Electricity problems

[Kaido]

I just ordered a TED Pro Home, along with a couple of Spyders - it's a pretty slick power monitoring system:

http://www.theenergydetective.com/tedprohome.html

I want to see (1) how much power I'm using, so that I can (2) spec out a whole-house generator at some point down the road. I like the idea of a Tesla PowerWall, but at about $7k each installed per 14 kWh battery (and I can't do solar panels where I'm at, so if I'm out of power for more than a day they won't recharge), a permanently-connected natural-gas generator seems like it would be more economical. All I have right now is my Kill-a-watt, but that (1) doesn't cover data recording (for trends over time) and (2) doesn't handle my 240V appliances, like my laundry dryer. I'm planning on aggregating the data to see power spikes, max usage, etc.

 

[Sheep221]

Thank you, I'm was talking about the two one said I was a complete moron and the other something about my mother. I know nobody knows but my mother just passed away 3 months ago. I have been looking around reading other forums and such. I have to admit this is the first forum like this I've been apart of. And yes I know but electric company are assholes and they have not sent anyone out to check. They just keep sending me shut off notices. I have proof from their website stating what my bill was and what they charged me. It's hundreds in difference

Please don't get offended, we do ofc have some low-grade dumbasses here who have not seen a sky and sun in quite some time and kind of coarse language is used but once you get used to that stuff all will be fine. It's important to not see yourself too seriously around here either because some users will post gross stuff to everyone, there is no rational reason, it just works this way, I love this place, for the most part. If you have not done already just read forum rules/guidelines, because even while many things are tolerated here, forums are moderated and not everything can be said.

To the topic: send bunch of attorneys to your power company, they cheated you

 

[Jeanie831]

I just ordered a TED Pro Home, along with a couple of Spyders - it's a pretty slick power monitoring system:

http://www.theenergydetective.com/tedprohome.html

I want to see (1) how much power I'm using, so that I can (2) spec out a whole-house generator at some point down the road. I like the idea of a Tesla PowerWall, but at about $7k each installed per 14 kWh battery (and I can't do solar panels where I'm at, so if I'm out of power for more than a day they won't recharge), a permanently-connected natural-gas generator seems like it would be more economical. All I have right now is my Kill-a-watt, but that (1) doesn't cover data recording (for trends over time) and (2) doesn't handle my 240V appliances, like my laundry dryer. I'm planning on aggregating the data to see power spikes, max usage, etc.

That's a great idea. You will have to let me know how it goes.

 

[Jeanie831]

Please don't get offended, we do ofc have some low-grade dumbasses here who have not seen a sky and sun in quite some time and kind of coarse language is used but once you get used to that stuff all will be fine. It's important to not see yourself too seriously around here either because some users will post gross stuff to everyone, there is no rational reason, it just works this way, I love this place, for the most part. If you have not done already just read forum rules/guidelines, because even while many things are tolerated here, forums are moderated and not everything can be said.

To the topic: send bunch of attorneys to your power company, they cheated you

Thank you, I really appreciate that

 

[twinrider1]

Who is your electric company?
Are their records showing less usage?
Is it possible your electric provider changed? We always have third-party sellers knocking on my door, promising great rates. You still get the bill from the big company (WestPenn?), but there's another company listed inside the bill as the provider.

 

[Jeanie831]

Who is your electric company?
Are their records showing less usage?
Is it possible your electric provider changed? We always have third-party sellers knocking on my door, promising great rates. You still get the bill from the big company (WestPenn?), but there's another company listed inside the bill as the provider.

West penn I have a copy of what my bill was and what they charged me from their website like one month my bill was $54 but got charge $500

 

[Humpy]

Not in ATOT tho?

Here we can theoretically refer to the OP as a complete fucking moron and perhaps speculate that his/her mom has been running up the bill with her massive electric butt plug.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.


OK, I'll correct you. Did you happen to think she may actually be a new person in need of help?
Look at her posts on the next page.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

I appreciate the question and did consider that the OP could be legit, though at the time it was unknown just what future postings might bring.

