Lost Electricity

[S. Barker]

HE SAID he talked to the company and HE SAID it wasn't an estimate.

s

[S. Barker]

nope, a direct short would open the breaker. now they CAN sizzle and create heat without opening the breaker. I've seen that on our cord across the yard where the dogs opened the insulation.

s

[S. Barker]

so you're trying to tell us they charge a different rate during different times of a day? How, when they come read the total, do they know which KWHours were daytime and which KWhours were nitetime???? Are you sure you're not talking about your phone bill?

s

[Steve IA]

I first noticed that the snow had melted where the 2 cords joined, but didn't think much of it as it was before I had gotten the bill. The junction was in the clear then so any leakage could have been transient. Besides, this cord is on a timer and only runs 2 hours a day to power a block heater on the school bus. It comes on 1 hour in the AM prior to bus startup time and 1 in the afternoon, although often the heater (1000 tested kw) isn't plugged in during most warmer afternoons. I tested the cords and the heater 1st thing with my kill a watt as it was suspicious to me also.

Talked to a couple more neighbors and their December bill was also higher than expected. I will verify with the REC that these readings were not estimated. The clerk who I spoke to may not know the whole story. Thanks

[dpb]

Steve IA wrote: ...

Don't you know your neighbor who's almost surely the reader to talk to directly? How big a REC is this? Do you go to the annual meetings? You, after all, are a co-op member here... :)

On top of the above leakage path identified, what about ice-damage etc.? Also, if you're still really deeply concerned, the other respondent mentioned a sump pump stuck on; we had a well pump run continuously for quite some time (owing to a small enough that it could keep the system pressurized so it wasn't noticeable in water service) and it was the neighbor who discovered it when she read the meter (owing to water management requirements, wells other than only household here are required to be metered separately to record estimated water usage for water table usage estimates) and noticed it was way out of line...

Also, still no information on the actual degree-days of that particular month as compared to the historical averages...add up a few per cent for the discovered leakage, a few percent for temperature, and a little for unfound or perhaps a recording error from the previous month and it could well end up within the range of expected usage...

--

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per ransley:

There's also a practice known as "curb stoning". Reader wants to finish his route earlier.... sits down on a curbstone and makes up some numbers.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Was the cord coiled up making an electro magnetic heater?

I'd be suspect of the cord setup as then can generate a lot of heat. Years ago at work had one start to smoke plugged to a truck block heater. Where the cord was coiled, it go damned hot and that heat translates to energy use.

[NotMe]

| I ask the REC and they said we 'just used more'. They also tried | to blame 'recovery usage'. I'm not buying it. They claim they didn't | estimate the bill and when I received the bill I immediately checked and the | meter reading seemed in line with normal. I'm talking KWH her not $$ which | can be affected by rate changes, surcharge and taxes etc.

Perhaps the meter reader is 'cooping' and the utility does not know it.

We had a similar problem. We hooked up a motion activated 'critter cam' facing the meter. No one showed up for months then the bill jumped. Surprise, surprise that was the month the meter was really read.

[Anthony Matonak]

Steve IA wrote: ...

I'm certainly no expert in these things but I have heard that sometimes line voltage will vary. If they were running unusually high voltage for December then it may be that resistance heaters, incandescent lights and such things were using more energy. If the voltage has since gone down then your measurements today would not show how much these devices were using then.

Anthony

[Steve IA]

Not coiled, but loosely tied in an overhand knot to keep it from inadvertently getting pulled apart.

Steve

[Joseph Meehan]

I would not rule out an estimate. They could have under estimated the prior month and while the current "month" was not directly based on an estimate, it would have included the automatic adjustment for the past month.

[Neon John]

It didn't "go" anywhere. The higher bill is probably a combination of actually using a little more electricity and "catching up" from the co-op's reading estimation.

Few rural co-ops read every meter every month. Many only read every 3 months or so. In the interval they estimate your bill based on past history. If they under-estimate for a couple of months then the "catch up" bill can be startling.

No.

No.

Probably how your utility works.

One of the most useful things you can do is to read your meter every day at the same time for some period and look for patterns. I have a simple energy audit spreadsheet that you can download here:

It has a page where you can record your daily readings and compute usage.

A call to your co-op should reveal whether they using meter estimating and what their actual read interval is. Many co-ops have a program where the customer can read his own meter once a month and mail in a postcard. You might inquire about that. That would eliminate any estimating.

One thing to be informed about and wary of. Many rural co-ops are converting to self-reading meters. That is, meters that report their readings to the co-op, usually by data-over-power line. I have witnessed and am witnessing some real cluster-fscks in the transition process. One of my client utilities hired a contractor to do the conversion which involved recording the final reading of the old meter and they, in turn, hired minimum wage workers. The error rate went through the ceiling. Some people got bills of multi-thousand kWh, which is what happens if the reader misses the most significant dial by one or more digits.

I am also witnessing some cheap and awful meters being installed. The infant mortality rate is very high and the accuracy is questionable.

Bottom line: you should know if your co-op has or is converting to self-readers. If they are then it is even more important to track your usage on a daily basis. If your usage remains basically the same but the meter suddenly indicated that you're using more (or less - that'll catch up with you too) then you need to alert the co-op immediately. The meter's electronics may have taken a surge hit and gone out of spec. Old mechanical meters were stone-cold reliable and held calibration for decades. The jury is still (far) out on the new electronic ones, especially the lower end ones.

