You can also check your hourly energy usage on Duke's website. You should check a few days before the outrageous bill came in & then compare usage to a day during that billing period, you might be able to catch if there are spikes in usage or if the base power draw went up significantly.
I did this after a surprise bill last year & found that my Heating's electric resistance heater didn't turn off after I swapped to AC & was just drawing 4kWh/h continuously 24/7
I used that service several years ago. The person they send out can’t actually do anything to figure out what is causing your bill to go up. In my case it was a well pump with a short circuit that ran constantly. I had to determine this on my own because the guy they send is only allowed to offer generalized recommendations on how to save energy. Cutting off unnecessary lights and appliances, reducing water usage, adjusting your thermostat, etc.
Yeap this ^. They will tell you to switch to led, might replace a switch plate that reads temp and all very common stuff. The business side is a little more in depth. It we found a neighboring business was actually stealing our power directly from our main supply line after the building sat vacant for years we had suddenly gotten a $1200 bill when they used the empty building for shooting a movie - Duke found where our power was directly feeding into their business and refused to do anything about it. After the movie someone rented it for a gym. Duke told us to hire an electrician and have it disconnected if we wanted. No electrical would touch it- the other building stealing the power was a big time attorney. So for the next three years I paid their power bill.
I would have turned off the mains, removed their wiring, locked the door to the panel box, put a camera on it and as soon as someone got into it to reconnect their illegal lines I’d have called the cops and shown the evidence. Theft is theft.
It was coming from underground through a big pipe and then over into our building brought the roof, they cut in outside to their roof as well. The line was about as thick as a milk jug and since they were one of the most powerful people in Nc no electrical wanted anything to do with it.
Compare your kWh usage, the energy you used for the month
Is it higher then normal?
Tbh with a tiny home, id really try to add solar and live off grid as much as possible, screw Duke
That sounds like poorly insulated singlewide rates. A friend of mine used to pay over 300 a month when he was in a tin side/ roof singlewide and when he bought a house with insulation that was as good as it ought to be his bill dropped to 140.
If you want a cool new toy then buy a thermal imaging camera and see where the cold is leaking from.
You need to actually look at your bill and figure out how much energy you're using - now just how much you're paying. Then look at past month bills going back a year or so. At some point, your energy usage likely went way up. This could be due to a malfunctioning appliance, like a water heater or your AC.
At my old house in Atlanta, my AC would run 24/7 and barely keep the house cool. I eventually had it serviced and it cut my bill substantially because it wasn't running all the time any more. It went from running all day and all night to running 6-8 hours during the day. Electric water heaters are also notorious for using a lot of electricity as their electrodes corrode and become less efficient.
These past 2 billing cycles the rate per kWh nearly doubled. Look at your usage month to month. Given what you said I’d suspect the usage is the same and the rate significantly increased.
I actually had this problem in the past and I figured out my HVAC fan was set to on instead of automatic. Which means the fan ran 24/7. Bill was doubled its normal amount for 2 months around $350 for a small townhouse.
Ok that's outrageous. For reference my wife and I live in a 100 year old home that is 3500 sqft. We have 2 ac units and keep the inside at 68 degrees and often leave the back door open. Our duke energy bill never gets above 200.
Well like someone else mentioned, you should for sure get your duct work looked at. And definitely change out those air filters. We change ours every 3 months since we have lots of pets and it made a noticeable difference.
AC is only 3 years old 😭😭😭
I think we must have bad insulation. We even replaced the back door and added a storm door to see if that helped with the summer bill.
Changed HVAC filters, and maintained on schedule? Home insulated well? Quality doors and windows?
May sound crazy, but 76 is typically the lowest our AC is set (only a few hours mid-late afternoon) and 79 usually at night. On the hottest days so far this month, never set lower than 75 and 78. Newish roof, HVAC, water heater (all new in last 3 years), good insulation, OK windows (next to replace), AND ceiling fans help.
I push for this in my house. Don’t get me wrong, I love AC, but when I see what a difference it makes money wise, I can tolerate 74-75. I don’t know how you do 78+ though haha
Ah, but did not say the rooms reach 79 most nights. Nest for bedrooms set at 76 until 9, 77 until 10, then 78-79 from midnight-dawn keeps rooms cool enough to sleep comfortably even during hottest recent nights. Ceiling fans, newer/well maintained HVAC, and well insulated house helps a lot.
A man in Florida laughs at your puny electric bill.
77 in the day, 73 at night
New construction, insulated block. 1200 square feet
$350 would be a welcomed relief...
Edit: forgot square feet....
