Can my breaker box affect my electric bill?

[dpb]

I can only reemphasize what Edwin and others (and myself) have already told you--if the house feels this cold, in undoubtedly _IS_ colder than

80F and _SOMETHING_ isn't right. If the actual temperature is somewhere in the 60's, it's no wonder your power bills are astronomical. Your first step needs to be to find out independent of the thermostat what the air temperature is and get the A/C guy out to find out why you're running so cold. I suppose it's possible the thermostat is located in a very poor location and is being affected by something else so it thinks the temperature is 80, but a thermometer will tell you that, too.

A 12 SEER unit isn't very efficient these days (I don't think it would qualify for Energy Star rating) but is probably better than what was there, but if it's running all the time or is actually keeping the house at 65F, see above.

I also have to agree w/ Edwin and others in that your brother may be an electrician by trade and capable of performing the mechanical processes of wiring, etc., but he definitely is way off base on this hypothesis. It just isn't the way electricity "works". It's certainly not uncommon that many tradesmen don't know much theoretical behind what they do routinely.

In summary, given this additional information, the A/C is almost definitely the problem and the reason is almost certainly that something isn't right so you need to get the installer out to find out what the problem actually is and fix it.

[dpb]

...

Certainly spending a few more hundred as the _first_ action w/o even discovering the problem w/ the _NEW_ installation doesn't seem like the most practical action to me...

If the bill is an immediate issue, the first expedient is to cut the unit off for a day or so until the A/C guy can get there and look at it or control it manually to only cool the house to a comfortable temperature and then only when it begins to become uncomfortable turn it back on for a while.

W/ kids in a not huge house (inferred), it's unlikely there's a desire to only cool one or two rooms, anyway. If so, bedroom registers can be closed and doors remain closed to minimize the area w/ the central system while determing the problem.

Insulation is typically pretty cheap and often has cost share and has a long term payback in both summer and winter that the window unit won't have.

In summary, if (and only if) there aren't other practical solutions would it seem to make sense to go that route and certainly not as the immediate reaction before even finding out the answer to several other questions.

[Oren]

A larger than necessary wiring hole behind the T-Stat can artificially affect the stat with heat from the wall cavity. I seal-up around the wire holes.

The OP can cut back now as mentioned.

I think we pay more $$ during peak hours and $ during non peak hours. I have to look at this again.

We try to avoid big appliances during the day, really so in the summer.

Oren

[Jeff Wisnia]

Sounds to me like you are just floundering around and not approaching the problem systematically, lady.

What does an accurate thermometer hung next to the thermostat read, when the rest of the place is as you say, "pretty cold"?

And what does that same thermometer read when placed in the "pretty cold" parts of the house?

It's quite possible the thermostat is located in a part of the house where cold air from the system does not reach it until it's "lost a lot of its cold" and isn't cold enough to make the thermostat switch off the AC.

You may just need to properly balance the air flows by adjusting register dampers (Assuming they ARE adjustable.) until you achieve a relatively acceptable temperatures where you want them.

HTH,

Jeff

[George E. Cawthon]

Or live in a house or apartment that is insulated. Don't dispute it but don't know how AC could be $450 let alone $1000 per month unless one live in a place where the night temperature was above 90 degrees. Our last month's bill for electricity was $63 and we keep our AC on 74 degrees.

Yeah I know, our electricity rate is pretty low and the temp does drop at night, but if you tripled the rate it you will be above most of the country and that would only be $189 per month. And then if you ran the AC 24 hours a day at the daytime rate you would still not be up to $450.

I would imagine that Florida AC running costs in the summer would never be more than four times the cost in Boise.

Several possibilities exist. Stupidity--leaving the windows open, leaving all the curtains open, etc. House is mostly a tin shack with no insulation or something similar. If you rule those two out then (1) the AC is not working correctly, (2) some one is stealing the electricity.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

I've not had a $63 electric bill in years. The last two, with AC were $186 in July, $225 in August and I have a well insulated house, about 2k sq. ft. Our rate is .162 kWhr. And I'm in Northeast CT, not Florida. If I see an $85 bill, it is a cheap month with no heating/cooling and minimual light on long days.

The bill was $300 before the new AC. I'm betting on #1

[Tekkie®]

Kravynn posted for all of us... I don't top post - see either inline or at bottom.

I didn't read through all the responses so I may be repeating others...

The breaker box has nothing to do with electric consumption other than if there is an internal problem in it which would result in heat or fire. Does the box allow you to put your hand on it without being burnt? Some parts may be warmer than others but NOT hot enough to burn.

Looking logically - you had new AC installed - costs go up - you are cold. My conclusion is AC never shuts off. It could be the thermostat or another control. What is the problem and solution is not your concern. Call the AC company back and have them fix it. The landlord should understand that you are not complaining for the sake of complaining but rather realize that operating the system in this manner will shorten it's life and increase his costs. The company sold this saying it would decrease costs and increase comfort - neither of which it is doing.

[mm]

OOps. On rereading this, it seems you were only talking about deducting what it took to fix your current problem. Sorry.

Still, like a couple others, I think the problem is in the AC, and if it is something that was replaced or serviced within the 4500 dollars, the landlord has a warranty, and he should know about it before any money is spent.

Even if it is some of these other possible problems suggested, the landlord may not want to pay for it.

