change over an hour? Then progressively tun on batches of e-devices in your house until everything is back on and follow meters incremental readings during said turn-ons? That should tell you where the e-sink is.

[Sibley]

Also, just turn EVERYTHING off and make sure that your meter isn't moving. Let's make sure a neighbor isn't getting free heat or something...

[chesebert]

I will call the electricity company on Monday to find out more. Thank you all for the sanity check.