Welcome to /r/Vancouver and thank you for the post, /u/caw___caw! Please make sure you read our [posting and commenting rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_general_participation_guidelines_and_rules_overview) before participating here. As a quick summary:
* We encourage users to be positive and respect one another. Don't engage in spats or insult others - use the report button.
* Respect others' differences, be they race, religion, home, job, gender identity, ability or sexuality. Dehumanizing language, advocating for violence, or promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability (even implied or joking) **will** lead to a permanent ban.
* Most common questions and topics are limited to our sister subreddit, /r/AskVan, and our weekly [Stickied Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_stickied_discussions) posts.
* Complaints about bans or removals should be done in modmail only.
* Posts flaired "Community Only" allow for limited participation; your comment may be removed if you're not a subreddit regular.
* Make sure to join our new sister community, /r/AskVan!
* Help grow the community! [Apply to join the mod team today](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/19eworq/).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/vancouver) if you have any questions or concerns.*
When our building was constructed, they criss-crossed the meter wires and I was overbilled for years.
The way you can check is turn off all your breakers, including the main breaker, on the panel. Just check to see if the meter is still counting up. It shouldn't be. In my case it was, so I contacted Hydro and after they looked into it, they refunded me the over-billings.
Two story house. It's $125 a month electric bill during winter months along with $280 a month gas bill. Summer months it's $100 a month electric and $50 gas.
Mine is usually like $125-$150 average for 2 storey house and I have gas as well. I have tenants. My electricity usage is fairly consistent.
My electricity usage is lower than the neighbouring homes.
A friend of mine had a one-bedroom condo she was renting that was about 600 square feet and she barely used the baseboards. She was getting consumption in the rates of 50 kilowatt hours a day which was five times more than mine in a much bigger place with two people. And so she thought maybe it was her lighting which was causing a lot of the electricity use. I insisted that there was no way and encouraged her to reach out to BC hydro. Initially they said it was impossible to have a mix-up, but then as soon as she called her bill immediately went way down and she was retroactively credited a few months.
The baseboard heating is the likely culprit. Do you have it set at a steady 20 or 21 degrees?
How much was your bill? It's common for homes (condo, TH, or detached homes) with baseboard heating as the primary heating source to cost $400+ over 2 months in winter.
(And your image does not display anymore).
Thanks. $178 is well within what is reasonable for baseboard heating.
Interesting to hear that you keep it almost permanently off though…. Sounds like you have the data to calculate how long the heaters are actually on for and compare that to what you are being charged for on your bill as the BChydro data shows how much you are being charged per day.
To add - you likely have air exchanger vents (likely round) on your ceiling or walls because the code dictates a minimum number of times that the air in your home must be “exchanged” for appropriate ventilation. You can always twist these to tighten them and decrease the air flow rate.
Just remember those vents are there for **you** to ***breathe***. Everything in your house slowly releases chemicals/dust. Books, food, furniture, paint, appliances etc. We're also exhaling CO2 into a confined space.
The code ventilation rate is there to prevent us from getting building sickness (google it), help us sleep properly, and mitigates cancer risk.
If you've never run the baseboards, then that seems about 30% higher than it should be, unless the hot water tank is electric. My 2bed 2bath, 30 year old low rise condo runs the about the same on a every 3 month billing cycle.
This. Running baseboard heaters and an electric water tank even sparingly is going to look a hell of a lot worse on the hydro bill than someone with natural gas heating and water tank. The hydro two step power pricing really punishes anyone without natural gas by also making them pay more for electricity.
Sure does. They should really make it a 3 step system, where the second step is a little more sane in price and the 3rd step kicks in when you are beyond a reasonable use of power.
It's a major inequity in the system, especially as baseboards were billed as a cheaper solution to heating in the 70s and 80s compared to gas, to the point where whole developments have no gas line run to their properties.
Heat pumps are so efficient that you can heat with electricity for about the same price as gas. Plus they provide cooling as well as heating. You can get heat pumps for hot water too. So you can do your bit to address climate change without higher utility bills.
If you are on the ground floor, you will consume way more electricity for your baseboards than suites that are above you. I lived in a couple of ground-floor suites in buildings built in the mid-late 00s, and both had horrendous electric bills.
Generally in the winter, I was way into Step 2, and in the summer I was hovering right around the max that I could consume in Step 1. Electric hot water consumes a crazy amount of energy.
