Your power bill can be one of the largest variable costs that your family pays each and every month. Because of that, it can be an emotional thing when the bill is higher than normal, or if it continues to climb higher and higher. What I want to show you today are a few simple and free steps that you can take to start troubleshooting you high power bill and get you on the path to lowering that energy bill.
Step 1
The first step to figuring out why you power bill keeps going up is to look at your past billing statements. If your utility has an AMI system you might be able to download your load profile data. Not just the one from last month, but preferably the one from the same month last year. You need to look at the number of kilowatt hours (kWh), that you were billed for last year in the same month. If there is a large difference you may have a problem. If the difference is close then that just means that you are using about the same amount of energy this year that you did at this time last year. This is your average. If you do not have access to this information contact your customer service department and they should be able to provide it for you.
Step 2
If you have determined that you are using much more electricity this year than you were last year the first thing that you need to consider is your heating and cooling system. The heating and cooling system is by far the largest consumer of energy in the home. Sometimes you already know that you are having a problem but you just do not want to admit it to yourself. Maybe the house is just not getting warm enough or cool enough. Sometimes we like to compensate by adding space heaters or window units. While these things work great to keep us comfortable, they can really increase your power bill.
Step 3
Once you have decided that, or ruled out, your heating and air system are the culprit of you high bill, it is time to start troubleshooting. Knowing how to read your meter will be helpful as well as knowing how to do a watt load check. These will help you determine what is pulling all of the load in your home. To find out what is making your bill so high you will need a partner. This partner will either go stand in front of the meter or will turn things off at the breaker panel for you. Note, only turn things off in the panel if everything looks safe and you feel safe doing it. There are many old panels out there that are falling apart these days. Approach at your own risk. Also know that turning breakers on and off has been known to break them requiring replacement, so be careful.
When you turn off a breaker, if there is a load that is being fed by that breaker, it will turn off. When it does, the meter will slow down or stop. So, you want to continue turning off your breakers one at a time until you find the one that turns off a large load. This could be your culprit. Sometimes it is tough to track down. Many times you will think that there is nothing on yet the meter is still spinning. Turn the breakers off until you find it and then go around the house and find out what is off. That is what is using the energy.
Step 4
Once have everything tracked down you need to calculate your bill. Doing this will help you understand your energy usage and will help you save on your next bill! If you want a more automatic approach, you should consider investing in some technology, like smart plugs, or smart thermostats, to help you narrow things down.