Why does electric use increase in winter

[OhioBurner©]

Not sure what to say, but it's been consistently that for years. No candles, no river washing. Maybe our meter is treating us right.

I average right around 20kWh/day ~600/mo and could still curtail my electric usage substantially... I have an old cheapie electric water heater, a second freezer (just a old inexpensive craigslist find), electric oven and range, and plenty of incandescent lights still and forget to shut the computer off often, 4-6 fans running on this house all heating season to attempt to circulate the heat in this ill-designed house. Only 1.5 living here though.

 

[maple1]

Yes, my desktop computer is running pretty well 24/7.

I know we could knock ours down too, by getting newer appliances. I have heard that 20 year old washers, dryers & refrigerators aren't very energy efficient compared to the newer stuff. All ours are getting long in the tooth (including dishwasher), 22 years old now.

 

[velvetfoot]

Yes, my desktop computer is running pretty well 24/7.

I know we could knock ours down too, by getting newer appliances. I have heard that 20 year old washers, dryers & refrigerators aren't very energy efficient compared to the newer stuff. All ours are getting long in the tooth (including dishwasher), 22 years old now.

Or.......you could buy a new Froling.

 

[Doc C]

So our meter was read on the 16th. I have been tracking the last 2 days.

The first day we used 35kwh
The second day we used 31.5kwh

We have not changed anything in the house. The only thing that has been changed is the electric company put a monitor on the meter. It is between the meter our breaker panel.

I am getting the numbers off the meter not the monitor.

At this rate of usage we will be around 950kwh hours for the month.

I’m not sure how our usage came down more then half?!?!

I’ll keep tracking and see if there is a huge spike one day.

 

[maple1]

If you had your own monitor, you could watch the consumption in real time, and turn each breaker off & see exactly what circuits are using how much electricity. Even the 35kwh/day still seems high to me, based on what you said you had that uses electricity. Likely pumping all your water twice would have some effect, but you're still at almost 2x my (and others) consumption and I'm not really picking out what that could be from.

 

[Marshy]

Maybe the freezer defrost cycle?
Is anyone in the house a sleep walker? Maybe they go and stand in front of the fridge with it open? lol!
Or maybe they do some night time sleep welding?

Doc, you have and heat tape on piping?

 

[velvetfoot]

35 kwh/day for this setup still seems high to me as well.

 

[Doc C]

Maybe the freezer defrost cycle?
Is anyone in the house a sleep walker? Maybe they go and stand in front of the fridge with it open? lol!
Or maybe they do some night time sleep welding?

Doc, you have and heat tape on piping?

Sometimes I sleep walk but I don’t leave the bedroom usually.

 

[Doc C]

35 kwh/day for this setup still seems high to me as well.

I find it strange as soon as the electric company touches the meter my use comes a lot closer in line with where it should be.

I’m inclined to believe something is going on.

 

[moey]

Thats (35 kw per day ) is close to what we use in the summer months. 2 kids 2 adults no deep freeze although we do run our A/C in the summer. Ok still sounds a little high.

 

[sloeffle]

I’d take that during winter months. I use 10kWh a day just to keep water ice free for animals. Was tired of feeding the wood furnace a few weeks ago, so I fired up the geo. We hit 76kWh one day.

It is just money, they will print more.

 

[Doc C]

The electric company guy and I reviewed the report for the last 10 days or so.

The hot water heater is running for about 2 hours at a time.

The well pump is spiking to 51 amps every time it comes on. And it runs for about 10 minutes, shuts off for 5 minutes, turns on for 10 minutes and it does this for about an hour on average

 

[moey]

The 51 amps is probably a instantaneous draw electric motors do that.

I'm confused by your other statements. I assume you felt they were important thats why you mentioned them. In a 24 hour period how much does the electric water heater run as well as the well pump?

 

[Doc C]

The 51 amps is probably a instantaneous draw electric motors do that.

I'm confused by your other statements. I assume you felt they were important thats why you mentioned them. In a 24 hour period how much does the electric water heater run as well as the well pump?

The electric guy said that normally a hot water heater will run around 15 to 30 minutes at a time. He was thinking an element could be bad.

The hotbwater heater will run around 2 hours if we take a shower. Other wise it will come on about 20 minutes every 2 hours roughly.

 

[Highbeam]

The electric guy said that normally a hot water heater will run around 15 to 30 minutes at a time. He was thinking an element could be bad.

The hotbwater heater will run around 2 hours if we take a shower. Other wise it will come on about 20 minutes every 2 hours roughly.

The electric water heater isn’t it. It’s just a resistance element, if it’s on its heating. There is no way for it to run too often or too little. That energy is heating water.

The well pump turning on and off Is more troubling. It shouldn’t turn off until it is told to.

 

[Doc C]

The electric water heater isn’t it. It’s just a resistance element, if it’s on its heating. There is no way for it to run too often or too little. That energy is heating water.

The well pump turning on and off Is more troubling. It shouldn’t turn off until it is told to.

The well pump is on a float switch to fill a cistern. What is happening is the water level goes down and the float switch tells the pump to turn off and stop filling the cistern. Then the well recovers and the pump turns back on.

I think what the elect guy was concerned about was the 51 amp draw

 

[fbelec]

51 amps is ok because it's a high torque motor it probably settles to 7 to 10 amps or it would blow your breaker after about 5 seconds. if you had a bad bottom element you would get 5 mins of hot water then cold if you had a bad top element you would not get any hot water out of it the bottom element does not come on until the top element has satisfied the top section of the tank

 

[CaptSpiff]

The electric guy said that normally a hot water heater will run around 15 to 30 minutes at a time. He was thinking an element could be bad.

