$1,200 power bill?

[Super_BQ]

$2,200 over 120 days is about $17 per day. I defy you to identify what in our 2-bedroom flat could possibly be using $17 of power per day,*

As I mentioned before, that kind of bill is easily obtainable and probably not uncommon. 2 years ago my cousin thought of nothing having a $600 September power bill living in Lower Hutt. 3 bedroom house she ran a 3kW heater in each bedroom plus heating in the living room kitchen. Also note the daily line connection + levy can be $20 to $50 per month.

On a different note, as long as the NZ National government is on the path of selling state assets in the electrical companies, higher power prices are in thier best interest.

[A.C. Slater]

In my research, it's highly uncommon. I've asked dozens of people about this -- co-workers, friends, friends of friends, and not a single one of them (even my North American friends who love to be warm) has identified a $600/month as anything but outlandish, especially given the size of our flat. Keep in mind, $2,200 means that we're averaging $600/month, and that time period includes at least four weeks of not using any heat at all. In order to maintain that average, we'd have to have a couple months of $800+.

It just doesn't add up, and the fact that I've had five billing cycles and five cancelled bills shows that they really have no clue what I owe them.

[RedVee]

Hi. enough is enough. Tell them you want to escalate this as a formal complaint, as if you do go to the Ombudsman ton grounds of maladministration hey will want to be sure you have exhausted the energy company's complaints process first.

I know you've taken other comparisons, but here's mine. I have been paying $257 combined gas and electricity a month from May through November, and I am currently $250 in credit- so I've used around $1500 in six months. That's for a 4 bed, detached with rinnai gas fire, gas rinnai infinity water, gas hob, and then electric everything else eco panels in the bedrooms (2 fan heaters for one month before they went in), and hungry condensing tumble dryer... and with me working at home occasionally and daughter having some weekdays off there's a fair chance of someone being home during the day at least 5/7. We do have good sun, and find things a degree or two warmer up here most days compared to town - but your bill is ridiculous.

[Sun777]

A.C. Slater, do you remember leaving any heater or other electrical unit on (for days) by mistake? Also have your water heater checked, one of our previous rental property had water leakage problem and we never realized it till following winter while one day we saw some steam coming up in underground storage.

[Miss_Austen]

Crumbs and I thought our first bill was high at 220 for 3 weeks in september. Since we learnt how to use the heater more effectively and got our furniture and duvets it's come down a lot. And I've just realised that the christmas lights have been all week so I'd dread to think what that's done to next months bill. What's the latest with this phenomenoly high bill?

[A.C. Slater]

I've finally given up and decided to pay it. They applied my actual average usage (based on their readings) retroactively to my first day of service, and it only resulted in about $400 difference off the $2,200. They applied my previous payments over the last few months, and then gave a courtesy discount of 10% for the inconvenience of not being able to get my bill right for five months. Yesterday, I zeroed my balance with them with a $1,039 payment. It comes out to about $350/month when all is said and done.

Just for the sake of shooting all my bullets, so to speak, I'm going to test the meter and see if it might be faulty. We do not have a smart meter -- it's very old, and the customer service rep said from time to time, people do have either faulty meters, or meters that are being hijacked by neighbours or something the landlord may have rigged up that we don't know about. If they test the meter and it turns out to be in working order, we have to pay $200 for the service. If not, they credit your account based on the degree of inaccuracy.

In order to test it, I'm going to shut off every appliance in my home (won't be hard in a place this size) and get the meter to stop. If I can't get it to stop, I'll look into that hijacking possibility. If I can, I'll run my 2400kw heater for two hours and see if I can get the meter to advance by about 5 units.

Does that sound right? Has anyone here ever tested their meters?

[JandM]

Oh, good luck. Such a pain to be over a barrel over something that *feels* unfair.

[Super_BQ]

Does that sound right? Has anyone here ever tested their meters?

Old meters are far from being accurate. A friend in industry told me they can be + or - 20%. The service man's methodology is correct - try to turn everything off in the house so the meter can stop. Then switch on a device you are certain to know it's kW draw.

Something out of the hat, your house may have some other issues that may not be easily apparent. I was thinking that the electrical wiring in the house may be quite old that it's losing heating. That is the wires marginally heat up because of age. Though it may not be detectable when trying to get a 0 reading on the meter, the phantom power use may occur once you start using your appliances and heaters, you may be drawing more power than you thought to use. Just a thought from the far side.

The other aspect is being an old meter, it's quite hard to measure it fully on load. That is the accuracy can get worse as the load increases. Like if you're drawing 10kW for a moment, the meter may go out more then say if you're only drawing 2kW.

I'm all for new smart meters as you can monitor your usage by the day or hour.

[A.C. Slater]

Cool. Good tips, thanks. I had a feeling that the inaccuracy was geometric, as you describe, but fortunately, all I have to demonstrate is whether the meter is inaccurate or not. If it's inaccurate to any significant degree, I'll have it switched out and sent in for testing. Hopefully, they test it under a heavy load so we get a real sense of how off it is.

A bit of blue sky thinking at this point, but good to know this is more common than I thought.

Added to the list of requirements for next house -- smart meter (second only to insulation).