Is it possible that two apartments' electricity could be unknowingly linked? How to lower unknown electrical increases?

Question

I live in a 2 bedroom apartment but one of the bedrooms is totally unused. My electric bill is very high. It got even higher as my usage declined. For example, my last bill was over $200 for a 2-week period of usage at around 1500 kWh (I was out of state for the other 2 weeks) in which my thermometers, 1 for each bedroom and the living area, (electric baseboard heaters) were set to 55. To save on costs, I've only kept the living area at 55 (I was told this was the minimum to keep the pipes from freezing) and the bedroom at 60 when I get home from work when I've been around. Regular usage of electronics. And the most recent bill was higher than the bill before that, which was $179 for 4 weeks of similarly controlled heating. It should be said that I'm in the Midwest in a cold winter so far.

I called the electric company and they agreed that my usage shouldn't be as high as it is. They didn't even give me spiel about costs going up in winter etc. They suggested that either the water heater was affected somehow and causing surges, or that by looking at the other apartments' bills (5 in my building, 2 others with relatively similar costs but in bigger apartments and 2 with very low costs) that maybe there was some funkiness going on where my electric was tied in with someone else's.

Is this possible? Am I being ripped off somehow? It's really frustrating because I forced myself to live in less than ideal temps in order to save money but my bills keep going up for no understandable reason. I was told by the rep to flip my breakers and see if it affected anyone else's power, but I realized when trying to do this that my breakers were mislabeled and I'm afraid to poke around in it. Is this a bad sign? I contacted my landlord but I don't know how far it'll get.

Any suggestions for how to deal with this issue? I don't have any real electrical knowledge so I'm just trying to understand what's going on, and so far I've got nothing. Ideally, I'd like a fix that is totally DIY if there actually is some bad business at play. If it is just the water heater, can I just turn off that breaker occasionally when not needed? (If I can identify it). I've had it up to here with the bills, so please help!!

*Edit: A lot of interesting information here, thank you! The electric company has a function where you can publicly check the rates of residences, and there are 2 residences in my building that have similar bills to mine (highs over 200) but one whose highest bill was only 59. Is this meaningful? Is that one guy benefiting maybe without knowing? I heard back from my landlord but didn't get much helpful info. Says he'll contact the owner and let me know when he can come by to check things out. I'll try to fix the breaker labels before then.

*Also, I live in a building that I think was a renovated home, not a typical apartment building. I'm in a rural town, so there aren't many prototypical apartment buildings or complexes.

Answer 1

Your first step is labeling your breakers correctly.

So you need to go through the entire house and identify every outlet (either a socket or a hardwired load) and make a spreadsheet. Plug something into every receptacle (you can usually, but not always, assume both sockets in a dual receptacle are on the same circuit). Then move through the house, turning off everything and turning on one breaker at a time, and seeing what works with that breaker on.

If you are good at game theory, there are more efficient ways to identify all the circuits.

Now if you want to have some fun, you can label each breaker by a codename, like Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge, Apu, etc. and then mark each outlet the same way.

During this testing, I'd aim for turning them all off as long as possible, only switching on the one in test. That is to lengthen the amount of time circuits are off, to increase the chance of a neighbor complaining about his power going out. That'd be your power poacher right there.

While you're switching breakers, keep an eye on the spin rate of your analog power meter, or the instantaneous use number on your smart meter, for any abrupt changes.

Now, get a "Kill-a-Watt" and measure power of each pluggable device

You're looking for average watts over a long time. This is to look for devices which may surprise you, like that "perfectly ordinary" PC that turns out to be a power hog.

For your fixed loads, particularly your electric heaters, figure out what their energy draw is. Almost all of them will have a "nameplate" power rating that can be found on a nameplate, or in the documentation. If they are "Cadet style" electric baseboard heaters, typically an 8' unit is 2000W, a 6' unit 1500W, and a 4' 1000W.

You may also find "Watts" labeled as "VA" (volt-amps). There are subtle differences between W and VA, that's why there are 2 different terms. If you can only find "Amps", look also for volts (120 or 240) and multiply amps x volts. V * A = VA =~ W.

