Excessive electric usage indicated! Help!

[Ryland]

you can also call your renters building safety office and explane to them that your land lord is not fixing what appears to be either a short in the building that could be fire hazard or a leak in the water pipes that would be a sanitary issue.
whatever it is it sounds like you are not able to find the problem so you need to have someone else find it, but there is a problem and it's alot of energy that is going some place.

[sarahama]

The Plot Thickens,
My landlord is blaming the electric company and a faulty meter! The electric company tested it, said the test came out fine. They refused to replace the meter. SOOO, my landlord continues to use this as the excuse for the high electric costs.

[MazdaMatt]

I think your landlord is growing pot in the basement.

[Funny]

Originally Posted by MazdaMatt

I think your landlord is growing pot in the basement.

Speaking of being green...
The landlord is being a cheap PITA. If it were me I would send a certified letter to the guy and turn off the breaker for a week or two. Perhaps if you had a multimeter you could trace the problem yourself, just a thought. Please keep us posted.

[MazdaMatt]

Do you have direct access to the hot water heater breaker and does it have a seperate switch? If you kill the breaker and kill the switch, then you can measure the resistance across the lines... anything but an open circuit says that there is something else on the breaker taking your power... probably pot.

[dcb]

Originally Posted by MazdaMatt

... probably pot.

Grow lights had occured to me too, though I doubt the landlord would be so brazen (he stands to lose everything including the building). Figured it would be a tenant who knows a spot about wiring.

[sarahama]

Some good advice. Well, I'm going to be gone soon for about a week and the water heater breaker will be off during that time. I have someone coming into take care of my cat while I'm gone so I will have her make certain that my water heater breaker remains off. When I return I will ask other tenants if they've had any electrical problems in the past week.

[MazdaMatt]

Better tell that to the hundreds of thousands of other people making billions of dollars from it... never know

Water heater breaker off solves the problem. Water heater is new. There MUST be something else on the line, or a constant hot water leak. Is the water bill in check?

[sarahama]

I told the landlord that I was shutting the hot water heater breaker off and he told me he thought that was a good idea. Perhaps there is a hot water heater leak as the water is only luke warm after a couple of hours. I called the electric company again and they said they would consider replacing the meter, and asked me to contact them after my week of experimenting with the water heater breaker off. I don't think its the meter, but I told them replacing the meter was the only way to stop my landlord's excuses. When I return from vacation I will move the legal process forward. It will be a week or so before I have any new information to post.

[dcb]

I do have to give your landlord some credit. He did replace a water heater. Even though he might not know how to solve it conclusively, he did expend some money and effort. You might want to note everyones meter readings before and after you go, just to get a bigger picture.