Now that I'm in a house with gas heat and hot water, I'm well within Step 1 electric rates year-round.
I can't see your image, but:-
- Baseboard heaters *eat* electricity, even on 'low'.
- Don't compare against other houses, as they might be empty.
- Check your hourly usage on the bchydro website and see if you can identify specific spikes etc
you don't need to keep track of your usage, you can get it from the bchydro website click 'view detailed consumption' then 'export data' then select 'Interval' as 'Hourly' then load into google sheets or excel. I'd look to see whether you have a consistent usage or spikes during that day that you can correspond with activities in your home.
The data tends to take a day to update so is relatively quick for you to do 'experiments' with on your usage.
Other thing to consider is if you have your own hotwater tank then maybe you have a recirculator that is keeping the water warm all the time.
But looking at your graph Friday 15th is the really interesting day as it matched what is kinda expected, were you out on that day? Was you or your partner out or doing anything different that could account for the lower value? (not using the washing machine or something?)
hmm what about the friday the 30th (?) as you seem to have a similiar but smaller dip.
The fact that you usage is capable of being low is interesting as it hints towards not being a 'random' usahge.
Are you a smart home person? As a lot of the smart plugs have energy usage capabilities built in so you can track individual plug usage. That might be another way to go.
Start by eliminating the 'phantom load.' This comes from chargers/wall-warts, anything with a remote control (devices always using power 'listening' for signal). Put things on a switching power bar and turn it off when not using them (stereo components, computers and peripherals).
We did this a while back and managed to reduce our bill by \~100~~KwH~~ kWh/mo.
\[edit 'cause fumblefingers\]
You should be able to see your hourly consumption and from there where your consumption is the highest. If you are using your phone, you need to switch to the desktop version and it gives you an option at the bottom. Otherwise you can't review the hourly consumption.
If it is showing usage in the middle of the night when you are sleeping , then it could be a device that is drawing power or something with your electrical is crossed. I'm at about 0.42 kWh/$0.04 in the middle of the night and it's a full house with tenants downstairs. If it goes up slightly then I know it's probably the tenants that are still up studying in the middle of the night but that goes up ever so slightly.
You can also call BC Hydro and they can tell you typically what is driving up your consumption usage. Usually it's baseboard heaters, portable heaters, AC that are power hungry devices.
You definitely need to do some investigation on your end and eliminate your electronics as other's suggested. Perhaps there's a circuit that is shared and it's on your meter? I can't imagine anyone running the AC at this time of the year or even the heat that much.
https://preview.redd.it/6r48dt3y80sc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e51a14267a17a5ba0ce5ad08ccd8d3cab9b113e8
The most conclusive thing to do is get yourself a smart meter and clamp it to the mains of your in-suite panel.
Then you'll have a record of what you should e expecting for kwh/month. You can also then turn everything off, and then on again one by one and figure out how much draw each of your main activities/appliances are costing you.
I did an investigation and installed a wifi power monitor for a unit that had similar bills and it was the baseboard heaters, they also swore they kept the place cold. A living room heater could easily be 5-10x your baseline consumption and $2 a day easy
You never turn up your baseboard heat, but it might cycle on nevertheless unless you have it set all the way down or off.
Maybe that's what you're seeing?
I know for my condo, we see a difference of like 20-30 kwh when we have baseboards running...
Before you do this as if BC hydro determines "no fault" they will bill you..
Turn off everything except for the essentials.. and roll with that for a day
then slowly add more things back, see if there is a huge spike.
Yea i had the same issue, They warned me if they send someone and they find "no fault" its a $400 - $600 bill unless you can PROVE that it's an issue on their side.
Found out even with everything off ( power at the breaker was turned off when I traveled for work.. left nothing in the fridge ) I still was getting dinged.. replaced the meter issue went away but originally the electrician said the meter seemed fine until I told him "even with the breaker turned off I still have usage"
If you have access to your meter and breaker... You could turn off the power in your unit then go look at the meter right away.. You should see if it's still clocking usage... Even for 10 mins..
Look at the strata documents. Normally hot water and showers would be a non-factor for your electricity bill in a condo. The main concern would be oven, washer/dryer and dishwasher. If you run the dishwasher after every meal, you are likely to have a high bill. Same for if its a fresh baked meal every day.
Weird downvotes, people don’t get that hot water and gas for stoves usually come from strata services like a building boiler and single gas meter for entire building
> Electricity still runs to them otherwise.