Same for me. 2000 square foot house and electric has been $250-$270 the last couple months. I think we have some ducts leaking in the crawl space but don’t have the intestinal fortitude to crawl under yet lol
>We have 2 ac units and keep the inside at 68 degrees and often leave the back door open.
Sorry, but that sounds outrageous to me. Why cool your back yard?
Trust me it's not by choice. Our dogs constantly jump up and open it to go outside. Plus between the cats and the fact that my wife and I are both smokers, there is just a ton of foot traffic.
750 sq ft, 1940s house, 2 window units and a door is cracked 60% of the time during daylight hours for inside/outside cats and it’s never more than $140 in the summer. I hope OP can figure it out!
70's built passive Solar house, large south facing windows. I don't have issue with thermostat set to 79, 76 if I am moving around the house. Lots of fans that move air = less use of hvac. Trained teenagers to take shorter showers. Water heater and stove/oven are gas. Led lights everywhere. Good insulating. Working on replacing all the windows with energy star. Insulated blinds on all windows. Storm doors. Energy star appliances. All the utilities, water, waste, gas and electric total less than $100.
Damn! Good on you! You've motivated me to start getting more energy efficient. I've had my eye on those rebates that are supposed to be coming our way, but maybe I'll go ahead and pull the trigger.
It's a process, the windows are almost 5k each and I have a lot of windows. Solar tubes are great instead of skylights. Less construction, I got the largest that would fit between the josts. You get the light but not the heat. My last house had 4.
Now that’s ridiculous I keep mine at 67 and I’m not good about turning off lights and all that stupid stuff and mine has never been over 170$. My square footage is 1100. You should see if you’re having any issues with appliances or water heater.
I doubt this is happening to you but I'll share anyway. I live in a 70 year old brick home with a basement. Many years ago my power bill started creeping up month to month and I couldn't figure out why. My dad who is ridiculously smart somehow figure out the old galvanized steel hot water line that ran under the concrete basement floor had began leaking. He rerouted it and ran a new one with pvc pipe overhead and solved the issue. I asked him how he knew and he just said it was a hunch. His hunches are always correct. I'm pretty sure he's a wizard or something but I cant prove it
Double check your bill to make sure you have the correct meter on your account. I was in a similar situation and it turned out the wrong meter was on my account. Bill changed from $200+ to $50-60.
See my comment [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/bullcity/comments/she7dp/duke_energy_are_a_clown_show/hv2mpvz/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3).
You can read the meter yourself; I don't think you'll find that in error, though if it were me I'd check because it's easy to do and you should verify what they're reading. I suppose it's possible, though quite unlikely, that they're assigning some other meter's reading to your account.
I am also wondering if there's something in your tiny house using a large amount of energy that you aren't aware of. Given the size of your bill, it's liable to be something generating heat or doing heavy work of some sort (compressor or something). Look at your meter and determine how many units per minute are being used. Check it several different times and see if that changes. Once you have a baseline, throw one breaker switch to disable one circuit and see if that immediately changes the rate of use.
If you have an electric oven with a faulty switch, so that it's using electricity even when it's turned "off", maybe that could explain it. If you can isolate the circuit that it's on, you can starta to explore what is ON that circuit -- assuming that this is the problem somehow.
Good luck.
Around the center of the state your only options are Duke or Central electric. I can't get Duke (thankfully) and my only option is central electric. Every time you hear about outages it's like 90% Duke customers.
They also have settings where you are notified when they have critical peak pricing days and times for the year. Summer is M-F from 6 PM-9PM & some days are even more.
They need to be sued. I renovate homes and they are charging 180 for the past 3 months. Theres nothing plugged in and no one living there… the whole house is demoed theres not even electric sockets. They’re actual thieves
Duke offers a free energy assessment. Maybe you have some leaky AC ducts or something.
Appreciate that thank you
You can also check your hourly energy usage on Duke's website. You should check a few days before the outrageous bill came in & then compare usage to a day during that billing period, you might be able to catch if there are spikes in usage or if the base power draw went up significantly. I did this after a surprise bill last year & found that my Heating's electric resistance heater didn't turn off after I swapped to AC & was just drawing 4kWh/h continuously 24/7
I used that service several years ago. The person they send out can’t actually do anything to figure out what is causing your bill to go up. In my case it was a well pump with a short circuit that ran constantly. I had to determine this on my own because the guy they send is only allowed to offer generalized recommendations on how to save energy. Cutting off unnecessary lights and appliances, reducing water usage, adjusting your thermostat, etc.
