7,500 electric bill for the month

[JoeyMac]

2 minutes ago, Banana7 said:

How big are your AC units, how many BTUs?  Something is drawing lots of power and basically tripling your bill. Based on my usage, which is similar to yours, I estimate your usage should be 600 Kwh or less, if you have modern ACs 18K BTU or less.

 

 

 

We have two condenser units on the outside. The a/c units are built into the walls, so all we see is the vents. I have no idea how efficent they are, but the condo was built last year so you would assume they would be pretty efficient. 

 

We had them cleaned a few months ago too, thinking maybe there was an issue with them.

 

The condo management say people have nearly double the bill we have, which i believe was meant to calm me down at my subliminal hints i felt something dodgy was going on, lol. 

[CharlieH]

Approx 50kwh per day ???

 

What the he'll you doing paying for all the condos on your floor ?

 

[Korat Kiwi]

When I was in a Chiang Mai condo there was a portion of the bill which was part of the body corporate fee (electrical), but nowhere as steep overall compared to your bill. 

 

I'd do as others have suggested.  Turn off your main switch and ask to view your meter.   It shouldn't be spinning.  If it is then requested to have MEA inspect and/or replace it. 

 

Hate to think if some toe rag has latched onto your supply for free! 

[ABCDBKK]

The issue could quite frankly be a faulty electric meter. I had my electric meter changed recently (free of charge) by the MEA and I was told that the MEA automatically replaces meters every 10-15 years. I was concerned that my bill might go up after they replaced it, but in fact my bill dropped by about 40% after changing to the new meter. Sometimes faulty meters spin too fast and accumulate a reading that shows a much higher number than actual usage. I would ask the MEA replace the meter and pay them to do it if they are unwilling to change it for free. 

[ABCDBKK]

7 minutes ago, Korat Kiwi said:

Hate to think if some toe rag has latched onto your supply for free! 

That's definitely known to happen, but less likely in a high-end condo. 

[London Lowf]

12 minutes ago, Korat Kiwi said:

Hate to think if some toe rag has latched onto your supply for free! 

 

Have any of your neighbours bought an electric car lately?

 

I can see that being an issue as more people buy them and realise that, with a little surreptitious rewiring, they can charge it for free.

 

[ABCDBKK]

20 minutes ago, JoeyMac said:

 

 

We have two condenser units on the outside. The a/c units are built into the walls, so all we see is the vents. I have no idea how efficent they are, but the condo was built last year so you would assume they would be pretty efficient. 

 

We had them cleaned a few months ago too, thinking maybe there was an issue with them.

 

The condo management say people have nearly double the bill we have, which i believe was meant to calm me down at my subliminal hints i felt something dodgy was going on, lol. 

TBH, if you have around 85-100 sq.m. of interior space then you are likely to have a total of about 65,000 BTU of cooling capacity between all your AC units. If you run them in the bedrooms every night at 23 degrees and sometimes during the day, then a bill of around 6,000 Baht a month might not be that unusual. 

[sometimewoodworker]

You need to do some serious investigation. You are being charged correctly for the measured units, but that doesn’t mean that you are actually using the units yourself. We managed to use a similar amount in May last year but our February bill was 582 units. We have 5 AC units plus a large amount of lights and 4 fridges

You need to find the meter and cut all power to your unit and see if it is still running up the meter. If it isn’t then start turning power items back on and see what is actually running the meter up.
 

If with all you apartment power off the meter is running then what is being powered my your meter. If it is still running cut the power at the meter ad see who complains that the power has been cut!

[James105]

22 minutes ago, JoeyMac said:

 

 

We have two condenser units on the outside. The a/c units are built into the walls, so all we see is the vents. I have no idea how efficent they are, but the condo was built last year so you would assume they would be pretty efficient. 

 

We had them cleaned a few months ago too, thinking maybe there was an issue with them.

 

The condo management say people have nearly double the bill we have, which i believe was meant to calm me down at my subliminal hints i felt something dodgy was going on, lol. 

 

It's just way too high.  I have a 3 bed condo similar usage to yourself and my bill is averaging 1500-2000 a month.  Unless your bedrooms are the size of football pitches then something seems amiss here.   

[sometimewoodworker]

1 hour ago, Crossy said:

 

This probably isn't helping your consumption, do you have pet penguins?

In our bedroom our ac is set to about the same temperature but that is because I have 3 cats who like to keep me warm for a large percentage of the night 😉 

[timendres]

I cool 68 sqm during the day (24deg) and 60 sqm at night (25deg).

For 5 hours in the afternoon, the A/C is fighting a virtual oven created by a wall of windows.