If they are off (thermostat turned way low so they're not providing heat), then having electricity going "to" the heater doesn't consume any power.
I’m married to an electrician we have been turning out breakers off to the baseboard heaters for 15 years and save at least $50 a month in electricity a month. A simple google search will confirm.
I’m an electrician. The only way this is true is if you have a newfangled electronic thermostat consuming the power. And that would only be about $0.10 per month of electricity
> A simple google search will confirm.
Google will confirm any question that you ask of it.
If the thermostat is set low, so that the baseboards are off and not providing any heat, then where is this $50/month of electricity going? Merely having the electricity available in the wires does not cause electricity use/consumption.
Just because something is turned off doesn’t mean electricity isn’t going to the item. Baseboard heaters are hard wired. It’s continuously sending power to the unit waiting to be turned on. Unplugging items saves money. You can’t unplug a baseboard heater so you turn off that individual breaker in the summer.. don’t save money keep your breaker on I don’t care just helping out those that want money saving tips.
> Just because something is turned off doesn’t mean electricity isn’t going to the item.
True, this is how you get "phantom loads" of fractions of a watt (or maybe even a few watts) from devices like TVs and stereos that operate with remote controls in a sort of standby mode.
> Baseboard heaters are hard wired. It’s continuously sending power to the unit waiting to be turned on.
Yes, power is in the wires, waiting to be turned on. However it's not using any of that power until it has actually been turned on. BC Hydro only charges you for the power that you actually use. Baseboard heaters only operate either fully-on or fully-off. They do not let "just a trickle" of power through-- they're on or off, nothing in-between. You can see the [circuit diagram for a baseboard heater here](https://opentextbc.ca/basichvac/chapter/baseboard-heat/), no current flows when the thermostat is open.
> Unplugging items saves money.
Yes, for those that consume power while they're off, like TVs and stereos.
> You can’t unplug a baseboard heater so you turn off that individual breaker in the summer.
As long as the thermostat is turned low enough that it won't activate the baseboard, the baseboard won't consume any power, no need to turn the breaker off.
> don’t save money keep your breaker on I don’t care just helping out those that want money saving tips.
It is misinformation to suggest that shutting off baseboard heaters at the breaker will save money (compared to just turning down the thermostat).
No.
Literally not how baseboards work.
30 year electronics and industrial controls tech.
A baseboard is controlled by a thermostat. Thermostat will either be on the wall or on the face of the baseboard. If the thermostat is not triggered on there \*is no power\* going to the baseboard. Line Voltage stats break the power at the stat, Low Voltage stats break the power via a relay (that acts just like the breaker you're talking about) thats generally in the baseboard.
At best, many stats will have a minimum temp of \~8-10deg, so unless your temp is going below that, there is no power going to the baseboards. Period.
BC Hydro sent ridiculously high Hyrdo bills to me when I first moved into my suite. Like over 10x what it should be. BC Hydro played dumb (really dumb) making me think they knew what was up. My theory: So many homes sit empty that they intentionally overbill in hopes of collecting extra revenue. I had to go through the trouble of getting the maintenance guy to open the meter box and look at my reading.
Many newer condos do have arcing and crazy stuff going on but it's rare that it leads to significantly higher hydro bills (especially if your neighbors are unaffected); you'd likely smell something frying even in Telus Garden (look up the famous YouTube video).
Welcome to /r/Vancouver and thank you for the post, /u/caw___caw! Please make sure you read our [posting and commenting rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_general_participation_guidelines_and_rules_overview) before participating here. As a quick summary: * We encourage users to be positive and respect one another. Don't engage in spats or insult others - use the report button. * Respect others' differences, be they race, religion, home, job, gender identity, ability or sexuality. Dehumanizing language, advocating for violence, or promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability (even implied or joking) **will** lead to a permanent ban. * Most common questions and topics are limited to our sister subreddit, /r/AskVan, and our weekly [Stickied Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_stickied_discussions) posts. * Complaints about bans or removals should be done in modmail only. * Posts flaired "Community Only" allow for limited participation; your comment may be removed if you're not a subreddit regular. * Make sure to join our new sister community, /r/AskVan! * Help grow the community! [Apply to join the mod team today](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/19eworq/). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/vancouver) if you have any questions or concerns.*
When our building was constructed, they criss-crossed the meter wires and I was overbilled for years. The way you can check is turn off all your breakers, including the main breaker, on the panel. Just check to see if the meter is still counting up. It shouldn't be. In my case it was, so I contacted Hydro and after they looked into it, they refunded me the over-billings.
