It's not a matter of hitting a nerve, it's a matter of trying to figure out what you expect to achieve by your plan of action. What do you think going to the AG is going to do? What are you going to tell them? That something in your house is drawing excessive electrical consumption, that both you and the utility company have determined that it IS something in your house, and not outside, and that because the utility company has the temerity to charge you for the electrical energy consumed within your house that the AG's office should do something about it?

We have and will continue to pay the bills generated by this house.
I am not intentionally avoiding actions to figure this out
I am doing what I can when I can
I don't know all that you all are suggesting and have asked questions along the way per things I felt I could do or needed to bring up with electrician or??? Many of which took some time...to perform or have performed or clarify that we already performed - posting results etc
I will recap all done in a new post
I am sorry that the number of posts it has taken to date disturbs some, I am simply responding to posts as they come to answer questions asked in order to get closer to resolution.
My hope was that if it were outside the house, and the electric company/conglomerate/monopoly with lots of legal protection would without a doubt in my mind tell us the entire truth about the lines. poles, billing or anything that may have caused this issue. And to fix it! If it was outside the house...It wasn't until I sent a formal complaint the the Public Utility Commission last November that I finally got them to take notice and look at anything outside: Meter monitoring (which I posted results) Line connections checked, pole checked, voltage checked.
To be clear, I have not entirely let them off the hook of somehow had an affect on our situation...so until the problem is solved - without a doubt, I will keep that wheel turning as well. If it is resolved, we move on. I am simply doing what the PUC told me to do....as well as others, as well as what I feel I need to do. Don't let them off the hook until all is resolved.
I am at this point simply sending a letter to the AG, they don't have to do anything if they feel there is no reason to.

 

I think @strantor gave you the answer way back when. He pointed out it is a 220 volt load of about 25 or 30 amps. So if your house is like mine I only have 4 220 breakers.
Stove - 50 amps
Dryer - 30 amps
Air conditioner (2 of them) 35 amps.
My money is on the air conditioner and the price increase you had sometime after your first reading.
Do you have any other 220 volt breakers? They are the ones with 2 circuit breakers tied together.
I only wish I had your rates.

PS. I use about 1500 Kwh in the summer when every day is over 100. But maybe you have a big poorly insulated house?

We had an energy audit (apparently with one of the best..)We were told without a doubt that our old house with some old insulation wasn't great, but definitely not the cause of this...due to more furnace fan running or A/C at full board...

Most of our appliances are GAS - Stove, Dryer, water heater, furnace

The A/C has been checked and found to be fine.
The pattern of really high bills does correlate with the A/C times of year, but also in the middle of winter...July, August and September as well as February and March in the $300's and November - January in the high $200s, the remainder of the year in the mid $200's...

I will take a photo of the breaker box today and load to show all that...!

 

Here's another option (if it hasn't already been suggested), but would require dedication from everyone in your household: keep a one-week log of the usage times of every electrical item and, knowing the power ratings of each item, tot up the calculated Watt-hours for comparison with meter readings.

Can you shin up the pole (or find a camera with a good zoom lens), take a pic and post it here?

I took a photo, I will try and load it later with a pic of the breaker box...

Not sure I can get the 6 year old to help!! Although not for lack of desire!

 

All the electricians that preformed 'breaker checks' new of our issue going into the checks. They shut all down and then would turn on individual breakers and check the amps.\ I believe it was amps...see I am out of my league here.

You are still not listening.

I said a POWER meter.

I also said for as long as bearable because there will only be a tiny difference over the time it takes to check amps.
You need to measure the power (there I said it again) over sufficient time for that difference (if it exists) to addup to something readily demonstrable.

The Company's meter does not measure amps it measures energy by monitoring the power and aggregating it over time to display the energy.

We also need some pictures of the meter, if only to eliminate it from our enquiries as the police say.

 

Take the cover off your main breaker panel, shoot a good photo of all the wires and upload it. I once bought an old house that only had a 60 amp service entrance, someone ran an electric dryer to the mains before the main breaker. If you have something like that maybe we can spot it in the photo.

Will do!

Just not sure why a problem/upward spiral would not have been there all along, or one of the many electricians wouldn't see it - if there is a total wire screw up...we had 5 years here with usage/bills comparable to all neighbors...until 2005 - no major anything in the house that year - just a new pole outside...!

 

We really do understand and sympathise with your situation.

But

128 posts and you still seem reluctant to work through systematically to solve the problem.

Each time I have suggested something it has brought useful new information, but taken you a lot of agonising before you actually carried out the simple suggested checks, instead putting lots of effort into other things.

If there are wires into your property you need to know what each and every one does.

Hire a clamp-on current meter and then you will be able to safely measure the current in each one.

Make a list and Log it.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=.....1ac.1.34.heirloom-hp..1.21.1375.v_cbc_SrzFs

When you say hire, do you mean rent?
Is this the same as the amp meter? We did this and plugged in major appliances and read amps, kWh used and volts as well for a day each.

No one has suggested or done:::

Is there any way or reason to check the outlets??? Would that show anything? I know that you can check to see that they are 'live', but can you check to see if they are HOT? In other words, arching or ?? Just not enough to trip the breaker?

