Somone else using (stealing?) my electricity, ConEd says yes, any help?
We moved to a small co-op building (8 units) in the summer and our electric bill the first 2 months were about $60. Then one month it jumped to $120 then $190 the next and finally $290 in December, without us changing our usage dramatically. I called ConEd to check if the meter was broken…
We moved to a small co-op building (8 units) in the summer and our electric bill the first 2 months were about $60. Then one month it jumped to $120 then $190 the next and finally $290 in December, without us changing our usage dramatically. I called ConEd to check if the meter was broken and they came and unplugged everything in our apt and saw that the meter was still running. They told us that the meter was OK but that someone else (outside my apt) must be using our electric line somehow. They could do any more than that and said it was my problem to figure out how this was happening.
Has anyone ever heard anything like this, I do not think any of my neighbors is maliciously using my electricity and I spoke to them all and they all said that they didnt know anything about this. How can I figure this out? I dont want to continue paying $300 coned bills when they should be $60. Anything like this ever happen to you?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
i went through a similar situation, but con ed was no help.
what will happen after it has been determine that someone else is stealing your electricity?
You get charged after it passes through your meter. For instance in our house the power comes from the street though my neighbors house and then to my meters through a conduit.
Rick is right. It could be the units above yours or to the side. Wall outlets in shared walls perhaps, would be easy to splice into. I remember in one building I looked after, (as a super) I found the ground floor grocery store tapped into someones box to run a compressor.
if you’ve got very high usage, one possibility is that someone’s got some high wattage lights in their closet.
Not that I ever had a roommate try to sneak that past the rest of us …
Anyway, they might not come running out screaming about lights being out.
Thanks Rick, would you mind contacting me off-board, I can use a little more advice… You can email me at ‘ari AT pilotyid.com’
Thanks!
I’m sure the the extra power is being used by an apartment in your building. I see this all the time in old houses. Often it is the case that these buildings were a single family building. If they went Coop the breaker boxes should have been sorted out. Each meter is recording power from a single breaker box for one apartment. All you need to do is throw the breakers on the box you’re paying for. The ones that power your apartment are the ones you need to keep. The extra breakers you must have are powering someone else’s apartment. I’m sure if you leave those off you will find out fast who isn’t getting their power. At that point alll you have to do is have someone move those lines out of our breaker box and hook them in to the right box for that apartment.
Do you really think it could be someone next door? I was suspicious of that since there is construction going on over there.
1)have a friend go stand outside
and then, once that’s he’s out
turn off all your circuitbreakers
.. see whose light goes out!
2)have an electrician come
to get your lines inspected
tell him that you wanna know
which asshole got connected
3)it’s gotta be someone near by
or perhaps on some other floor
or maybe from across the street
or even be the guy next door
Along with being expensive, it could be unsafe. Good luck, and come back and tell the rest of the story after the electrician has a look. Interesting that you spoke to all your neighbors, but no one “knows” anything. Hmmm. Someone would know something if they have a suspiciously low bill.
Con-Ed provides electricity to the meter not to the apartment.
It is not reasonable to expect an electricity company to be responsible for tracing electrical lines in unit in every building.