Quetion for all you electrician kind of guys

[Dargo]

Hmm, just got home and a utility company truck was pulling out of my driveway. I drove back to my newest barn and, guess what? A brand new meter. And, with nothing attached to it, it doesn't turn. Now I'm really suspicious of them. I'm thinking I should try the same test with my home meter.

 

[ultrarunner]

Give it a try... sounds like something I should do to check the meters I have...

 

[Hakim]

We had an issue along these lines some years back on our farm. We were getting VERY high electric bills. We checked and rechecked about everything, but still couldn't find out "where" that electricity was "going to." We even went away -- out of town -- with EVERYTHING turned off. We assumed that would prove that the bill could go way back down -- but by golly, we STILL got a high bill.

This went on for several years --- monthly electric bills of about $300, when it should have been about $60.

Eventually, one day I was out by the barn and saw a line of water coming in under the barn wall on one side. It was flowing under the concrete barn floor, and pooling up into a virtual flood in the field on the other side of the barn.

We used a backhoe to dig up all around the well head. Sure enough, about six feet down, there was a small crack in a fitting, which was PVC and not brass. ALL THAT TIME the well pump had been turning on and off 24 x 7, due to the leak. In fact, we had once replaced the well pump because it had died. Apparently the on/off running for years just burned it out.

We replaced the fitting for about $5, and never had a high electric again. I figured that we paid at least $200 a month for water running into a ditch, over the course of four years. We lost about $10,000 to that "little Problem." I did contact the electric company, but they offered nothing to offset my losses.

You might also see if an outside night light (sodium or otherwise), could be drawing power.

I also was told by various experts that even if all your lights are off, freezer and fridge unplugged from the wall, etc, you will still darw a small current just to keep the service hooked up to the property.

Hakim

 

[Dargo]

You might also see if an outside night light (sodium or otherwise), could be drawing power.

I also was told by various experts that even if all your lights are off, freezer and fridge unplugged from the wall, etc, you will still darw a small current just to keep the service hooked up to the property.

Hakim

Yeow! That "little" leak sounds like it ended up being a rather "big" expense.

You are correct about 'vampire' items plugged in that draw a small amount of current. Believe me, I've done quite a bit of net surfing and asking around in the last couple of days. Again, I'm by no means an electrician or any sort of authority, but I've asked a lot of questions in the last couple of days about this subject. It seems that most people who are well educated in the field tell me that most anything that has a transformer anywhere in it's circuitry will be a 'vampire' as well as most anything that has an 'instant on' feature. They compared it to a computer in sleep mode, saying it wasn't drawing much at all but was sitting ready to be awakened and be ready to use right away.

I do have 4 dusk to dawn lights and, at current prices, they cost me about $4.73 each a month to run on average. So I'm aware I'm spending about $20 a month for night lighting. I'm okay with that. What concerns me was the phantom electric drain and not the vampire drain (see, throwing out that lingo now like I'm some sort of expert ). The 'phantom' drain shouldn't be there and nobody can explain it; thus the 'phantom' (sort of) replacement of my meter when I complained. A 'vampire' drain is what you mentioned; most anything that is plugged in that draws a slight amount of power without really doing anything while it's in it's 'vampire' mode.

I'm learning more now but I'm still concerned how many revolutions per hour my home meter may be turning without anything at all attached. As I mentioned, I would never know if I was being overcharged $5, $10, or $20 per month on my electric bill. Oh, did I mention how my son got a new girlfriend and stuck me with over $600 worth of additional airtime cell phone expense last month?

His number is no longer in service...

 

[MossRoad]

... Oh, did I mention how my son got a new girlfriend and stuck me with over $600 worth of additional airtime cell phone expense last month?

His number is no longer in service...

We got our teenager a pre-paid phone. We give her $30.00 every two months. That equals 300 minutes or 600 text messages or any combo if both. It taught her budgeting, time management, etc...

 

[LBrown59]

you will still darw a small current just to
*keep the service hooked up to the property.

Hakim

That's what the minimum payment is for.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

I am not the best one to try and explain this as I deal with the construction end of electrical linework and not so much the metering, but here goes, electric meters have what we call creep, and that is due to the magnetism in the meter it will creep very slowly until the holes line up and it should stop, if it does'nt and or makes a complete revolution something is wrong and it should be addressed by the metering dept from your power company, power companies have all kind of fruit loops squealing about their bills, most of the time it is because of something going on when they aren't home such as adjusting the thermostat 10 degrees from normal and then re-setting it before the dad gets home and the list goes on and on, but on occasion someone does have a legitimate problem that needs to be addressed, hopefully armed with this little bit of info someone will know that you have done a little research and know a little bit about what you are talking about, hope this helps.

 

[radioman]

dargo - your story makes for interesting reading- now I am interested in seeing if there is something wrong with my meter. just for giggles. This is something that everybody should check every so many years of owning a house.

 

[hitekcountry]

Utility companies must believe that the meters can fail or be inaccurate.

One time my house was not occupied for a number of months which caused the utility bill to drop drastically. I happened to arrive there just as the PG&E guy was swapping out the meter. He said he was swapping out the meter because there must be something wrong with it. I didn't bother to explain to him the reason for the low bills. I thought I'd let it make them crazy since the house was going to be unoccupied for awhile longer and the new meter wasn't going to change anything.

 

[Kfbeal]

Some meters will creep, but not all do it. The utility really has no control over that creep and aren't out to get you. Most will replace the meter I'm sure. You also have to keep in mind that bad connections may cause this also. Bad connections cause heat, which is essentially dissipated power. I have seen this also, but have also seen 100's of other strange things with electricity like a bad main breaker causing creep.

If you look on your meter you will see Kh. If it's 7.2, that means your meter will register 7.2 watt hours for every revolution of the disk. So if that disk rotates once in 20 seconds you divide 3600 (seconds in hour) by 20 = 180. So you take 7.2 * 180 = 1.296 kw/hour or Kwh times the multiplier of the meter, most of the time 1 depending on the R/R or register ratio.

If you have a large service where CT's are installed a multiplier will be used since you are only metering a portion of the service. Say the CT's are 400:5, the multiplier will be 80. If they are 200:5 it would be 40 and so.

Most new meters are solid state so there are no moving parts and all digital so it's hard to do but some have the worm that crosses the display you can time like the disk.