average Con Ed bill?

I have a 1bd in a brownstone with a dishwasher, W/D, big stereo, big TV and, since I freelance at home, a computer on all day (and stereo). Last bill was $125.

3 BR old fridge, lcd tv (those suck electricity) and roommates who always leave the lights on. about $65 a month is normal.

also have 100% green power from the coned esco locked in at about .15 or .18 cents per KwH

unplug everything in your apt and then go look at the meter. flick the washer dryer etc. on and off to see what's drawing power.

Make sure it's not an estimated bill...

That's high. I have a four story brownstone and the electricity for the whole place is usually less than $200 a month. Granted we use a lot of compact fluorescents and most of the lights are off for at least 18 hrs a day, but still... I'd have con ed come and check that there are some common areas attached to your meter.

3 BR apt - $60-70 in the winter, $80-90 in the summer (we only use A/C when it's really unbearable).

mikelite wrote: So I called ConEd and I got Stereotypical Jewish New Yorker Woman. It was like I was talking to my aunt frieda. She went crazy whenever I rattled off an appliance - A HUMIDIFIYAH? WELL THERE YOU GO, RIGHT THERE! A PLASMA TV! I'm gonna look at alternative providers, see if that helps.

the alternative providers are all more expensive than con ed. you need to use less electricity.

Subject: electric bill

The lady from Con Ed was right every appliance that you have plugged in draws juice If you leave your computer on 24/7 ir you leave the charger for the cell phone in the outlet, if you have a frost free refrigerator etc. The biggest one is halogen lights We stopped using the halogen lamps ( three of them in three rooms) and the bill was cut $50 a month. You can ask them to come and get an energy audit and you should make sure they are actually reading the meter every month and not estimating the usuage You can read the meter yourself and call it in every month if they arent getting in to do the reading.

We have a 4 story brownstone. I just checked and my last bill was 300.00.

Our Con Ed kwh-use increase is mystifying.

We're in a one-bedroom apartment in a large building, and are instinctive energy-savers and "under-users": We've always unplugged appliances and power strips not in use, have all compact-fluorescent bulbs, have few lights on regularly, and don't own a washer-dryer, freezer, etc.

Despite that, and even allowing for varying days in billing cycle and always-on appliances:
(1) Our Con Ed non-summer usage (actual-reading kwh) increased 20% in the past year.
(2) Our actual-reading kwh usage for Nov. and Dec. '08 was a stupefying THIRTY PERCENT higher than in previous months ... although our habits didn't change: no new appliances, no extra at-home time, no holiday lights or unusual use. (And kwh usage immediately dropped back to normal in Jan-Feb.)
Only one new thing happened in that time: Throughout Nov-Dec, the landlord had a crew doing major construction/remodeling in the basement.

We've analyzed the creeping 20% usage increase, the Nov-Dec jump, and our kwh use in every way possible, and it still makes no sense.

Our concern is that the landlord (or whomever) might be piggybacking onto us for common-area or other purposes -- especially since the whopping Nov-Dec increase coincided with major construction.

Subject: CO ED

FLON FLON:

Get Con Ed to come over and check the meter and also check to see where the construction crew have tapped into the lines for their electricity

flonflon,
You could be right. The common areas circuit breaker box is often woefully under amped since it is usually only intended to run the hallway lights. Its pretty common for these assholes to do that unfortunately.

Did you come home at any time recently and find your stuff blinking as in a power outage? They could of done it live too.

jmd -

I contacted Con Ed. Their advice (which I plan to take this week):
-- Unplug every single thing in the apartment, wait 20 minutes for that total-off to kick in, then check the apartment's meter in basement.
-- If the meter is still running when everything is unplugged: Someone's tapping into our line and creating a shared meter where none should exist.
At that point, you call Con Ed and they investigate.

The Con Ed rep also said that my Nov-Dec usage surge was too small to come from basement construction-tool use.
But I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of the regular (non-Nov/Dec) bill isn't "ours": Our regular non-summer kwh use has inexplicably jumped by almost 40% in two years -- which is simply flat-out _impossible_, considering our unchanged lifestyle/electr. usage and continuous consumption-cutting.
So we might be powering up a common area, basement, etc. -- and we only really noticed when "they" used a lot more than usual in Nov/Dec. (Heck - maybe _we_ were paying for the building-lobby Christmas lights and menorah!)