 

I think I have answered all posted Questions...Now I need to make the kids some breakfast and hopefully be able to do some of the 'undone to-do's' rec'd here today...photos and upload!

Have a great day! Thank you all!

 

You are still not listening.

I said a POWER meter.

I also said for as long as bearable because there will only be a tiny difference over the time it takes to check amps.
You need to measure the power (there I said it again) over sufficient time for that difference (if it exists) to addup to something readily demonstrable.

The Company's meter does not measure amps it measures energy by monitoring the power and aggregating it over time to display the energy.

We also need some pictures of the meter, if only to eliminate it from our enquiries as the police say.

1) Ourselves: Checked out from the library a device that read amps, kilowatts and a couple other things - we hooked (plugged the appliance into it and then plugged it into the wall) that to freezers etc... all presumable checked out - we had our neighbor a retired electrician check it with us and show how to interpret..

2) A hired electrician : Checked the breakers individually for 'highs' and checked when furnace etc were actually running...all presumably checked out within normal ranges

3) A Hired electrician: hung a device on the lines to the furnace, water heater and clothes dryer....this was a monitoring device that they left in place for 3 or 4 days. It was a device that was very hard to get a hold of (they borrowed from a power company) Apparently not something your average electrician has...very expensive. It allows the objects energy use to not only be read, monitored and the data stored and then retrieved with the right software program, then available to analyze...all checked out within normal operating range.

4) Electric company: Used a voltage meter to check the volts at the outside connection - at the meter

5) Electric company: Attached a monitor to the meter outside for a total of 10 days (+/- 1 or 2 days) The results, according to them, which I posted the graphs etc. showed exactly what we have, a huge amount of usage being recorded by the meter.

I believe one poster commented that the 'resting' range for house was at a high point (higher than what you would see for a residence?) and that the spikes when appliances ran, went way high....his post referencing the graphs I shared.


So this POWER meter you reference, is this something that I can personally get, is it something that the electrician needs to provide and run?

Do I hook it to the appliance, breaker lines ? Sorry, I don't know.

I completely agree about the time thing - I had asked that they leave the monitor on the exterior meter for a 30 day (they did about 10) billing cycle in order to 'catch' any highs or lows throughout the month.
Also, I wished that we could do the expensive monitoring on all the lines...the electrician was supposed to return and do some more lines off the breaker panel but hasn't.

So the Power meter, where do I get it and what do I connect it.?
Is this the clamp on current meter referenced or the megger insulation check?

 

I wanted to tell as well of another thing I did about a year ago and again last summer - I recorded what our meter said every hour for 24 hours. I had done this to watch for something telling about our usage, maybe pinpoint the 'problem' way back when...it showed me that our highest usage times were when the kids were napping (6 kWh) - quiet house, at night when we had gone to bed, and when we weren't home.....totally didn't follow the busy times of the house...the nighttime had an hour after all were asleep, nothing major running and our kWh spike up to like 7 for the hour after lights out. The rest of the days readings were from 2 (at 2 in the a.m.) to 3 or 4 kWh...

Sooo..

We also shut the entire house off a couple of times at night to see if we could see a neighbors house go black...none did that we could see, or if a streetlight went out, none did. So then we moved onto checking the individual appliances with the gizmo from the library - we called the electrician and had him check the breaker box and so on and so on and so on....

 

I wanted to tell as well of another thing I did about a year ago and again last summer - I recorded what our meter said every hour for 24 hours. I had done this to watch for something telling about our usage, maybe pinpoint the 'problem' way back when...it showed me that our highest usage times were when the kids were napping (6 kWh) - quiet house, at night when we had gone to bed, and when we weren't home.....totally didn't follow the busy times of the house...the nighttime had an hour after all were asleep, nothing major running and our kWh spike up to like 7 for the hour after lights out. The rest of the days readings were from 2 (at 2 in the a.m.) to 3 or 4 kWh...

Sooo..

We also shut the entire house off a couple of times at night to see if we could see a neighbors house go black...none did that we could see, or if a streetlight went out, none did. So then we moved onto checking the individual appliances with the gizmo from the library - we called the electrician and had him check the breaker box and so on and so on and so on....

I think I will shut the house off again for another chunk of time - as suggested -this time from say 9 p.m. to midnight...I can't decipher on the graphs provided by the meter monitoring what specific times of day we had some very high usage times...regularly - maybe we missed it in the 12 - 5 a.m. shut down. Also, 9 p.m. was a time when the kWh's rocketed up despite the house getting dark and quiet for the night..

 

Also, 9 p.m. was a time when the kWh's rocketed up despite the house getting dark and quiet for the night..

Yes this could be a very good time to measure.

1) Ourselves: Checked out from the library a device that read amps, kilowatts and a couple other things - we hooked (plugged the appliance into it and then plugged it into the wall) that to freezers etc... all presumable checked out - we had our neighbor a retired electrician check it with us and show how to interpret..