John

-- John De Armond See my website for my current email address

[John Grabowski]

It is called "Time of Day Service" from Jersey Central Power and Light. They have a special meter for this. I actually have four electric power rates thoughout the year. There is a night and day rate for the winter months and a night and day rate for the summer months. The daytime summer rate is the highest at about .22 per KWH. The cheapest rate for winter nights is around .13 per KWH. Weekends are the same as nights.

Don't even get me started on my phone bill. lol

[Neon John]

This does NOT work unless all the loads are purely resistive and with a power factor of 1. Most non-resistive loads, and especially sneak loads aren't. That little sprinkler timer is a perfect example. Those typically have a very low power factor and draw twice as many VA as watts. Since you only pay for watts, you fool yourself by measuring volts and amps separately.

There ARE inexpensive clamp-on wattmeters that work nicely. I think that Sears sells one. I use this one and have found it to be quite accurate in comparison with my lab standard wattmeter.

This instrument CAN be used for what you describe and in fact, is what I use mine for, mainly.

An example of how using a clamp-on meter can fool you, here are the measurements I just made from a similar timer:

Volts: 115 Amps: 0.012 VA: 1.4 Watts: 0.8 PF: .57

Measuring amps and volts separately and multiplying produces volt-amps instead of watts. Using volt-amps instead of watts to compute usage would result in almost a

50% error.

The Kill-A-Watt is probably the least expensive tool with adequate accuracy there is for measuring actual consumption. It can be used to measure branch circuits and is what I used before I bought my clamp-on wattmeter.

The procedure involves a Jesus cord (male convenience plug on one end of the cord and alligator clips on the other.

Plug the KAW into an outlet or extension cord. Remove the breaker panel cover. Flip the breaker of the branch of interest off. Connect the black alligator clip of the Jesus cord to the breaker output screw. (optional) clip the white alligator clip to the neutral bus. Plug the Jesus cord into the KAW. The branch is now powered through the KAW and the KAW displays the vital info.

This does not work for 240 volt branches, of course. You'd need a 240 volt KAW or better, the clamp-on wattmeter.

John

-- John De Armond See my website for my current email address

[Neon John]

I suppose that it could be possible but in practice, a wet cord either doesn't conduct enough current to matter or it trips the breaker. Conducting significant current would result in heating that would melt the ice and dry the water, stopping the conduction.

John

-- John De Armond See my website for my current email address

[danny burstein]

In Neon John writes: [ snip ]

Is such a beast ( a 240 V KAW) available yet? I've been eagerly waiting for one of them or a competitor....

Thanks

[Neon John]

Most likely. I KNOW that my co-op's receptionist and general purpose customer answer-girl tells customers that they don't estimate. I KNOW equally well (because I'm friends with the meter department supervisor) that they do.

One other thing that you might want to do is find out the number of degree-days for that month and the previous month(s). Absent any major change in configuration (new major appliance, for example), electricity usage for a given customer tracks remarkably well with degree-days. This holds even for houses where the primary heat source isn't electricity. Not sure why but that is what the statistics show.

If the degree-days are much lower for the month in question then you can be pretty sure that you used more energy.

I'm still betting on estimated readings and the one in question being a "catch up".

John

-- John De Armond See my website for my current email address

[Neon John]

Very common practice. So common that there is a regulation that requires a different meter reader than the regular one work the route at least once a year. (No, I don't know the regulation number. It's just what I've been told is the basis of that policy at all my client utilities.)

John

-- John De Armond See my website for my current email address

[dpb]

actually using

...

Don't know about "few", maybe still "some". Out here it is manually read by a paid part-time person (virtually always a member "moonlighting"). We had to ditch the mail-in cards when the numbers of installed meters at locations where there was no sentient discernible sentient lifeform that could actually perform the task became too great... :(

Eventually will probably go to the self-reading, but that's still in the future...

--

[Neon John]

After looking at this thread and then re-reading your initial post, this caught my eye. Presumably your dirty clothes backed up during the outage. How many loads of wash did you do when the power was restored?

If your dryer is typical it draws about 7kW. That means that it would use 7kWh for every hour of operation. Assume a load takes an hour. Mine does.

You had power for (31-6.5) = 24.5 days. If your usage was average then you used

653/31 = 21.06kWh/day. For the month that would be 24.5*21.06 = 516kWh. The difference from your average would be 653-516 = 136.9kWh. 136.9/7kWh per load ~= 20. So if you did 20 extra loads of clothes after the power came back on, just the dryer usage (ignoring all other additional loads such as whatever the washing machine and well pump used to support the extra clothes washing) would account for the difference.

Since you and your neighbors were in similar situations, it wouldn't be unusual for them to have done extra laundry too.

You probably also had dirty dishes piling up (additional well pump and maybe electric dishwasher usage) and probably didn't vacuum during the outage. I bet that if you sit down and carefully recount your activities after the power came on, you could account for most, if not all the apparent discrepancy.

I'm still betting on an estimation catch-up reading but even if they really don't estimate, it's not very hard to account for the difference with just a few lifestyle assumptions and undoubtedly the extra degree-days involved. After all, you DID have s storm severe enough to cause an extended power outage.

John

-- John De Armond See my website for my current email address