Massive increase in electrical usage, possible culprits?

December 16, 2016 11:03 AM

My mom's house, which normally uses around 10-20kWh/day, has risen to 150kWh/day. Where is this electricity going?

My mom's electrical bill has suddenly skyrocketed. Her last meter read was 4700kWH for 31 days (~150khw/day). This is 1222% increase overall the same period last year. The house uses oil heat, not electric. Normal usage up until about a month ago was 10-20kWh/day.

The increase appears to have started in November. Around the same time we had a new electrical panel installed and some wiring done (connected panel to new outlet, fixed a switch). The electrician who did the work vehemently denies that it could possibly be related to anything they did. The electric company says they will have someone come check the meter, but couldn't guarantee when.

There have been no other changes that I'm aware of in the past few months.

The current meter reading shows that the same high level of usage continues. It's gone up about 1000kwh in the week since the meter was read a week ago.

While I was at her house, it went up 3kWh over the course of about 20-30min (the meter is digital and doesn't have a resolution below 1 kWh).

This suggests that the house is continuously consuming ~6000 watts at all times.

I walked around and didn't notice anything amiss. It's just my mom and her live-in aide. It's two floors, three bedrooms. There's normal appliances like fridge, dishwasher and electric oven. The wiring in the house is pretty old. If that amount of electricity was continuously being wasted by a single appliance, it should be radiating a tremendous amount of heat, yes?

I'm trying to find another electrician to take a look, but until I do, what could be possible culprits?

posted by justkevin to Home & Garden (26 answers total)

Is it possible that a neighbor is stealing electricity? That's still a lot of electricity, though, unless the neighbors are doing something like growing weed with it.
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:16 AM on December 16, 2016 [5 favorites]

well, if the house hasn't burnt down yet, my guess is the meter.
what happens to the meter if you turn everything off at the panel?
(actually, i would be careful touching the panel - use the back of your hand first. just in case there is a problem there).
posted by andrewcooke at 11:18 AM on December 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

Around the same time we had a new electrical panel installed and some wiring done (connected panel to new outlet, fixed a switch). The electrician who did the work vehemently denies that it could possibly be related to anything they did.

Well, of course they say that, but I'd bet the $5 in my pocket right now that it'll be that. Call another electrician ASAP.
posted by Etrigan at 11:18 AM on December 16, 2016 [35 favorites]

You could pick up a clamp meter, and see if the power meter is actually accurate.
posted by gregr at 11:20 AM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, with the meter ticking over that quickly, you should be able to track it down at least somewhat by flipping off different breakers. If none of your circuits affect it, it'll be interesting to find out where it's going. (A standard 15A home circuit can pull 1800W max, so 6kW is a LOT. Do you have an electric stove or dryer?)
posted by spacewrench at 11:22 AM on December 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

Seconding an electrician, but in the meantime can you experiment with turning off the breakers to various parts of the house and watching the reading on the meter? If you're pulling 150kWh, that sucker should be spinning pretty fast until the offending breaker is turned off.

If you've turned off everything including the main and you're still seeing movement then you know it's something in the meter or, like nebulawindphone said, someone is stealing power from you.

oops, dupe. sorry.
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:23 AM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Is it possible that a neighbor is stealing electricity? That's still a lot of electricity, though, unless the neighbors are doing something like growing weed with it.

I don't think it could be that. This is a suburban home with a lot of yard space between it and the nearest house. I would have noticed an extension cord.


Seconding an electrician, but in the meantime can you experiment with turning off the breakers to various parts of the house and watching the reading on the meter? If you're pulling 150kWh, that sucker should be spinning pretty fast until the offending breaker is turned off.

Unfortunately the meter is digital and only displays whole kwh. So it's a bit difficult to do trial and error on the circuit level because even at 6000 watts, it takes 10 minutes for it to tick up. Next time I'm over there I'll try switching off the new breaker though.
posted by justkevin at 11:59 AM on December 16, 2016

the meter is digital
fwiw, if you look carefully, it may have some part of the display (or a separate led) that flashes every 1/10 of a kwh.
posted by andrewcooke at 12:23 PM on December 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

Seconding turning all of the breakers in the house off. Take a picture of the breakers. Record the meter change with pictures for 60 minutes and send it all to the electric company. If there is no power to the house and the meter is spinning (digitally) it isn't you.
posted by cnc at 12:24 PM on December 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

You want to make an appointment with a different electrician, today.
posted by humboldt32 at 12:44 PM on December 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

You could have one 'leg' (line) of the three lines connected poorly where they come into the main. That can mean you have power 'leaking' to whatever is nearby that will conduct (for example, very wet ground if it has been very rainy.)

