[ljstein18]

I live in a fairly new community (6 years) of about 600 single family homes. Mine is one of the smallest. My electric bill runs about DOUBLE of all my friends in the community. I have had an energy audit which only found poor attic insulation. I re-insulated the attic with SIGNIFICANTLY higher R-factor. How can I determine what is causing the extra usage.
Are there companies or professionals who investigate this?

[tkrussell]

There is no company specifically in business, that I know of, exclusively doing power studies for your purpose. There may be but I am not aware of any, or I just can't think of one. Audit firms perhaps.

I have done this in the past as only a small piece of everything we do as electricians. So I don't know who besides a established, well equipped, and knowledgeable troubleshooting electrician.

There are plenty of firms that do acceptance testing, commissioning, and data collection, etc. Most will have power recorders that measure and keep al the data in storage for analyzing.

Before I continue with companies, just remembered that there are some state Public Utility Commissions, or the like, that have these plug in watt meters, called Kill-A-Watt, Google it, for for home owners to test individual appliances and see what it draws for power. Some libraries have them to loan out.

A good place to start with utility bill assistance is your electric utility. They should, at your request, come out and either test or just replace your electric meter.

Before going off on tangents looking for internal causes, be sure the electric meter is accurate, and that you understand your utility bill, and that by consulting with your utility, be sure you are being billed correctly because of different rate schedules, time of day billing ,etc.


Plugging in a lamp, battery charger, whatever, or even a TV, into a watt meter, while good for seeing real numbers and learning what different appliances draw for power, I don't see these being too useful in reducing large bill amounts. They are more for, in my opinion, making people aware of what your TV, charger, etc do draw, and helping them making a decision to keep certain things unplugged to save that little bit of energy, which while it may add up, not reduce a bill in half.

Testing such as your looking for can be expensive when done by the types of companies I mentioned, as they are built for working with commercial and industrial type customers.

Even may be a bit expensive if an electrical contractor does a power study that has a power recorder, as it can take a few days or weeks to measure all the different points and appliances that may be the cause.

Before we can speculate with your situation we would need to know more about what types and sizes of appliances you have, preferably the watts or amps of appliances, when you use them, what runs automatically, how many residents, are any home for extended periods, anything else you know that would help us understand your living standards.


Some reasons I have found in the past are:

Usually found in areas with apartment buildings:
Neighbor knowingly or unknowingly, plugs in a cord into your power.
Or a another tenant apartment is wired into your system, and is completely unaware.

Internal Thermostats not set correctly or faulty:
Electric water heaters
Hot water domestic furnaces or boilers
Air conditioning systems
Oil or crankcase heaters in HVAC units, generators
Deicing heat tape in gutters or pipe trace heat tape, popular under trailer/manufactured homes

Lights running unattended in attics and basements, and outdoors.


Teenagers


Night lights that are regular lighting but people don't realize amount of power being used when left on all month.

De-humidifiers. These are small air condition units, again people don't realize the power used.

Pool, spa, hot tub pump motors and heaters running constantly.

Refrigerators that are in poor condition running longer than normal because of low Freon, dirty condenser coils. Or t'stat set too low.

These are a few I can think of. Your issue will be unique to you.