I wonder if anyone here could compare the cost of cooling with a good AC to 72 or 74 degrees when it is set for that, with the cost of cooling with an undercharged or broken AC to 80 degrees, when it is set for 72 or 74.

Or a similar question: Does the bad AC use just as much to get to 80 when it is trying and failing to get to 70 as it does when it is only trying to get to 80?

[mm]

In a way, the idea that if something is repaired it is now good, or if it is replaced with new, it is now good, while a compliment to repairmen, I think ends up with tremendous and often excessive dissatisfaction on those, hopefully few occasions when something is repaired or replaced and it's not good.

There can always be bad parts and repairmen can always make a mistake, if only in not verifying that every part and every feature is working.

The quality of work is partly determined by whether it works well after he leaves, but also by whether he fixes it well after the customer discovers the flaw.

But forgetting about judging the quality of work, it's just not true that when someone fixes something it is guaranteed to be fixed, or that when someone does anything it is guaranteed to be done. Assumintg otherwise slows down debugging.

[mm]

He didn't notice the third room last spring?

[dpb]

...

...

If it is indeed a "bad" AC, almost assuredly it will use more w/ the lower setpoint unless it never makes it to either. Otherwise, it would run essentially continuously either way and given the same outside conditions the external exchanger to air efficiency would be the same. So if it can make the setpoint, it will have at least a short period of respite. While operating, however, the actual efficiency is essentially independent of setpoint. That's why you won't get the house any cooler when you come home from vacation if you set the thermostat at 60F as opposed to 74 or whatever you want the end result to be. Same thing other way 'round for the furnace--it doesn't heat any faster to set it on 90 than on 72.

[mm]

OT, but when I was doing some work, with county permission, in public woods and fields in suburban Baltimore, I found a 2" water pipe running full blast. It was horizontal and the water was going out 2

1/2 or 3 feet by the time it fell 1 foot.

I called the county water deparment and they wanted the address, but it had no address, it wasn't even near a street (although it was near an expressway, I don't think that would be an address). Since there was no address, they had me call Baltimore City (which is like a separate county, and about the same size, but with more people) They wanted the address too, and iirc when it didn't have an address, they told me to call the county. IIRC it took a month to get the water turned off, even after I made the last phone call.

On the other side of the xway, and maybe 600 feet, there was an area an acre or more that was flooded, and we had been waiting for almost a year for the water to dry up. We thought it was from the stream right there which we assumed overflowed in heavy rains. Plainly there had been flooding because the chain link fence that bordered the expressway had been covered with grass so the water would not flow through, and then the fence knocked down. So there had been flooding, but we waited almost a year, checking every 2 to 8 weeks, and I kept wondering when the dry season would come.

Then I found the pipe, a month to get the water turned off, and in anotther month, the land was dry, iirc. By then, we had found another way to do things, so we didn't need to do any work there after all!

This pipe must have been running for at least 11 months, and maybe much more!

[Darwin]

You're either a troll, or trying for a Darwin Award.

I mean c'mon, instead of setting the thermostat higher, you put sweats on the kids, and they're having runny noses?

You're not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

[JimL]

your thermostat is not working correctly. Probably wired wrong by the installer. Call the installer back and he will fix it for free.

[gfretwell]

It is still worth having the ductwork inspected to be sure it didn't blow open somewhere. How much does the unit run?

[# Fred #]

Like others mention your thermostat/AC system is out of wack if you are freezing when the AC is set at 80-82 degrees. The landlord should take care of this. I had a case where the HVAC duct came off and was cooling the crawl space. Maybe worth checking for duct leaks too. I would expect a large utility bill if nothing was done relative to insulation and windows for a mid 50s house where energy was so cheap then.

As for the breaker box, its properly not the cause of your huge electrical bill. A lesser effect is when you have a loose connection at the breaker and you pay a little extra in heating the contact points. Further the wire insulation wires may burn up and the breaker may trip or fail due to excess heat. Another thing I could think off is that your panel may be way off balanced with respect to electrical load where one bus is way overloaded with respect to the other at he panel. Don't know about your electrical company but some will bill on the peek values so balancing the panel by bring the peek load down will bring down the electric bill. Your electrician brother should know what I'm talking about and could give you more details. But again don't think the breaker box is the cause of your huge electrical bill.

[hallerb]

not a 2 family home?

in which case your neighbor might be disappointed if you cut him off

dont laugh this occured to a realtive, in a 2 family home.

appears the original owner did some creative wiring to reduce his el;ectric bill, it was discovered by accident.

caused lots of grief

[dpb]

# Fred # wrote: ...

...

I don't believe current residential meters even in areas using peak rates peek at the individual phases, only the total. It's certainly possible to do so and is at large commercial 3-phase facilities but I really do not think it is so for residential customers. What residential peak rate tariffs I know of are actually only based on TOU rates--time of usage based on peak _system_ usage times, not actually rate-based metering at the individual meter.

So, I don't think the distribution panel loading balance would/will make any difference on the total peak usage monitored before the panel at the external meter. There obviously could be places which go to this level, but for residential tariff rules w/ which I am familiar that is not the case.

[Oren]

Apparently not, with the hall and bathroom being smaller. The two "hot" rooms were on the West wall and were more evident of a problem.

Oren

[mm]

A great story!