Call another electrician and explain the situation.
posted by mightshould at 12:59 PM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

A failing fridge could explain the spike. Turn off the breaker (or unplug it) to that for s few hours and see if that decreases the usage.
posted by buttercup at 1:09 PM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

A leaking hot water tank is about the only appliance I can think of that might do this on the qt, but a wiring defect seems more likely.
posted by jamjam at 1:49 PM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

I feel like in order for one appliance to be pulling that much power, which is a horrifying amount, it would blow the breaker immediately. I am strongly in favor of a wiring defect or meter issue here.
posted by Slinga at 3:32 PM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

An electric water heater, stove or dryer circuit could draw that many watts. But you'd probably notice if one those is malfunctioning. Flip off those breakers and see what happens. Also, call a new electrician.
posted by LoveHam at 3:58 PM on December 16, 2016

My money is on a faulty meter.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:08 PM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

6kw dissipation without noise, movement or some other utilisation of that energy equals 6kw of heat. That's not a possibility, it's fundamental physics.

I'd be more than a little surprised if that was possible without it either being very noticeable, tripping breakers or melting insulation. In the absence of any of that my first bet would be the meter.
posted by deadwax at 4:22 PM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Some utilities will do a home audit when usage spikes. Call and ask for a meter test. Is the meter new? Either way I'd request it to be looked at.
posted by toomanycurls at 5:00 PM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Have you gone through all the rooms (including basement, attic and closets) in the house? This is a completely different answer, but could it be possible that someone has set up some sort of growing operation somewhere in the house? A closet/attic/basement is a fine location and it would pull a lot of power.

If that's not it, having the electricity company do an audit make sense.
posted by Toddles at 6:25 PM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

The numeric display is just kWh, but my digital meter also shows consumption of individual watt-hours with a "train" of LCD segments (example video, in the lower right corner). Look for something flashing or otherwise moving on the display, unless you're already certain yours doesn't have that.
posted by whatnotever at 9:01 PM on December 16, 2016

Here's a method of testing that our local utility suggests to try to find unusual loads. See if this helps.
posted by Zedcaster at 10:03 PM on December 16, 2016

First off, does the meter number on the increased bill physically match the meter number on the house? If it doesn't, the utility is billing the wrong account. Check that the meter number on the old bills is the same. Meters do occasionally fail, too.

Metering and billing is usually highly regulated. The utility may not be able to refund the amount, but should apply it as a credit. Utilities move glacially slowly unless there's a safety issue, sadly.
posted by scruss at 7:25 AM on December 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

i want to second mightshould. i always forget (some?) americans have three-phase to the door, and i don't understand it completely, but it wouldn't surprise me if the work you had done could mess it up in some way so that it's unbalanced and meters in a strange way.
posted by andrewcooke at 9:23 AM on December 17, 2016

Have you checked the portion of the house occupied by the live-in aide?
posted by werkzeuger at 12:09 PM on December 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

Don't forget the possibility that it might have been the old readings that were wrong, and the meter is only now reporting the correct usage. Perhaps prior to the electrical work being done in November, the metering system was underreporting usage (e.g. somehow electricity was being used but not going through the meter) and now, having been upgraded, it is reporting the correct values.
posted by Jabberwocky at 3:33 PM on December 17, 2016

Poking into it, EIA has the average monthly consumption for the state with the heaviest annual usage (LA) at 1291 kWh/mo.; at your estimate of her peak usage before, she was in the ballpark of (20kwh/day_max * 31 days) = 620 kWh/mo., which is less than half of that. So that actually falls significantly below the average, and even below the average in the lowest-usage state (HI, at ~900kWh/mo.,)

We can't necessarily infer too much about the household curve nationwide, since these figures are probably just raw averages of all users in all types of housing, so you'd expect quite a bit of variation in efficiency etc. with McMansions vs. studio apartments and regional temperature variations across the US. But to go from half the highest average to more than triple seems really unlikely, so even if the old readings were low as Jabberwocky suggests is a possibility, the new readings are crazy high.

I'm guessing a. hidden grow operation; b. faulty meter.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:02 PM on December 21, 2016