Duke Energy High Bill?

ckruzer

ckruzer

Infidel
Joined
Jul 2, 2015
Location
asheville nc
Anyone else get an unexplainable high bill that doesnt make sense?
 
Well it was cold as fuck a couple days if you didn’t notice.
 
Many utilities send you estimated usage bills January thru November. The December bill is a make up bill for you or them. Sounds like this year it was for them.
 
Our December bill was higher than I expected, but it was cold, we have a fair number of Christmas lights, we also added an electric space heater to the garage where Olaf the outdoor cat sleeps in his little heated house.
 
68 a month in the winter.
120 a month in summer.

No change.
 
The rate increase didnt get approved, and even if it did wouldnt explain a 250% increase in bill.

Heater only ran about 30% (can prove this) more than usual for the **8** days that the extreme cold happened for the total 33 days of the bill cycle. Other than that Dec has been no worse than Nov, which was a $100 bill. We are looking at a $333 bill

This also seems to be a big issue being experienced by a lot duke energy customers.
 
Just checked mine...$183 and change. We keep ours around 70 when we are home and it drops to 65 when we aren't home. Had the upstairs unit on/off for guests. Christmas lights/trees etc as well. Our usual bill is around 125 or so.
 
Like I said before, it's likely Jan thru nov were artificially low due to estimated usage bills and December is where they make it up. Look at your previous bills. It usually says "estimated" usage. This is the case for me but I don't have Duke.
 
YJJPWrangler said:
Just checked mine...$183 and change. We keep ours around 70 when we are home and it drops to 65 when we aren't home. Had the upstairs unit on/off for guests. Christmas lights/trees etc as well. Our usual bill is around 125 or so.
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We keep ours around 66-67 throughout the day, and around 69 for the afternoon, then back down for the night.
 
rockcity said:
Like I said before, it's likely Jan thru nov were artificially low due to estimated usage bills and December is where they make it up. Look at your previous bills. It usually says "estimated" usage. This is the case for me but I don't have Duke.
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We're not on one of those type plans. We pay the actual meter reading each month
.
 
ckruzer said:
We're not on one of those type plans. We pay the actual meter reading each month
.
Click to expand...
sounds like fuck stick cant reed a meeter for shit
 
Usually run $120/mo for Duke and $20/mo for Natural gas. Last bill Duke was $88 and natural gas was $98. But we ran our fireplace a lot more this month.
 
ckruzer said:
We're not on one of those type plans. We pay the actual meter reading each month
.
Click to expand...


No idea then. Maybe your neighbor is using your power or something. That's the only other suggestion I have other than comparing this month with previous month's usage and rates.

Remember, peak use times are more $ per kWh than say, at 2pm when there is less demand. That may be a factor as well. It's hard to say.
 
The heat strips kick on every time the heat pump goes into defrost mode which occurs often with sub freezing temps. Much more often the more often the unit defrosts.
 
ckruzer said:
We're not on one of those type plans. We pay the actual meter reading each month
.
Click to expand...


Even if you arent on a balanced bill plan, at times Duke will still not rad your meter and estimate usage one month and then read it and balance the next month. So for example lets say you used
125kwh in Nov and 135 kwh in December. They didnt read your meter in November and estimated it at 100kwh. Then in December you get billed 160kwh.

This happens less in areas where they've gone to wireless meter reading but even then there are times when the tech fails and they process.


Its also possible you have a heat pump failing and surge shorting or other such electrical problem...eard a story once of a complex partial short to ground under freeze conditions only that took one of the best electricians Ive ever known months to find.
 
Dec = $301.39
Nov = $196.54

We have a dual fuel unit downstairs, so when it gets too cold for the heat pump to function, the gas turns on.
 
drkelly said:
Dec = $301.39
Nov = $196.54

We have a dual fuel unit downstairs, so when it gets too cold for the heat pump to function, the gas turns on.
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we dont have dual fuel. so if the owner installed a not very cold rated pump it would have been running non stop i suppose in defrost mode?
 
It will cycle between normal operation and defrost when the coils get cold enough or however the frost detection system works. You'll hear the HP reverse flow to heat the coils. (Kinda swoosh noise or pressure flow noise). Also the fan will shut off but the compressor continues to run. It turns on the heat strips so it doesn't blow cold air for the duration of the defrost cycle. It is not supposed to stay in defrost mode. If it does, something is wrong with the system. I'd call someone that does that every day to perform a diagnostic inspection.

That's my understanding of the heating/defrost cycling.
 
drkelly said:
We have a dual fuel unit downstairs, so when it gets too cold for the heat pump to function, the gas turns on.
Click to expand...

Recently had an ME talk me out of dual-fuel heat pumps. He said it's a lot cheaper to run the gas full-time than use the blended system. I've since run the numbers on a couple of different cost estimators, and they back it up. Might give it a try and see what it does for you.
 
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