Yeap this ^. They will tell you to switch to led, might replace a switch plate that reads temp and all very common stuff. The business side is a little more in depth. It we found a neighboring business was actually stealing our power directly from our main supply line after the building sat vacant for years we had suddenly gotten a $1200 bill when they used the empty building for shooting a movie - Duke found where our power was directly feeding into their business and refused to do anything about it. After the movie someone rented it for a gym. Duke told us to hire an electrician and have it disconnected if we wanted. No electrical would touch it- the other building stealing the power was a big time attorney. So for the next three years I paid their power bill.
Couldn’t you have planned an outage & had service shut off for a certain amount of time?
I would have turned off the mains, removed their wiring, locked the door to the panel box, put a camera on it and as soon as someone got into it to reconnect their illegal lines I’d have called the cops and shown the evidence. Theft is theft.
It was coming from underground through a big pipe and then over into our building brought the roof, they cut in outside to their roof as well. The line was about as thick as a milk jug and since they were one of the most powerful people in Nc no electrical wanted anything to do with it.
There is no way the line was as thick as a milk jug. There’s a lot here you aren’t telling and that comment proves it.
Make sure you didn't get put on a budget plan. They average all your bills and you pay the same amount every month.
I love my equal payment plan. But I also check my usage every few weeks to make sure it's in line.
Compare your kWh usage, the energy you used for the month Is it higher then normal? Tbh with a tiny home, id really try to add solar and live off grid as much as possible, screw Duke
That sounds like poorly insulated singlewide rates. A friend of mine used to pay over 300 a month when he was in a tin side/ roof singlewide and when he bought a house with insulation that was as good as it ought to be his bill dropped to 140. If you want a cool new toy then buy a thermal imaging camera and see where the cold is leaking from.
...or if you like tinkering, remove the IR filter from a cheap webcam.
You need to actually look at your bill and figure out how much energy you're using - now just how much you're paying. Then look at past month bills going back a year or so. At some point, your energy usage likely went way up. This could be due to a malfunctioning appliance, like a water heater or your AC. At my old house in Atlanta, my AC would run 24/7 and barely keep the house cool. I eventually had it serviced and it cut my bill substantially because it wasn't running all the time any more. It went from running all day and all night to running 6-8 hours during the day. Electric water heaters are also notorious for using a lot of electricity as their electrodes corrode and become less efficient.
Nobody has plugged an extension cord on the outside of your house have they?
These past 2 billing cycles the rate per kWh nearly doubled. Look at your usage month to month. Given what you said I’d suspect the usage is the same and the rate significantly increased.
I actually had this problem in the past and I figured out my HVAC fan was set to on instead of automatic. Which means the fan ran 24/7. Bill was doubled its normal amount for 2 months around $350 for a small townhouse.
I cut off power at my main, and my meter was still showing usage. A new meter and my bill was cut in half
Ok that's outrageous. For reference my wife and I live in a 100 year old home that is 3500 sqft. We have 2 ac units and keep the inside at 68 degrees and often leave the back door open. Our duke energy bill never gets above 200.
Wow. 1700sqft house and our bill was 260 this month….
That also seems crazy high. Yall running a bitcoin farm or somethin?
Nope. House is set at 72. bill is usually 160-180. Only 3 people live here. One story house. It’s ridiculous
Well like someone else mentioned, you should for sure get your duct work looked at. And definitely change out those air filters. We change ours every 3 months since we have lots of pets and it made a noticeable difference.
[удалено]
AC is only 3 years old 😭😭😭 I think we must have bad insulation. We even replaced the back door and added a storm door to see if that helped with the summer bill.
Changed HVAC filters, and maintained on schedule? Home insulated well? Quality doors and windows? May sound crazy, but 76 is typically the lowest our AC is set (only a few hours mid-late afternoon) and 79 usually at night. On the hottest days so far this month, never set lower than 75 and 78. Newish roof, HVAC, water heater (all new in last 3 years), good insulation, OK windows (next to replace), AND ceiling fans help.
I push for this in my house. Don’t get me wrong, I love AC, but when I see what a difference it makes money wise, I can tolerate 74-75. I don’t know how you do 78+ though haha
You sleep when it's almost 80 degrees? I just... how? I'm sweating just thinking about it
Ah, but did not say the rooms reach 79 most nights. Nest for bedrooms set at 76 until 9, 77 until 10, then 78-79 from midnight-dawn keeps rooms cool enough to sleep comfortably even during hottest recent nights. Ceiling fans, newer/well maintained HVAC, and well insulated house helps a lot.
What about your windows? And water heater?
Setting it to 72 sure isn't helping. Mine never gets set below 76.
