Utilities Question for those electrically inclined

[photographyjess.livejournal.com]

My electric bill seems unusually high. I saw the meter-reader man this morning, and so I thought I might check it out. Knowing nothing about electricity, I have a question. I live in an owner occupied house. My side pays for our own utilities including electric. There is one digital meter, and two identical analog meters. How do I figure out which one is for my side of the house? I didn't see any identifying markers on any of the meters.

Comments

[ron_newman]

Are there three housing units?

[cityofbeige.livejournal.com]

For a two unit house, there are actually three meters. One is for power to the entire house and is the one directly hooked to the utility line on the street. I know this because the house next door was completely gutted and turned into two units. When they finally hooked the electricity back up, they labeled the meters as one, two, and main.

[davelew.livejournal.com]

I live in a two unit building with three electric meters. They are basically unit #1, unit #2, and porch lights. The porch light bill is shared by the two units.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

are there serial numbers on the analog meters? if so, do either match with things on your electric bill?

[ceo]

Your electric bill should have the meter number somewhere on it, so you should be able to match it to one of the meters.

If that doesn't work, turn off all the lights and electric appliances in your unit, note how fast the disks in each meter are spinning, then go inside and turn on all the lights and electric appliances, and see which one sped up.

anecdote of the day

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

Spinning disks reminds me of when I lived in an old house, had some electricity problems and an old-soul caribbean man came to fix it. He said those meters are like old men: they spin slower and slower with age. He said having an old meter saved you money because it was less accurate.

[photographyjess.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That's very helpful.

[electricube.livejournal.com]

If you don't have a lot of electronics, one way to do it is to coast around all the walls, unplug everything in the house, turn off all the lights, and go see which one stopped moving/counting.

[ron_newman]

Seems like that would work even if you do have a lot of electronics.

[electricube.livejournal.com]

Sure, but it'd be a pain, re: stove, dishwasher, I guess one could shut those off at the fuse box.

[ron_newman]

Do those use any power when they are not being used? (I don't have a dishwasher, and my stove is gas.)

Refrigerator

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

Your refrigerator uses a tremendous amount of electricity (the compressor).

It is sort of like running a window unit air conditioner on a modest temperature setting all year round.

An electric or gas stove should use negligible energy when not in use. The dishwasher uses a large amount of electricity, but only when running. Washers and in particular dryers use an enormous amount of energy, but again, only when running. If you have an electric water heater, that too would use a large amount of energy.

[electricube.livejournal.com]

Some do: my stove has a digital clock, I've seen dishwashers that always have an LED lit on the front panel, to mean "ready".

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

All kinds of appliances draw standby power even when they're off. Basically anything without a mechanical on-off switch (or which has a wall wart transformer) is drawing at least a few watts 24/7 to keep its circuit boards powered up.

Not just appliances with remote controls like TVs, DVD players, stereos, and cable boxes, but also things like dishwashers, toasters, blenders, microwaves, computers and monitors, air conditioners, cordless phones, cell phone chargers, and even some lamps. It can really add up -- some estimates put this standby power as 25% of a household's electricity use.

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

Can you match your "last reading" from your bill to the current numbers on the meters? It shouldn't be too far off.

[pearlythebunny.livejournal.com]

You might want to call NStar to have them check that the meter is working properly. I lived in a house once where we had huge electric bills, so we had the electric company come out (Boston Edison back then) to check the meter. They discovered the meter did not work right, and we had been overbilled. For about six months afterwards we did not receive an electric bill at all. Then we started receiving a bill, but it only said that we had a credit. The bill did not tell us how much we had been overcharged, but it must have been a lot, for we didn't owe any money for about two years.

Another thing I can think of in a two-family house is that some public areas might be wired in to your meter. Are you certain that you are not paying for the basement electricity, the garage electricity, the front or back porch lights, the front or back stairwells, any outside lighting, a washer and dryer in the basement, or anything like that? Especially if a house has been converted from a one-family to a two-family, the wiring might sometimes be screwy.

[photographyjess.livejournal.com]

That's what I am wondering about. My side of the house does not have access to the basement, where there is a washer and dryer. The house is pretty old and there are some other wacky things about it (ie: lack of any ventilation over the stove or anywhere in the kitchen) and I think something might be amiss. But relations with my landlords aren't the best, so I'm not quite sure what to do about it.

Miswiring

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

Miswiring is not uncommon in these houses (the ciruits for one unit are on another unit's meter). If identified, the landlord must correct this.

At the very best, miswiring can be accidental. At the worst, someone can have you deliberately paying for their electrical usage without you knowing it.

Here is my advice: Locate your breaker box in the basement. Trip all your breakers, but not the matser breaker to the unit (the one on top, larger than all the rest). Then, turn them on one at a time and identify what they do. If a circuit breaker doesn't seem to do anything for your unit, leave it off. This is what we do, although the miswiring in our case was purely accidental on the part of the electrical contractor. If you do not have access to your breaker box, ask for access to perform this task so you can label your circuit breakers.

Re: Miswiring

[somer-villains.livejournal.com]

to take mattt's advice even further, wait until you see the other unit's basement lights on, or the porch lights on, etc, and then go down and switch off your breakers, one at a time. see if any of the common area lights go out. if you can hear the washer and dryer when they are in use, see if one of your breakers is also supplying power to them.

[somer-villains.livejournal.com]

another thing i thought of is that a faulty appliance can consume much more energy than it should. i have heard of refrigerator compressors going bad and sapping a huge amount of energy.