2) A hired electrician : Checked the breakers individually for 'highs' and checked when furnace etc were actually running...all presumably checked out within normal ranges

3) A Hired electrician: hung a device on the lines to the furnace, water heater and clothes dryer....this was a monitoring device that they left in place for 3 or 4 days. It was a device that was very hard to get a hold of (they borrowed from a power company) Apparently not something your average electrician has...very expensive. It allows the objects energy use to not only be read, monitored and the data stored and then retrieved with the right software program, then available to analyze...all checked out within normal operating range.

4) Electric company: Used a voltage meter to check the volts at the outside connection - at the meter

5) Electric company: Attached a monitor to the meter outside for a total of 10 days (+/- 1 or 2 days) The results, according to them, which I posted the graphs etc. showed exactly what we have, a huge amount of usage being recorded by the meter.

I believe one poster commented that the 'resting' range for house was at a high point (higher than what you would see for a residence?) and that the spikes when appliances ran, went way high....his post referencing the graphs I shared.

All of this is irrelevent.

What you need to test the Company's meter is another meter measuring exactly the same thing so the power passes through the company meter then through your temporary second meter.
Another meter like the Company's will be expensive and uneccessary if you temporarily tuen off all but one circuit and use a cheaper meter. The plug in one will do if you chose the right circuit.

The important thing is that both meters are set to measure the same thing.

Yes in England we say hire something when you say rent it.

Keep those photos coming.

If you have trouble uploading, ask a moderator for help or Email them to me and I will post them for you (let me know if you need this help)
AAC has a reputation for the most helpful forum on the web.

 

Here's something that doesn't make sense:

the local electrician borrowed some super expensive monitor device that you can hang on individual lines, we monitored our furnace and our clothes dryer (these were most suspect of not operating efficiently and that we could not plug in with the amp meter ourselves) for 3 or 4 days...neither one was out of line with what is considered normal. I would need to check my notes, but he had said that the furnace was running about $50 dollars worth per month and the dryer was about $25 - $30

Most of our appliances are GAS - Stove, Dryer, water heater, furnace

If your dryer and furnace are gas, why would they be suspected of being the items that might have raised your electricity bill absurdly high?

Also, the estimate was that these two gas appliances would cost you about $80 per month seems way out of kilter. My entire electrical bill is about $90 per month and that is at a higher rate than you are at.

 

Here's something else that doesn't make sense (to me ).

Low = 1650 kWh $217.84 for April/ May bill
High = 2510 kWh $345.26 for July/August bill
These are at .09 cents per kWh

Presumably the bills involve a standing charge per month, irrespective of usage, but I still can't get the maths to work.
1650 x $.09 = $148.5, leaving $69.34 unaccounted for.
2510 x $.09 = $225.9, leaving $119.36 unaccounted for.
Why the big difference between those two unaccounted figures?

 

Good question Alec.

I will petition Adam to change your handle to

The Accountant.

 

Does this link at all relate to what you are dealing with?
http://xcelenergy.com/staticfiles/xe/Regulatory/Regulatory PDFs/rates/MN/Me_Section_5.pdf
If it does, no wonder no one can figure out your bill.

 

It was my veiled suggestion that someone tapped into your power at your house! I know this is highly unlikely, but would explain a lot. If you disconnected everything in your house that uses electricity and your meter is still moving...
Many major electrical items are hardwired into your home, baseboards, water heaters etc. so this could be tough. Don't forget about that vampire power and phantom loads. Unplug.

 

I wanted to tell as well of another thing I did about a year ago and again last summer - I recorded what our meter said every hour for 24 hours. I had done this to watch for something telling about our usage, maybe pinpoint the 'problem' way back when...it showed me that our highest usage times were when the kids were napping (6 kWh) - quiet house, at night when we had gone to bed, and when we weren't home.....totally didn't follow the busy times of the house...the nighttime had an hour after all were asleep, nothing major running and our kWh spike up to like 7 for the hour after lights out. The rest of the days readings were from 2 (at 2 in the a.m.) to 3 or 4 kWh...

You should have one of these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/UNI-T-UT210...493?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e9f10c9ed

It doesn't have to be this one; just a clamp-on ammeter. They're not expensive.

Then, when you find the kWh spike occurs at an unexpected time, you can use the clamp meter to find out just what circuit is drawing the excessive power.

 

Yes this could be a very good time to measure.



All of this is irrelevent.

What you need to test the Company's meter is another meter measuring exactly the same thing so the power passes through the company meter then through your temporary second meter.
Another meter like the Company's will be expensive and uneccessary if you temporarily tuen off all but one circuit and use a cheaper meter. The plug in one will do if you chose the right circuit.

The important thing is that both meters are set to measure the same thing.

Yes in England we say hire something when you say rent it.

Keep those photos coming.

If you have trouble uploading, ask a moderator for help or Email them to me and I will post them for you (let me know if you need this help)
AAC has a reputation for the most helpful forum on the web.

I have the photos...will attempt to up/download.

 

You should have one of these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/UNI-T-UT210...493?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e9f10c9ed

It doesn't have to be this one; just a clamp-on ammeter. They're not expensive.

Then, when you find the kWh spike occurs at an unexpected time, you can use the clamp meter to find out just what circuit is drawing the excessive power.

 

Photos