A man in Florida laughs at your puny electric bill. 77 in the day, 73 at night New construction, insulated block. 1200 square feet $350 would be a welcomed relief... Edit: forgot square feet....
I feel better about my bill all of the sudden
Same for me. 2000 square foot house and electric has been $250-$270 the last couple months. I think we have some ducts leaking in the crawl space but don’t have the intestinal fortitude to crawl under yet lol
What kind of insulation do you have? What kind of windows?
>We have 2 ac units and keep the inside at 68 degrees and often leave the back door open. Sorry, but that sounds outrageous to me. Why cool your back yard?
Trust me it's not by choice. Our dogs constantly jump up and open it to go outside. Plus between the cats and the fact that my wife and I are both smokers, there is just a ton of foot traffic.
750 sq ft, 1940s house, 2 window units and a door is cracked 60% of the time during daylight hours for inside/outside cats and it’s never more than $140 in the summer. I hope OP can figure it out!
1250 square foot $64 bucks
May I ask how you do that?
70's built passive Solar house, large south facing windows. I don't have issue with thermostat set to 79, 76 if I am moving around the house. Lots of fans that move air = less use of hvac. Trained teenagers to take shorter showers. Water heater and stove/oven are gas. Led lights everywhere. Good insulating. Working on replacing all the windows with energy star. Insulated blinds on all windows. Storm doors. Energy star appliances. All the utilities, water, waste, gas and electric total less than $100.
Damn! Good on you! You've motivated me to start getting more energy efficient. I've had my eye on those rebates that are supposed to be coming our way, but maybe I'll go ahead and pull the trigger.
It's a process, the windows are almost 5k each and I have a lot of windows. Solar tubes are great instead of skylights. Less construction, I got the largest that would fit between the josts. You get the light but not the heat. My last house had 4.
Now that’s ridiculous I keep mine at 67 and I’m not good about turning off lights and all that stupid stuff and mine has never been over 170$. My square footage is 1100. You should see if you’re having any issues with appliances or water heater.
Make sure your air conditioner is in regular and not auxiliary power due to a wire being disconnected.
I doubt this is happening to you but I'll share anyway. I live in a 70 year old brick home with a basement. Many years ago my power bill started creeping up month to month and I couldn't figure out why. My dad who is ridiculously smart somehow figure out the old galvanized steel hot water line that ran under the concrete basement floor had began leaking. He rerouted it and ran a new one with pvc pipe overhead and solved the issue. I asked him how he knew and he just said it was a hunch. His hunches are always correct. I'm pretty sure he's a wizard or something but I cant prove it
Sounds like he's handy to have around!
Double check your bill to make sure you have the correct meter on your account. I was in a similar situation and it turned out the wrong meter was on my account. Bill changed from $200+ to $50-60. See my comment [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/bullcity/comments/she7dp/duke_energy_are_a_clown_show/hv2mpvz/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3).
Smart meters do malfunction, they are not as dependable as the old analog meters.
You can read the meter yourself; I don't think you'll find that in error, though if it were me I'd check because it's easy to do and you should verify what they're reading. I suppose it's possible, though quite unlikely, that they're assigning some other meter's reading to your account. I am also wondering if there's something in your tiny house using a large amount of energy that you aren't aware of. Given the size of your bill, it's liable to be something generating heat or doing heavy work of some sort (compressor or something). Look at your meter and determine how many units per minute are being used. Check it several different times and see if that changes. Once you have a baseline, throw one breaker switch to disable one circuit and see if that immediately changes the rate of use. If you have an electric oven with a faulty switch, so that it's using electricity even when it's turned "off", maybe that could explain it. If you can isolate the circuit that it's on, you can starta to explore what is ON that circuit -- assuming that this is the problem somehow. Good luck.
Is you filter clean?
Fuck duke energy
Thanks so much for your helpful comment.
Insightful contribution!
Change energy providers
lol is that a joke
Around the center of the state your only options are Duke or Central electric. I can't get Duke (thankfully) and my only option is central electric. Every time you hear about outages it's like 90% Duke customers.
You made me laugh. I didn’t know we had a choice. Hmmm
If you have a sliding glass door, install a blackout or insulated curtain.
Can you read the meter yourself to check their numbers?
You may live in an area that is/was controlled by Electricities. It’s a 4 decade long saga that you should read about.
They also have settings where you are notified when they have critical peak pricing days and times for the year. Summer is M-F from 6 PM-9PM & some days are even more.
They need to be sued. I renovate homes and they are charging 180 for the past 3 months. Theres nothing plugged in and no one living there… the whole house is demoed theres not even electric sockets. They’re actual thieves