I like page two, it's great, page three is shaping up nicely as well, but it's still too soon to tell if my speculations have any merit or not. They have not been disputed as of yet but I accept I could be a bit off base.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I wouldn't think that you could pull enough juice through a single outlet to quadruple the bill either.

Hmmm I was curious and figured it out. Assuming a 15 amp outlet, that's 1800w, that would cost about 5 bucks a day ( I broke it down to the different tiers), so $159/mo. That's assuming a fully sustained load right at 1800w though. So yeah not quadruple but it could be significant I suppose. My actual usage is like $50/mo, but it's the delivery and all the other BS charges that make the bill so high. I pay like 170/mo in hydro.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I just ordered a TED Pro Home, along with a couple of Spyders - it's a pretty slick power monitoring system:

http://www.theenergydetective.com/tedprohome.html

I want to see (1) how much power I'm using, so that I can (2) spec out a whole-house generator at some point down the road. I like the idea of a Tesla PowerWall, but at about $7k each installed per 14 kWh battery (and I can't do solar panels where I'm at, so if I'm out of power for more than a day they won't recharge), a permanently-connected natural-gas generator seems like it would be more economical. All I have right now is my Kill-a-watt, but that (1) doesn't cover data recording (for trends over time) and (2) doesn't handle my 240V appliances, like my laundry dryer. I'm planning on aggregating the data to see power spikes, max usage, etc.

I was looking at those for a while actually, looks really interesting.

 

[mxnerd]

West penn I have a copy of what my bill was and what they charged me from their website like one month my bill was $54 but got charge $500

How? If the bill was $54, how did they charge you $500? You got bill in mail that's $54 but website said $500?

Post your bill & website snapshot (mask your name, address, and account#, tel #, etc) to a photo/image sharing website (or google photos so you can take it down anytime) and show it in the forum.

 

[esquared]

I appreciate the question and did consider that the OP could be legit, though at the time it was unknown just what future postings might bring.

I like page two, it's great, page three is shaping up nicely as well, but it's still too soon to tell if my speculations have any merit or not. They have not been disputed as of yet but I accept I could be a bit off base.

How about just not attacking new members, for a start?

 

[piasabird]

Start with the obvious. Look at all the pipes. Hoses, Outside faucets, Toilets always running etc. Leaky faucets. Water meter is based on what comes in from the road or the access point for the water. If the water line is damaged then you are paying for it. Ask them to check your waterline hookup. Check every item hooked up to your water. Like outside watering system for plants etc.

 

[Gerle]

Start with the obvious. Look at all the pipes. Hoses, Outside faucets, Toilets always running etc. Leaky faucets. Water meter is based on what comes in from the road or the access point for the water. If the water line is damaged then you are paying for it. Ask them to check your waterline hookup. Check every item hooked up to your water. Like outside watering system for plants etc.

Sounds like a good place to start, if it was a crazy water bill we were dealing with.

 

[Mike64]

Please help my electric bill skyrocketed I've been dealing with this for a year now and the electric company hasn't helped in any way it started last year my I've been living in the same house for 8 years now my bill was always $60-$90 at most now it's $350-$450 a month we turn off everything we don't use anything different than before my bill started spiking I've called the electric company and they pretty much just told me that's my bill what can I do

First, things first. While you've probably figured this out by now, thanks to the zany antics of some of the less socialized forumites - if ever need to post another question here again, never, ever post any serious question that can possibly be posted in any other sub-forum here in the "Off Topic" subforum. This is one of the very few sub-forums here that is, basically, intentionally allowed to be a free-for-all. (Not that I'm saying you should have realized this as a new poster, but) if you'd posted this in "House and Garden", most of the rude posts wouldn't have been permissible per forum rules, and those among the "rude" posters who might've read your post at all would've known better than to post similar comments there.)

