Pennsylvania Help - $8500 in electric in just 2 years!

In fairness, WrexTech's suggestion to measure temperature differentials on air and water sides is reasonable, though all could be gotten using a single fairly accurate digital thermometer. The $8 analog thermometers he linked are wholly unsuitable for this application, though. His advice to refer to the "owner's manual" for advice on proper system temperatures is laughably useless as well.

His 3) is a bit mystifying - I guess I'm remiss in failing to furnish and install "Peach Valves" on my systems. They sound yummy, though!

In addition, I'm not much into team sports, so I guess I'm also at fault for failing to comprehend the important roles of "Basketball or Football air valves" play in a modern geo system. I learn something here every day!

 

Wow those are some high numbers.....I didn't read every reply but I'm going to throw my numbers out there since I'm in NEPA and the winters are similar, just thankfully none of that lake effect...so I'm running 2 systems a 2 ton and a 3 ton....they are open loop feed from one 700' deep well pumping from 650' and returning at 140'....I have the electric heat disabled on both units because well it costs too much to run and most of the time people don't know the heat pump locked out and is running strictly on electric. My home is just under 5000 sq feet built in 1996 and we heat to 71 and cool to 69 and I've never seen a bill over 500 bucks average is 400 in the winter and 250 in the summer. I also have electric dryer, stove and hot water. Your average useage seems inline with mine but I can't explain your tremendous electric consumption for that one month but I can share with you 2 stories I've heard working in the field. One customer simply had a defective utility meter and it was charging them for more then they were using. One customer had a 4000 watt baseboard heater system in an unused room that someone set the thermostat to max and no one discovered it for months.....just making the point that it could be the geo system but it would have to be constantly using its aux heat to drive a bill that high. Depending on your unit you may be able to utilize a thermostat with and alarm input that will alert you to an inefficient unit or a unit that is locked out.

 

Sean,
You may be aware of the fact that drillers are stealing Billions in PA & WV and Trillions in OH by taking well products and not paying for them.
Due to this I expect the price of Propane (which is one component in Ohio's Natural Gas Liquids, yet to be paid a royalty for from Ohio's wells) and Natural Gas to remain low into the next century, since State and Federal Governments have always allowed domestic oil & gas companies free access to OUR minerals for Payola and now PAC Fund money.

How this affects you is that you can use gas or propane to supplement your geothermal and see a huge savings as compared to the Electric Company kings, also known as ceo's raising the price of electricity in order to make the Forbes top 10 list of Richest ceos. That issue will be addressed in the next 4 years since corporations have put most US Citizens on the verge of bankruptcy if they are earning a fair wage.

I use a Propane Logs in Prefab fireplace that has 8 inch ducts I can run to other rooms and use a blower to move the heat, as back up to my Geothermal Unit. I'm considering a Packaged Dual Fuel Heat Pump and High Efficiency Propane unit outside to heat the house until the temperature drops to below freezing then use the Geothermal with the High Efficiency Propane Unit.

I could still end up paying the same to heat my house but it does my heart good to know the electric company won't be gouging me with: Generation; Transmission; Distribution (sounds like a double charge for Transmission); Stability Riders; Hitchhikers; Admin Fees; General BS but it looks good fees; something for my neighbor; something for the ceo; maybe a laundry fee and EPA fee of some kind.

Thanks for De-regulation, it has made this all possible for the corporations.

 

In seeing the trouble the op had in locating her excess usage I'll throw in a suggestion that has worked well for me in seeing how my two units are behaving. I installed an energy monitor for the units from this company. http://eyedro.com/home-electricity-monitors Super easy to DIY install, and have free real time monitoring and reports online. In fact I like them so well I also installed them on my water heaters and another on the main service line to see whole house usage as well. This would quickly take the guess work out of the ops geo system as far as usage and run times and would also show if there were spikes in usage. Cost was only $200 for a set of sensors and no monthly online fees. Nothing fancy like the welserver but easy for a homeowner to setup.

Here are some screen shots of my monitor which can be selected based on time periods, consumption, cost, etc.

24 hour usage
2017-01-05 (2) by Jeremy Kovac, on Flickr




last 3 hour usage
2017-01-05 (3) by Jeremy Kovac, on Flickr




2 week summary
2017-01-05 (4) by Jeremy Kovac, on Flickr



Current day highlight as of this morning showing total and estimated usage, bill to date, average demand curve, etc. Temps last night were single digits so my usage on this one is higher than the average curve showing.

2017-01-05 (5) by Jeremy Kovac, on Flickr

 

It's been a long time since I posted about my ongoing GEO electric usage issue. These energy monitor units you mentioned would have been super helpful last year (although I didn't have any extra $), and I still may purchase something like this because it would be a great advantage to be on top of daily usage and know right away about any spike. Thanks.

I'm going to post an update about my situation shortly.


Suzanne

 

Sean5545: Yes, my numbers are high. And we ruled out any other draws in the house that could have caused the high usage. As far as meters go, my meter has been replaced twice in the last few years. The first time, it was because, apparently my meter 'died' - when I just thought my electric use was so much better than everyone else I knew (my bills were so low!) But one month, it eventually registered ZERO usage and I had to agree with the electric company. The put in the new meter and I had a bit of a shock...my $40 and $50 monthly bills went to $100 or more (this is before the Geo was put in.)

Just last year, that meter was swapped out for a digital "Smart" meter. That's brand new, so it better not be faulty.

I had some action from the contractor, manufacturer and distributor last summer which seems to have improved the GEO unit performance. I'll post an update on that shortly.

Suzanne

 

I bought two of these beauties on ebay. The Hall Effect sensor/doughnut opens so you can snap it onto one lead of the power to the compressor or monitor the entire Geothermal power use. Total Cost delivered for 2, less than $35.

I have one one monitoring all power to the Unit and one monitoring the loop pump power only.

The only trick is that you have to run 2 leads to the 220 vac power terminals. This allows voltage to be monitored so it can be read out, plus the voltage is used to calculate Power in Watts (Power= Current x Voltage) and run the Kilowatt Hour portion of the meter like your electric meter does.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Digital-AC-...940760?hash=item1a22bcaf98:g:DJ4AAOSwt5hYZMHm