The hot water heater will run around 2 hours if we take a shower. Other wise it will come on about 20 minutes every 2 hours roughly.

Your tank style Water Heater should not be coming ON for 20 minutes every 2 hours. That means your Heater is in a super cold basement, or the water is migrating and you need to install a heat trap.
Also, the recovery on any tank style Water Heater is not 2 hours. Once the water draw of the shower is done, it should take all of 15-20 minutes for the Water Heater to recover to full temp.

 

[moey]

Even with a bad element the electric draw would not be more if anything it would be less your only heating half the tank. The recovery time would be more and you may end up with a cold shower faster as only half the tank would heat. You may want to investigate the electric tank more but I dont think a bad element would cause massive increased electric consumption.

 

[jetsam]

Even with a bad element the electric draw would not be more if anything it would be less your only heating half the tank. The recovery time would be more and you may end up with a cold shower faster as only half the tank would heat. You may want to investigate the electric tank more but I dont think a bad element would cause massive increased electric consumption.

Heavy corrosion creating a high-resistance path to ground is possible. Put an ammeter on the line to the water heater and/or check the voltage between the water pipes and the panel ground bar.

Not likely but I've seen stranger.

 

[drz1050]

That water heater is taking way too long to recover, I'd pull both elements and check them out... also check the thermostat, but those rarely go bad. The elements are probably corroded. New ones aren't that much, you just need a special tool (deep socket) to remove/ replace them. Tools and elements are available at any hardware store.

To add: each element has its own thermostat, check both and make sure they're set to the same temp.

How much water do you use a day? That well pump is cycling crazy often. I'd pull that too and check for partial clogs.

 

[fbelec]

if your elements have a lot of buildup on them they will get to hot and fracture which will blow the breaker. if your tank ran a 2 hour time it would probably blow up if the relief valve did not already blow off. 30 gal about 15 minute recovery 50 about 20 minute and if you have the rear 120 gal it would be about 45 minutes.

 

[Centurion]

Right. If you look at Feb it was like 3300ish.

Appliances that we have:
TV (1)
Dish network box
Washer and dryer (no kids)
Fridge
Dishwasher
Deep freezer
Microwave
Air compressor (only plugged in when using rare)
Hot water heater
Led light fixtures
Cell phone chargers
1 floor lamp with led bulb
WiFi modem

All heaters off at breaker
Shop heat is propane with no fan.
Hot tub unplugged in winter

I am looking for ideas as to why electric usage increases in the winter?

In my case my electric use is doubled comparing June to November just looking strictly at KW usage because our wonderful electric company raises rates in the winter. So total bill dollar amount is more then double comparing the months.

All light bulbs are led and we really don't use much more light compared to summer.

All electric heaters off at breaker.

Hot tub off in winter. In summer hot tub is running.

Hot water heater costs more to run because water coming in is colder in winter but it is almost brand new and energy efficient.

Don't use blower on stove.

Cook stove is gas and we use 1 therm on average a month.

Kill-a-watt meter testing the deep freezer in the garage shows only very slight increase in usage from summer to winter.

I have a brand new Square D breaker panel in house and sub panel in garage. And when I installed the panels I had electric company check the meter. The tech was out here hanging out for several hours waiting on more calls and helping me work on the panel. I'm pretty confident the meter is fairly accurate and it's digital.

Any ideas what else I could check?

I'm sure I'm missing something.

 

[Centurion]

I am looking for ideas as to why electric usage increases in the winter?

In my case my electric use is doubled comparing June to November just looking strictly at KW usage because our wonderful electric company raises rates in the winter. So total bill dollar amount is more then double comparing the months.

All light bulbs are led and we really don't use much more light compared to summer.

All electric heaters off at breaker.

Hot tub off in winter. In summer hot tub is running.

Hot water heater costs more to run because water coming in is colder in winter but it is almost brand new and energy efficient.

Don't use blower on stove.

Cook stove is gas and we use 1 therm on average a month.

Kill-a-watt meter testing the deep freezer in the garage shows only very slight increase in usage from summer to winter.

I have a brand new Square D breaker panel in house and sub panel in garage. And when I installed the panels I had electric company check the meter. The tech was out here hanging out for several hours waiting on more calls and helping me work on the panel. I'm pretty confident the meter is fairly accurate and it's digital.

Any ideas what else I could check?

I'm sure I'm missing something.

I would call either an electrician or your power company and have them come to your home and check for possible current leaks. Have them monitor the current flow at the circuit breaker panel and turn off each breaker, one by one, to see if any one circuit is drawing a lot more current than expected. Obviously, when all the breakers are off you should have no current being used unless you have an auxiliary line going out to another building. I believe this is your best bet for tracking down your high electrical usage. Good luck!

 

[Ashful]

51 amps is ok because it's a high torque motor it probably settles to 7 to 10 amps or it would blow your breaker after about 5 seconds.

This really depends on how it’s measured. While a fractional-HP motor can easily hit these numbers for a few milliseconds at start-up, the time constants are usually so brief they’re missed by the typical RMS ammeter. If you’re seeing 51 amps on an Amprobe style ammeter, that’s really something for a little well pump motor, I would think. I’m used to seeing numbers close to that on 3 HP motors with fairly high starting torque loads, as the ammeter is averaging over a longer time constant the the endurance of the big inrush numbers.

Either way, a few milliseconds of inrush current is not the reason for the high utility bill, but that few hours of cycling on/off is too suspicious.