But to your problem. It's not really possible that your rates could have gone up high enough in just a few months to account for the problem. And if you're actually using less electricity according to the stated number of kW/hours on the bill, there's no point in checking for faulty appliances or someone stealing electricity, because that would show up as "higher usage". Basically you need to take a deep breath, pull out your old bills and go over them carefully to see exactly what changed, and/or what it is that they're charging you for, compared to your earlier, lower bills. The answer has to be there somewhere. While computers do make outright "errors" (though frankly, it's pretty rare these days), they don't just come up with weird "totals" out of thin air. One way or another, the answer is there on your bills somewhere.

My first reaction is to wonder if there's some sort of serious problem with estimated billing. Something like that once happened to me with the gas company. Turned out I did in fact owe them a lot of money, but it was because they hadn't been properly charging me for quite a while, and I simply hadn't noticed what was a relatively minor discrepancy on each (of many) monthly bills.

 

[Humpy]

How about just not attacking new members, for a start?

Good question. I apologize that my post can in any way be construed as strictly an attack on a new member (or more accurate, a new user name). I typically base defilement on thread content or a person's height/weight and agree that it wouldn't be reasonable to attack someone just because they appear to be new.

To be fair, my post was only addressing the respected member whom I quoted and at it's core intended as a thought exercise comparing everything else that has ever been posted in ATOT with what could potentially be posted in this thread or any other future thread. The exercise spurred a vigorous discussion which clarified many forum user's perspectives on what is suitable for ATOT and what is suitable for say Home and Garden. I'd call it a success.

As for the topic itself, I don't believe the problem is actually electricity. Further, based solely on the logic and language displayed in this thread by the original poster, I strongly believe that there is an impossibly low potential for a positive outcome.



You have a problem with the moderation? Make an MD thread. This is not going to be discussed in this thread.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[Schfifty Five]

West penn I have a copy of what my bill was and what they charged me from their website like one month my bill was $54 but got charge $500

Jeanie, you need to provide more information. If the electricity company sent you a bill for $54 and then they charged you $500, then that's a billing issue, and a bizarre one at that. Call them and ask why they are charging that much.

 

[MrDudeMan]

I was looking at those for a while actually, looks really interesting.

TED devices aren't great, actually. If you look at the spec sheet for the Spyders, the design is terrible. Yes, I'm an electrical engineer, so my standards may be different, but the current transformers they chose and the associated analog to digital conversion have very poor tolerances. The unit also discards data way too quickly, which is ridiculous considering how cheap flash/storage is these days. I ended up designing my own with a raspberry pi and it is much more accurate with a reactjs interface that took a weekend to write.

I compared loads from 0.1 W to 1 kW in .1 W increments with my bench equipment, which is accurate to 0.02%. My version has an average tolerance of 1% with a maximum of 1.9% while TED is usually around 4% with a high of nearly 10%. The primary issue with TED is the minimum power draw requirement; if the wire is supplying less than 65 W of power, it will measure 0 W. This is a function of the current transformer's sensitivity and analog to digital converter in the MTU. I used a 12 bit A2D and a much higher quality CT, which set my minimum power draw to 4 W. Lower amounts of power will still be measured, but the accuracy suffers. Using solid core CTs helps quite a bit as well. I know they offer solid core CTs, but the ones I received with a TED Pro still performed poorly.

TED is fine if you want to know the rough power draw (100, 500, 1000, 10000 W), but I found it to be totally useless because of the accuracy and very poor historical data retention. It only reports data to the minute (some loads are seconds to 10s of seconds) and it only keeps the minute-based data for 25 hours. I've been reporting 36 CTs worth of data every 200 ms for eight months and I think the database is still under 200 MB. With a 32 GB flash card and a 2.5 GB OS footprint, it will record for longer than I will care before space runs out. If I get around to designing a custom board with a better A2D, I will probably put 32 GB of flash and an SD card slot for expansion to further trivialize this issue. Considering an SD card connector is $1, there's simply no excuse for this. Whoever designed TED seems to have no clue how to make a user-friendly piece of equipment.

 

[Darwin333]

I would call service at your electricity provider and demand to speak with a supervisor and explain your situation. Demand that they send out someone while you are there and you can show them you are not doing something in the house that that can consume that much electricity. They should be able to figure it out being there. Seriously anyone with any common sense would know that a Jump that high is absurd.

