Friend posts $695 electric bill showing 5000 kWh used in a month

[ghaynes]

He said, "I keep the downstairs air at a constant 72° F, and the upstairs air at 84°, except on weekends. Every damn summer since we moved in to this house in late 2007 our A/C has broken down. This year it didn't--at least ostensibly--but I suspect it's not cooling efficiently. So I get to look forward to another A/C repair charge on top of the last two crazy electric bills."

NOTE: He lives in Florida.

[clutchy]

Jesus those filthy rocks they burn(coal) creates some pretty cheap power. 

in Cal my LOWEST tier starts @ $0.15.  Highest tier is $0.35.

[dragoncar]

Jesus those filthy rocks they burn(coal) creates some pretty cheap power. 

in Cal my LOWEST tier starts @ $0.15.  Highest tier is $0.35.

Hey, unicorn fart driven windmills are expensive!

[Jamesqf]

in Cal my LOWEST tier starts @ $0.15.  Highest tier is $0.35.

Well, if you folks didn't insist on shutting down perfectly good nuclear plants... :-)

Over on the other side of the Sierra, where IIRC we get a lot of PNW hydro & some local geothermal, mine runs something like $0.11, and my monthly bill hasn't been over $50 for a couple of years.

Maybe the guy with the $695 bill never heard of insulation?

[newleaf]

That is insane!  Wow.  For comparison, we recently sold our 2-story, 3000 sq ft house in Oklahoma--where it gets "surface of the sun" hot in the summer.  But, our average monthly electric total usage was right around 1000 KWH.  And, I thought THAT was bad.  We would regularly have $130 monthly electric bills in the summer.  But, 5000 KWH/$696 per month indicates that he really is out of touch with his house or his family's habits.

I'd take two or three months off from A/C this Florida winter and spend the days at the library--then, purchase two brand new, efficient A/C units with the money I saved!  Then, I'd tackle the insulation and windows.  Screw the repairs!

[chasesfish]

Either the sqft of their house is enormous, or they really need to get new AC units and windows.

I was paying $370 at the peak of the summer in Georgia when I bought my house, now I'm in the $175 range and it gets damn hot here in the summer

[Melody]

Wow! 5000kwh for $695? That's cheap! Our bill is 180kwh/month an costs something like $50 for usage plus a $10 supply charge (about 2x the price.) This guy uses 27x what my household uses.... this is mind blowing! We don't have AC and summer temps are routinely over 100... it can be done!
I hope you can help this guy, because this is crazy on so many levels.

[dcheesi]

I had bills like that two years in a row. Turns out that a relay inside the blower unit was going bad, and it would stick in the "on" position. This relay happened to control the aux. heat, which is a very inefficient form of heating. So every time I turned on the fan, the aux heat was running, and when I turned on the A/C it was actually fighting against the heating elements to affect the air temperature.

[Gin]

Does he have a pool?  Even with a pool that is a lot of electricity usage. 

[Daleth]

Either the sqft of their house is enormous, or they really need to get new AC units and windows.

I was paying $370 at the peak of the summer in Georgia when I bought my house, now I'm in the $175 range and it gets damn hot here in the summer

They don't need new windows--they need high quality STORM windows with low-e glass. That will deliver only a hair less in energy savings, for less than 1/4 the cost and 1/100th the hassle. Look into Larson Gold windows or GW Trapp or something like that.

[clutchy]

Jesus those filthy rocks they burn(coal) creates some pretty cheap power. 

in Cal my LOWEST tier starts @ $0.15.  Highest tier is $0.35.

Hey, unicorn fart driven windmills are expensive!

Is that what people are calling the wind now?  ;)

Give me more solar!

[metro2005]

First : Thats absurdly cheap
Second: That guy is using  as much electricity in 1 month as we do in 4 years!

Freakin absurd.

[MrsPete]

Does your friend have an old, inefficient air conditioning system?
Does your friend need better insulation?
Does your friend have good, efficient windows? 
Does your friend live in a 'specially large house? 

Even in Florida, something's wrong with this picture. 

[Cecil]

in Cal my LOWEST tier starts @ $0.15.  Highest tier is $0.35.

Well, if you folks didn't insist on shutting down perfectly good nuclear plants... :-)

Over on the other side of the Sierra, where IIRC we get a lot of PNW hydro & some local geothermal, mine runs something like $0.11, and my monthly bill hasn't been over $50 for a couple of years.

Maybe the guy with the $695 bill never heard of insulation?

Hydro is where it's at. Up here in BC we get about 90% of our power that way. Everyone pays their "hydro bill" instead of the "electricity bill".

[TGod]

We just received a bill from BC Hydro for $540 for 2 months  claiming we used 5099kwh. WTF!!!
They sent us a bill for 99$ for the first 40 days when we weren't using the furnace or anything, but I didn't worry about it. I was trying to check on our daily consumption online and it wasn't showing up so I went and checked the meter a couple of weeks ago and there was an error code on it, so I phoned them and they said they would send someone out to deal with it but the next thing you know, a 540$ bill. I checked both bills and turns out they were both estimates. I don't know what they were estimating it from. When I talked to them they said the meter was last read on August 1, which is the day we took possession of our new house.

They still haven't fixed the smart meter (which isn't all that smart or maybe it's hydro that isn't smart given that the meter obviously wasn't sending them data updates and they were unaware of it).
End of the story is they've frozen my account, as in I only have to make a token payment on it, and they will back estimate our usage for September, October based on our usage for the next couple of months taking into account degree days etc......I know I'm going to get screwed on this. I will also dispute the 99 charge since they have absolutely no basis for this amount. My husband and I have decided to be even more frugal with our energy, furnace no higher than 65, i'm going to block off some of the vents in the bedrooms and make sure the basement is all sealed up, turned off the HRV, since it's been running nonstop, not sure why as it should turn off when the humidity reaches a certain point.

Our previous house, the highest we had in the coldest month was using 1300kwh, which is high, but we had a drafty older house. This new house is airtight, granted it has a furnace, but we're vigilant about keeping the house about 67-68 for an hour or so in the morning and in the evening. It's set lower at night and turned off when we're at work.

[seattlecyclone]

Seattle is great for electric rates. Our dam power only costs 4.66¢/kWh for the first 10 kWh/day (in the summer) or 16 kWh/day (in the winter). Usage over that amount is 10.71¢/kWh. Our mild climate means that almost nobody owns or uses an air conditioner in their home. Even including the $5/month base service charge, my electric bill has averaged only $22/month over the past three years.

Also this guy is using more power in a month than we do in a typical year. That's crazy!