Over those 2 weeks, you used 4.4kw (4400W) on average. An "average" basic home with gas heat uses 1000W on average, so you used 3400W above that -- or almost two 2000W electric heaters burning 24x7. Your goal is to do the detective work to find why.

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Just the same, electric heat is murder. It's much more expensive than you expect it to be, because instead of getting 90% of the heat value of natural gas, you're getting like 30% with transmission losses.

If you are in an area with a lot of nuke or hydro, talk to your power company to see if they have special rates for people with electric heat. For instance in the south, they have lots of nuke and their peak grid stress is in the summer A/C season, so they have plans that practically give away power the rest of the time.

Answer 2

Yes it is very possible that wires could be crossed - it is also possible that there is an outlet outside and someone is tapping into that.

I had a similar situation only with Water, I owned a home in Florida and watered the lawn etc the most I ever spent was $110. When I moved to a new town I rented a small apartment the water was also cheaper than in FL. My neighbors bill was $28 for 3 people. I had used $60 in one month and $120 the next (1 person) - somehow the sprinkler system was tied into my apartments plumbing.

So yes all things are possible, Label your circuit breakers turn off anything that goes outside, turn off non essentials when you are away. Make sure no one is opening your doors or windows while you are gone. Verify no person is coming in to 'live' while you are gone - install an analog clock (you know old school with a motor) plug it into an outlet for a circuit you would suspect someone would need to be 'on' in order to live in the place. Make a written note of the time on the clock. When you return that clock should not have changed time.

Of course you could just as well install an iSmart Alarm to keep track if anybody is entering the place..

Answer 3

Anything is possible, of course. I once lived in an apartment that should have been a 2BR, but was turned into a 1BR; the 2nd BR and 2nd bath were turned into a studio apartment. Great for the landlord, since he could collect almost twice the rent! But the electrical system was never separated, so I was paying for my neighbor's electricity usage. We didn't find out until I tried to vacuum while he was microwaving some popcorn - blew the fuse (yep, still had fuses), went into the hall, and realized other neighbors still had power. Not likely, but especially with older homes that have been carved up into apartments, not impossible.

If you live in an apartment building, though, I'd say the likelihood of something like that is nil. The much more likely scenario is that it's just been a really cold winter and you're using a lot of power to keep your apartment from being really cold, too.

My electric bill is very high. It got even higher as my usage declined.

Your actual usage, as reported by your meter, or your perceived usage based on your temperature settings? Make sure to compare actual usage, based on kWh, from month to month. Your rates could be different each month, or there could be additional fees, that affect the dollar amount of your bill. See if the electric company can provide historical usage going back a year or two, so you can compare usage at the same time last year.

Answer 4

I would turn your main breaker off and check your meter to make sure someone has not tapped your main. I would also verify all your circuits are dead. The dial on the meter should be a dead stop, I would do this when everyone is home in the other houses and after verifying the meter is stopped I would go to dinner (idea being the power off for a while may bring attention to a tapped branch circuit.). I have seen mains tapped but only a few times over the years , I have found branch circuits in multi family dwellings that had been roped to the wrong unit and this may be your problem.

Answer 5

In this day and age, it's becoming a lot more common to see people "stealing" electricity. In apartment complexes and condos, usually there is a "utility wall", meaning a common area between apartments where all of the utilities are run; it saves money in the initial construction. Scammers know this and will open up the wall on THEIR side, find someone else's wires and tap into them to run things like heaters, gaming systems, even grow lights, without it affecting THEIR OWN power bill, then patch their wall back up and paint it, so it looks normal to the landlord.

As others have said, turn ALL of your breakers off, then go look at your meter. If it shows power flowing, someone tapped off ahead of your breakers, but behind your meter. If it stops showing power flow, then turn everything off in your apartment and turn your breakers on one at a time, looking at the meter after turning each one on. If power starts flowing with a breaker turned on, and you have nothing running, that's the circuit with the problem.

Do the water heater breaker LAST. It is possible that you have a problem with your water heater. It's SUPPOSED to turn on and off with hot water demand. But if the thermostat in the water heater is malfunctioning, it never turns off. The water will over heat, but there is a "pressure relief valve" that will just dump excess hot water out to a drain somewhere to keep it from blowing apart. But that's just totally wasted energy (and water).