Can you take a video of your meter for a 30 secs and post it? That way we can see the power consumption. Also maybe you have an electrician friend and he can clamp an AC current meter on the main AC cable and figure what your wattage being used is.

Good luck

If his electric company is reporting that he is using fewer KW/h a month does his meter really matter much at this point? I would think that, assuming he is correct, that we just ruled out consumption.

OP, can you post screenshots or pics of say January 2017 and January 2016 bills with your personal information blacked out please?

 

[Thebobo]

TED devices aren't great, actually. If you look at the spec sheet for the Spyders, the design is terrible. Yes, I'm an electrical engineer, so my standards may be different, but the current transformers they chose and the associated analog to digital conversion have very poor tolerances. The unit also discards data way too quickly, which is ridiculous considering how cheap flash/storage is these days. I ended up designing my own with a raspberry pi and it is much more accurate with a reactjs interface that took a weekend to write.

I compared loads from 0.1 W to 1 kW in .1 W increments with my bench equipment, which is accurate to 0.02%. My version has an average tolerance of 1% with a maximum of 1.9% while TED is usually around 4% with a high of nearly 10%. The primary issue with TED is the minimum power draw requirement; if the wire is supplying less than 65 W of power, it will measure 0 W. This is a function of the current transformer's sensitivity and analog to digital converter in the MTU. I used a 12 bit A2D and a much higher quality CT, which set my minimum power draw to 4 W. Lower amounts of power will still be measured, but the accuracy suffers. Using solid core CTs helps quite a bit as well. I know they offer solid core CTs, but the ones I received with a TED Pro still performed poorly.

TED is fine if you want to know the rough power draw (100, 500, 1000, 10000 W), but I found it to be totally useless because of the accuracy and very poor historical data retention. It only reports data to the minute (some loads are seconds to 10s of seconds) and it only keeps the minute-based data for 25 hours. I've been reporting 36 CTs worth of data every 200 ms for eight months and I think the database is still under 200 MB. With a 32 GB flash card and a 2.5 GB OS footprint, it will record for longer than I will care before space runs out. If I get around to designing a custom board with a better A2D, I will probably put 32 GB of flash and an SD card slot for expansion to further trivialize this issue. Considering an SD card connector is $1, there's simply no excuse for this. Whoever designed TED seems to have no clue how to make a user-friendly piece of equipment.

You selling a short kit?

 

[Darwin333]

West penn I have a copy of what my bill was and what they charged me from their website like one month my bill was $54 but got charge $500

They must have a description of the charges, I'm pretty sure it's the law, could you please post a screenshot with your personal information cut out?

 

[Thebobo]

If his electric company is reporting that he is using fewer KW/h a month does his meter really matter much at this point? I would think that, assuming he is correct, that we just ruled out consumption.

OP, can you post screenshots or pics of say January 2017 and January 2016 bills with your personal information blacked out please?

"We" yes but apparently the electric company did not.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Sounds like my friend: "Oh, my electric bill is so high! They want $700!". Me: "Well, how many months has it been since you paid them??? You know that bills add up, right?".

Edit: Yes, definitely post pics of your bills, with personal information redacted.
Chances are, you either have a past-due balance, a rate schedule change, or they have been "estimating" the bill for the last few months, and then finally did a meter read, and "caught up" with what they were supposed to charge you.

Either that, or if you're renting, your tenants have a "grow room", LOL.

 

[FeuerFrei]

Usually the utility will send out a notice that it's seeking permission from whatever local authority to raise rates. This is your heads up. I think most utilities realize an 1000% increase across the board is a no go, so I doubt that actually occurred.

 

[lytalbayre2]

This happened to my mom recently. Had a big leak in a hot water pipe that went undetected....

 

[zinfamous]

So they crank up the heat, grow weed, or have a crazy hobby, you know like a basement full of reef tanks or computers mining for bit coins.

Have you been peering in on my basement again?