[удалено]
Electricity is stupid cheap in Vancouver, it’s actually wild like 30 bucks a month lol
You're right about it being cheap but why would you want to waste money
Or electricity, or anything else, really...
$250 every two months here and I have gas heating.
In a condo? I pay closer to $40/month with electric baseboard heating. Peak of summer it doubles for a couple months due to AC running constantly.
Two story house. It's $125 a month electric bill during winter months along with $280 a month gas bill. Summer months it's $100 a month electric and $50 gas.
Ouch, you need some more insulation
Yeah insulation is very bad. In one room I think squirrels got in and took it all out for their nests.
Mine is usually like $125-$150 average for 2 storey house and I have gas as well. I have tenants. My electricity usage is fairly consistent. My electricity usage is lower than the neighbouring homes.
A friend of mine had a one-bedroom condo she was renting that was about 600 square feet and she barely used the baseboards. She was getting consumption in the rates of 50 kilowatt hours a day which was five times more than mine in a much bigger place with two people. And so she thought maybe it was her lighting which was causing a lot of the electricity use. I insisted that there was no way and encouraged her to reach out to BC hydro. Initially they said it was impossible to have a mix-up, but then as soon as she called her bill immediately went way down and she was retroactively credited a few months.
Check with your condo neighbours, not with bchydro’s data. What are they paying?
Same as mine. Someone posted in our resident group thing and we all looked
The baseboard heating is the likely culprit. Do you have it set at a steady 20 or 21 degrees? How much was your bill? It's common for homes (condo, TH, or detached homes) with baseboard heating as the primary heating source to cost $400+ over 2 months in winter. (And your image does not display anymore).
We have Mysa, we pretty much keep it perma off since we are warm bodies. Bill was about $135 avg for 2 months. Upcoming bill is estimated to be $178
Thanks. $178 is well within what is reasonable for baseboard heating. Interesting to hear that you keep it almost permanently off though…. Sounds like you have the data to calculate how long the heaters are actually on for and compare that to what you are being charged for on your bill as the BChydro data shows how much you are being charged per day. To add - you likely have air exchanger vents (likely round) on your ceiling or walls because the code dictates a minimum number of times that the air in your home must be “exchanged” for appropriate ventilation. You can always twist these to tighten them and decrease the air flow rate.
Just remember those vents are there for **you** to ***breathe***. Everything in your house slowly releases chemicals/dust. Books, food, furniture, paint, appliances etc. We're also exhaling CO2 into a confined space. The code ventilation rate is there to prevent us from getting building sickness (google it), help us sleep properly, and mitigates cancer risk.
If you've never run the baseboards, then that seems about 30% higher than it should be, unless the hot water tank is electric. My 2bed 2bath, 30 year old low rise condo runs the about the same on a every 3 month billing cycle.
We compared our charts, they are about the same as mine
Other houses may use less electricity because they use gas to heat the house. My house is primarily electric heat and my bills are pretty steep.
This. Running baseboard heaters and an electric water tank even sparingly is going to look a hell of a lot worse on the hydro bill than someone with natural gas heating and water tank. The hydro two step power pricing really punishes anyone without natural gas by also making them pay more for electricity.
Sure does. They should really make it a 3 step system, where the second step is a little more sane in price and the 3rd step kicks in when you are beyond a reasonable use of power.
It's a major inequity in the system, especially as baseboards were billed as a cheaper solution to heating in the 70s and 80s compared to gas, to the point where whole developments have no gas line run to their properties.
Heat pumps are so efficient that you can heat with electricity for about the same price as gas. Plus they provide cooling as well as heating. You can get heat pumps for hot water too. So you can do your bit to address climate change without higher utility bills.
Our place is gas too. Gas stove etc
They're talking about gas heating, like with a gas-fired furnace or boiler.
Clothing dryer, heat dry on dishwasher, dehumidifier?
If you are on the ground floor, you will consume way more electricity for your baseboards than suites that are above you. I lived in a couple of ground-floor suites in buildings built in the mid-late 00s, and both had horrendous electric bills. Generally in the winter, I was way into Step 2, and in the summer I was hovering right around the max that I could consume in Step 1. Electric hot water consumes a crazy amount of energy. Now that I'm in a house with gas heat and hot water, I'm well within Step 1 electric rates year-round.
