My daughter recently rented an 800 square foot apartment at college in Central Illinois with 1 other room mate. For 30 days of use she had a bill for 1587 kwatts. She has one 3 year old small refrigerator, 1 new TV and a small microwave. Everything else is gas, such as water and heat. No air conditioning was used and it was turned off.
Almost everything has been checked for problems. Ameren, the electric company, has checked the meter and it is 99% accurate. An electrician came in and checked that all the appliances are using the proper amount of power. Circuit breakers were checked. Meter was checked when all breakers were turned off and it did not move. Neighboring apartments were checked for any crossed wires and found they we not. All the common areas and the laundry room were checked toverifyb that they were not connected to her box.
Neighboring apartment of the same size and 2 roommates used 247 kwatts while my daughter used 1587watts. The electric company says that I can't compare. Seriously that is over 6 times the energy usuage when you compare them.
Here is where it gets interesting. I called the electric company back and they looked at her daily usuage. Apparently they get random satellite reads of customers. Here is an example of what was used daily from August to October:
8/27/2009 1192 kwatts Yes this is usage for 1 day! 8/28/2009 736 kwatts 8/30/2009 23 kwatts 9/23/2009 1162 kwatts 10/1/2009 293 kwatts 10/17/2009 1 kwatt
All the readings are all over the place. But seriously, how can 1 small apartment use 1192 kwatts in one 24 hour period! My 2500 square foot home for all of August, used 600 kwatts for 5 people and 3 refrigerators.
Something is seriously wrong. People at Ameren have no explanation. They do admit that this particular apartment has had these "peculiar" reads and activity for the last 5 years. This apartment has unsually high bill compared to the other 40 apartments. Supposedly no has ever complained about theit high bills!
Can anyone out there explain what is wrong? I could really use someone's expertise. The people at Ameren are morons!
