“…I KNOW are true!” (2/23/16)

It’s taken longer than expected for high utility bill complaints to roll in this year, but they’re now showing up. A lot of people don’t seem to know facts about utility bills, so it’s time for some talk about this topic because… “These fifteen things I KNOW are true!”

Let’s tell the truth about utility bills, and let’s put that truth on a Big Board.

• “You pay for what electricity you use in the previous bill cycle.” – No matter what utility company you have, they give you an unlimited supply of electricity to use anytime and anyhow you want. Most billing cycles are for the 30 days prior to when your bill is generated, with some cycles bring anywhere from 28 to 32 days based on the way the calendar falls. For me, I’ll be paying for today’s electricity use on my March bill. You have no theoretical “credit limit” from your utility company. Your utility company doesn’t monitor how much electricity that you are using because that would be an impossible task on their end.
• “Electric meters don’t lie.” – All of Danville Utilities’ electric meters are smart meters with no moving parts inside of them. Appalachian & Dominion are slowly converting to smart meters but that process is expensive. If you still have an electric meter with a dial and gears inside of it, those meters do occasionally fail. But when dial meters fail, they start to slow down and eventually stop recording electric usage. That’s just not the case with smart meters. Danville Utilities will schedule a meter test if you demand one, but you have to pay for the test costs if your meter passes the test. Face it. Your electric meter is accurate and you used how much electricity it says that you used.
• “You can keep up with exactly how much electricity that you use so that you can forecast what next month’s bill will be.” – If you’ve got a smart meter, it’s an easy task to make a journal with your meter readings. All you have to do is look at the face of the meter and record the five digit number that cycles on the LCD display. Do it at around the same time each day so that you get a 24-hour usage. Subtract one reading from the other and you will see exactly how many kilowatt hours that you used today. Multiply that by your cost of electricity and you now know the dollar amount of your previous day’s usage. To make the math easy, in this region you can use $0.12 per kilowatt hour as the price. It’s a little less than that now, but it’s still a good rate to use. If your meter went up by 50 kilowatt hours from yesterday’s reading, you used around $6.00 worth of electricity yesterday.
• “The electric company did not read your meter incorrectly.” – Smart meters transmit their readings back to the central office using a data connection. The data is validated using computer programs. It’s correct. If you have the dial meters that have to be manually read, there is a potential for a meter reader to get a digit wrong. But Dominion & Appalachian have programs running in their mainframe systems to flag errors that “just don’t look right”. Those programs will automatically generate a service order for a re-reading. If a small manual error slips through the cracks, it would be corrected in the next reading by the math.
• “Your neighbor’s electric bill has absolutely no relation to your electric bill.” – Everybody uses electricity differently. Everybody has different equipment in their home. Everyone’s heating & cooling system is at various states of maintenance. Everyone’s insulation rating is different. Everybody has different heating and cooling leaks in their house.
• “Everybody’s electric usage is cyclical when it comes to the seasons.” – Electric increases greatly in the winter, then it drops in the spring when heating is no longer used as much. Then electric usage spikes back up in the summer with cooling, and drops in the fall when the cooling use is reduced. I’ve yet to hear anybody complain about their spring and fall electric bills and there’s a good reason for that.
• “Even if you didn’t change your thermostat one bit from one winter bill cycle to the next, your bill amount will go up from December to January to February.” – You didn’t change a thing. That’s true. Mother Nature did. When it’s colder outside as winter sets in, it takes more electricity to heat your house. The National Weather Service keeps a statistic called Heating Degree Days & Cooling Degree Days. You can compare the month’s number of HDDs to last month. If it’s 20% more HDDs, it’s going to take approximately 20% more energy to heat your house to the same temperature. Insulation helps a little bit on that, but not much.
• “Little things make a difference on your electric bill.” – Yes, you can do a lot of things to help reduce the electrical usage. You can switch to CFL lighting. You can switch to LCD lighting for amazingly low energy use as the price of those continue to drop. You can walk through your house on a cold winter morning and feel around every window and door. If you feel any cold air, you’ve just found a leak that’s letting your warm air go out. You can patch those leaks that you found quickly and easily. Unplug cellphone and laptop chargers from the wall if they’re not being used, as they still use small amounts electricity when not charging devices.
• “Big things make a big difference on your electric bill.” – A new high-efficiency can pay for itself in just a few years if you still have an older system. All utility companies serving this region strongly encourage that by offering good-sized rebates on those purchases. You can have your heating and cooling system serviced. Any local HVAC company will be glad to come to your house and make sure that your system is running as efficiently as it can by cleaning and servicing your unit. You’ll save the money spent on that service call in reduced electric bill usage.
• “Sacrifice a little comfort and reap electric bill savings.” – Set your thermostat to 68 degrees in winter and 78 degrees in summer. For every degree you’re off from those targets, you’re adding around 1% to your electric bill. Use (or install) ceiling fans in your house and use them year-round. In winter months, reverse the fan direction so that the arm air that naturally rises to the ceilings is forced down to occupancy level.  In summer months, you want the ceiling fans to do their normal direction of airflow, sending the warm air up to the ceiling, keeping the cooled air at your level. Change the setting on your water heating to 120 degrees. Most water heaters come from the factory set at 140 degrees. You can’t really tell the difference between 120 and 140 degrees when it comes to hot water. If you want your house at 78 degrees in the winter so you can wear shorts and flip-flops, you’re going to pay for it.
• “Your utility bill probably has more than just electricity cost on it.” – This one applies to Danville Utilities customers. City residents are charged a monthly trash fee. Danville Utilities may also bill you for water and gas service. If you’re going to compare electrical use, make sure that you’re only comparing electrical use.
• Finally, “Your electric bill is correct. You’re paying for what you used. There is no conspiracy to raise electric bills in winter & summer. Electric rates don’t go up in winter & summer.” – Utility companies are billing you for exactly what you used. Utility companies and third-party contractors are out there to assist you in reducing your electricity usage. Use those services, the information in this article and learn from it.

Whew. That’s 14 things I KNOW are true. Oh yeah, I promised 15 things so here’s #15. “This article is finished.”