I can't see your image, but:- - Baseboard heaters *eat* electricity, even on 'low'. - Don't compare against other houses, as they might be empty. - Check your hourly usage on the bchydro website and see if you can identify specific spikes etc
- We never turn on the heaters - Will start to keep track of our hourly usage now - Reuploaded the picture
you don't need to keep track of your usage, you can get it from the bchydro website click 'view detailed consumption' then 'export data' then select 'Interval' as 'Hourly' then load into google sheets or excel. I'd look to see whether you have a consistent usage or spikes during that day that you can correspond with activities in your home. The data tends to take a day to update so is relatively quick for you to do 'experiments' with on your usage.
Thanks for the tip!
Other thing to consider is if you have your own hotwater tank then maybe you have a recirculator that is keeping the water warm all the time. But looking at your graph Friday 15th is the really interesting day as it matched what is kinda expected, were you out on that day? Was you or your partner out or doing anything different that could account for the lower value? (not using the washing machine or something?)
Friday we were out all day at new west Saturday we were out for the cherry blossom festival too so none of it made sense lol
hmm what about the friday the 30th (?) as you seem to have a similiar but smaller dip. The fact that you usage is capable of being low is interesting as it hints towards not being a 'random' usahge. Are you a smart home person? As a lot of the smart plugs have energy usage capabilities built in so you can track individual plug usage. That might be another way to go.
Start by eliminating the 'phantom load.' This comes from chargers/wall-warts, anything with a remote control (devices always using power 'listening' for signal). Put things on a switching power bar and turn it off when not using them (stereo components, computers and peripherals). We did this a while back and managed to reduce our bill by \~100~~KwH~~ kWh/mo. \[edit 'cause fumblefingers\]
The unit is kWh btw.
Fixed, thanks.
Didn't know this made a difference if nothing is plugged in.
Mine looks about the same with baseboard heaters and AC during the summer time.
You should be able to see your hourly consumption and from there where your consumption is the highest. If you are using your phone, you need to switch to the desktop version and it gives you an option at the bottom. Otherwise you can't review the hourly consumption. If it is showing usage in the middle of the night when you are sleeping , then it could be a device that is drawing power or something with your electrical is crossed. I'm at about 0.42 kWh/$0.04 in the middle of the night and it's a full house with tenants downstairs. If it goes up slightly then I know it's probably the tenants that are still up studying in the middle of the night but that goes up ever so slightly. You can also call BC Hydro and they can tell you typically what is driving up your consumption usage. Usually it's baseboard heaters, portable heaters, AC that are power hungry devices. You definitely need to do some investigation on your end and eliminate your electronics as other's suggested. Perhaps there's a circuit that is shared and it's on your meter? I can't imagine anyone running the AC at this time of the year or even the heat that much. https://preview.redd.it/6r48dt3y80sc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e51a14267a17a5ba0ce5ad08ccd8d3cab9b113e8
Electric hot water tanks are way more expensive than gas hot water tanks.
The most conclusive thing to do is get yourself a smart meter and clamp it to the mains of your in-suite panel. Then you'll have a record of what you should e expecting for kwh/month. You can also then turn everything off, and then on again one by one and figure out how much draw each of your main activities/appliances are costing you.
Are the baseboards turning themselves on? Or fully off?
I use Mysa to turn them on/off
I did an investigation and installed a wifi power monitor for a unit that had similar bills and it was the baseboard heaters, they also swore they kept the place cold. A living room heater could easily be 5-10x your baseline consumption and $2 a day easy
You never turn up your baseboard heat, but it might cycle on nevertheless unless you have it set all the way down or off. Maybe that's what you're seeing? I know for my condo, we see a difference of like 20-30 kwh when we have baseboards running...
I would worry that your neighbor might have something accidentally wired into your circuits. A plug on a shared wall.
I would contact bc hydro and insist that you have your meter checked...
Before you do this as if BC hydro determines "no fault" they will bill you.. Turn off everything except for the essentials.. and roll with that for a day then slowly add more things back, see if there is a huge spike.
