Energy usage question, trying to track a bleed...

[rholmes69]

Hoping some smart minds can help me out here. I recently bought a home on 4 acres. 2400sq feet. It is a crawlspace/pier and beam construction, professionally sealed (quite well) crawlspace with dehum and sump pump. There is a monitor for the crawlspace and it shows the avg temp in there to never be below 57 and the humidity in the 20-30% range. Home has two hvac systems. One 2.5ton heatpump 14 seer for 1950 sqft, one for the other 400 sq feet, 14 seer 1.5 or 2 ton. Brand new duct work under the house. The 2 "zones" are separated by a hallway with a door and we keep the door closed. The 400 sq feet we keep at 58f, and the second larger side at 67. One plain jane wood burning fire place that we have used only 2 times with doors open, 3-4 times with doors closed. No blower on the fire place. It does have a well, about 200 feet from the house. Well is 550 ft deep, water table is at 128 feet. No idea of the pump size, but it has the pressure at 52psi. Just got the first full month electric bill and it is ridiculous, 2170 KWH. Our old 2000 sq ft slab home we averaged 900kwh hours in the winter (we did have natural gas furnace though). I am fairly certain the heat strips are not coming on with the heat pump, We actually didn't move into the house for about a week and I was able to view the energy usage online and see that during the days it wasn't occupied, it still used 35-41 kwh per day with the thermostat set at 62. Does that not scream some sort of an energy bleed somewhere? We are a family of 4 (soon to be 5) and my wife stays at home and homeschools. Nothing about the daly activities is really different than what we were doing before in the old house. Any suggestions for what we can do or is there a service we could hire to try to find the issue? Or does this all seem normal? We live outside Raleigh, NC and the avg temp according to the electric co has been in the 40-45 mark.

Thanks for any insight or suggestions.

 

[KTurner]

Don't forget your water heater or clothes dryer. Could these be electric when you're used to gas?

You can take 'instant' usage readings by counting how long it takes your power meter to spin the wheel one full revolution. Details here. Do that, if it seems high, start flipping circuit breakers off and checking again. Simple to do.

Based on what you've described - nobody home, thermostat on 62 degrees, 35kwh/day, I'd look at the water heater(s) first. I'd also check the sump pump since its automatic - might be stuck on.

Keith

 

[Bikewanderer]

sounds about right to me....

 

[rholmes69]

We had a rinnai at the old house, but I installed that and we had a 50gal electric before so I know typical electrical cost from a tank should add around $36 per month, that still doesn't seem to completely cover the excess. We brought our old clothes dryer with us (electric). The sump pump isn't stuck on, i checked it out. And unfortunately it is one of those new fancy digital meters, it has a wifi connection to the electric co-op that lets me graph my electrical usage but no moving wheel to read real time "usage". Upon studying the graphs and data, the daily consumption of electricity with no occupants in the the house seems to correlate with the avg daily temp. When it is warmer, there are less kwh used. That leads me to believe one of the units does have the heat strips running when the heat is on. I will have to investigate it more closely...

 

[boggen]

gas vs electric appliances, there is a big difference on the electrical bill.

with KTurner statement, get in front of meter outside, and start turning off electrical breakers.

==========
i get a little skiddish when folks try to close off part of a house. and leave one part of house warm, while other part of the house cold. more so if the internal walls do not have insulation in them.

i gave up trying to close part of house off, due to i was getting a large wind draft off internal walls. that was causing more temperature change between warm vs cool side of the wall. vs just leaving the bed room or like door open.
if the internal walls have insulation in them, that is one thing, but when all ya got is some 2x4 wall studs, and some paneling or like on each side of the 2x4's. once entire house gets warmed up to a given temp. my house stays there and less fluctations in change in temp.

==========
you say new ducks, but are they properly insulated in the crawl space.

were is the heat coming from to heat the crawl space?

is the crawl space insulated?

 

[KTurner]

If you want to know what stuff is using, you need a way to measure it. With the big appliances, the easiest way is at the meter. The link I posted also has a way to read meters without wheels. Other methods involve a lot of time getting up close and personal with 220V (clamp on meters either at each appliance or each branch of the breaker box). Or just shutting off a breaker for a day to see how that impacts the usage for that day. I suspect telling your family that there's no hot water, heat or cooking for a day as you need to turn that appliance off would not go over well.

This is what you need to do. Otherwise you're making assumptions and guesses on a house that you're not familiar with. By taking measurements and flipping breakers, you eliminate those assumptions and guesses and are left with just the facts.

Keith

 

[oldnslo]

Have you checked to make certain your expansion tank for your well has the correct air pressure in it. Short cycling a well pump can run the meter up real fast and also burns the pump out quickly.

Another option, with all of your known heavy loads off, like stove, dryer, water heater, etc. look at your meter, is it still spinning at a high rate?

 

[Dr Dave]

My first thought was the well pump, could be a small leak, or as oldnslo said improper pressure tank setting, our pump has a light on top of a 4' post, with a small watt bulb, when the pump runs the light is on.
Also check your water heater elements, and aux heat elements in heat pump. If one or more are faulty the unit runs longer than needed.

 

[rholmes69]

KTurner, I apologize for not even clicking the link, I assumed based on what you wrote in the email is was referring to measuring usage with old style wheels. My bad, you know what they say whenever you ASSume something...I will do that. I will also check the pressure on the well tank too.

I did discover last night that the second ac/hp is running the strips as aux heat for some reason. It has a 5kw strip in it, so if it is only running for 10mins an hour, that would equal about an extra 20kwh per day from just the strips. The units are still under warranty (installed 2011) and a guy is coming out to look at them. I will post a follow up when I narrow down the issue. I will be checking the meter today with that link you sent, thanks for the insight and suggestions everyone.

Boggen, the separate "zone" is an addition to the house, and it is only connected by a small hall. The exterior wall facing the addition is completely insulated. Essentially, it was a 1 story home that they added a 2 car attached garage with a FROG (finished room over garage) with a separate bathroom. It has seemed to stay pretty well regulated with no adverse effects on the rest of the home, but it has only been a month and a half. I will be monitoring it to see how it effects the comfort of the home.

 

[Dr Dave]

When you check your pressure tank be sure to turn off pump and blead down all water pressure, then use a tire guage to check, there should be no water at the shrader valve.
Does your thermostat have an aux heat switch, is it on? Is it a digital setback thermostat with batteries, if so replace the batteries. Low voltage from thermostat batteries is a common problem and does strange things to your HVAC system.

Dave