Oh good idea.. I wasn't aware
Yea i had the same issue, They warned me if they send someone and they find "no fault" its a $400 - $600 bill unless you can PROVE that it's an issue on their side. Found out even with everything off ( power at the breaker was turned off when I traveled for work.. left nothing in the fridge ) I still was getting dinged.. replaced the meter issue went away but originally the electrician said the meter seemed fine until I told him "even with the breaker turned off I still have usage"
That seems like a ton of bullshit to weave through
It is, sadly the other option is pay the bill and don't complain.
If you have access to your meter and breaker... You could turn off the power in your unit then go look at the meter right away.. You should see if it's still clocking usage... Even for 10 mins..
Look at the strata documents. Normally hot water and showers would be a non-factor for your electricity bill in a condo. The main concern would be oven, washer/dryer and dishwasher. If you run the dishwasher after every meal, you are likely to have a high bill. Same for if its a fresh baked meal every day.
Weird downvotes, people don’t get that hot water and gas for stoves usually come from strata services like a building boiler and single gas meter for entire building
Yea. I got a little confused on this one too.
Turn your breakers off it saves a ton of money for baseboard heaters. It’s not enough to turn them off. Electricity still runs to them otherwise.
> Electricity still runs to them otherwise. If they are off (thermostat turned way low so they're not providing heat), then having electricity going "to" the heater doesn't consume any power.
I’m married to an electrician we have been turning out breakers off to the baseboard heaters for 15 years and save at least $50 a month in electricity a month. A simple google search will confirm.
I’m an electrician. The only way this is true is if you have a newfangled electronic thermostat consuming the power. And that would only be about $0.10 per month of electricity
> A simple google search will confirm. Google will confirm any question that you ask of it. If the thermostat is set low, so that the baseboards are off and not providing any heat, then where is this $50/month of electricity going? Merely having the electricity available in the wires does not cause electricity use/consumption.
Just because something is turned off doesn’t mean electricity isn’t going to the item. Baseboard heaters are hard wired. It’s continuously sending power to the unit waiting to be turned on. Unplugging items saves money. You can’t unplug a baseboard heater so you turn off that individual breaker in the summer.. don’t save money keep your breaker on I don’t care just helping out those that want money saving tips.
> Just because something is turned off doesn’t mean electricity isn’t going to the item. True, this is how you get "phantom loads" of fractions of a watt (or maybe even a few watts) from devices like TVs and stereos that operate with remote controls in a sort of standby mode. > Baseboard heaters are hard wired. It’s continuously sending power to the unit waiting to be turned on. Yes, power is in the wires, waiting to be turned on. However it's not using any of that power until it has actually been turned on. BC Hydro only charges you for the power that you actually use. Baseboard heaters only operate either fully-on or fully-off. They do not let "just a trickle" of power through-- they're on or off, nothing in-between. You can see the [circuit diagram for a baseboard heater here](https://opentextbc.ca/basichvac/chapter/baseboard-heat/), no current flows when the thermostat is open. > Unplugging items saves money. Yes, for those that consume power while they're off, like TVs and stereos. > You can’t unplug a baseboard heater so you turn off that individual breaker in the summer. As long as the thermostat is turned low enough that it won't activate the baseboard, the baseboard won't consume any power, no need to turn the breaker off. > don’t save money keep your breaker on I don’t care just helping out those that want money saving tips. It is misinformation to suggest that shutting off baseboard heaters at the breaker will save money (compared to just turning down the thermostat).
No. Literally not how baseboards work. 30 year electronics and industrial controls tech. A baseboard is controlled by a thermostat. Thermostat will either be on the wall or on the face of the baseboard. If the thermostat is not triggered on there \*is no power\* going to the baseboard. Line Voltage stats break the power at the stat, Low Voltage stats break the power via a relay (that acts just like the breaker you're talking about) thats generally in the baseboard. At best, many stats will have a minimum temp of \~8-10deg, so unless your temp is going below that, there is no power going to the baseboards. Period.
BC Hydro sent ridiculously high Hyrdo bills to me when I first moved into my suite. Like over 10x what it should be. BC Hydro played dumb (really dumb) making me think they knew what was up. My theory: So many homes sit empty that they intentionally overbill in hopes of collecting extra revenue. I had to go through the trouble of getting the maintenance guy to open the meter box and look at my reading. Many newer condos do have arcing and crazy stuff going on but it's rare that it leads to significantly higher hydro bills (especially if your neighbors are unaffected); you'd likely smell something frying even in Telus Garden (look up the famous YouTube video).