My bill last month (Jan 15 - Feb 15) was 4,100. That will likely be my cheapest bill of the year.

[ABCDBKK]

7 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

In our bedroom our ac is set to about the same temperature but that is because I have 3 cats who like to keep me warm for a large percentage of the night 😉 

If I understand his setup correctly, he's got three wall units (living room and one in each of the two bedrooms) which are all powered by just two large condensing units. I assume both of those condensing units are running at night when he's cooling the two bedrooms if his bill is very high. 
 

In most condos you would have separate condensing units for the bedrooms and the living room. And each of those condensing units would then be smaller in capacity. Since he only has two condensing units in total they could be bigger ones than if he had 3 separate ones for living room and two bedrooms, which means they're using up more electricity than 2 smaller ones would to cool the same space.

 

The best solution might be to put in some smaller capacity condensing units just for the two bedrooms that each use less power when he runs them overnight. 

Edited February 24 by ABCDBKK

[sometimewoodworker]

The AC units could be part of the problem however he doesn’t say what the unconditioned temperature is. If he is dropping the temperature from the high 30s low 40s then a drop of 20 degrees will contribute a large part of the problem. But it’s far more likely that there is a vampire using the power. AC units, even big ones are far more efficient than most people think.

 

If he/his GF is taking hour long hot showers that will be eating the power.

Edited February 24 by sometimewoodworker

[JimTripper]

I just got mine and it's 653 baht.

The last bloke who lived here had bills averaging around 3,000-5,000 baht. All appliances and fixtures are the same.

 

Edited February 24 by JimTripper

[JoeyMac]

32 minutes ago, London Lowf said:

 

Have any of your neighbours bought an electric car lately?

 

I can see that being an issue as more people buy them and realise that, with a little surreptitious rewiring, they can charge it for free.

 

 

I asked about the possibility of someone charging their EV car to my room. They said the charging for EV cars is separate and paid on a separate bill. So that ruled that out. 

[JoeyMac]

12 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

The AC units could be part of the problem however he doesn’t say what the unconditioned temperature is. If he is dropping the temperature from the high 30s low 40s then a drop of 20 degrees will contribute a large part of the problem. But it’s far more likely that there is a vampire using the power. AC units, even big ones are far more efficient than most people think.

 

If he/his GF is taking hour long hot showers that will be eating the power.

 

 

32 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

You need to do some serious investigation. You are being charged correctly for the measured units, but that doesn’t mean that you are actually using the units yourself. We managed to use a similar amount in May last year but our February bill was 582 units. We have 5 AC units plus a large amount of lights and 4 fridges

You need to find the meter and cut all power to your unit and see if it is still running up the meter. If it isn’t then start turning power items back on and see what is actually running the meter up.
 

If with all you apartment power off the meter is running then what is being powered my your meter. If it is still running cut the power at the meter ad see who complains that the power has been cut!

 

 

They are electric meters. I will turn my meter off in condo and investigate to see if the meter click is still moving.  

 

As someone suggested could it be feasible someone in a high end condo is stealing your electricity? I don't see it, but i guess anything is possible. 

 

May i add we have two bathrooms. And the water in each is placed on high temperature - you have three setting, cool, warm, and hot. We just leave it on hot. We also have a few electrical appliances - mobile phones, ipads, etc. 

[Gottfrid]

1 hour ago, JoeyMac said:

Okay so on my last bill ...

 

it says i used 1430 kWh. 

 

Again, i need to stress the only thing we are using any different to the US, is the air conditioning. We do keep it on at night in two rooms. Nothing else is different. 

 

Bill has come to 7 and half thousand Baht. Bill has Mea authority on the top. 

It´s something wrong here. We use aircon almost everyday in our living room at 24 degrees. Around 5-7 hours a day. Night time we use aircons in two bedrooms at 22 degree for all night every night. On at 21.00 and off at about 05.00 in the morning. Besides that we have always on (24/7/365) Water dispenser machine for both hot and cold water, freezebox, refrigerator with bif freezer section, 3 computers, printer, 3 routers. TV is on for about 6-10 hours a day as well as charging 6 mobile phones, running washing machine and so on. Never using more than 600-800 units and the bill is between 3200 - 4000 bath.

In your case you probably have something that has gone bad or broke and running up the bill as it uses more electric than it should.

[ABCDBKK]

14 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

The AC units could be part of the problem however he doesn’t say what the unconditioned temperature is. If he is dropping the temperature from the high 30s low 40s then a drop of 20 degrees will contribute a large part of the problem. But it’s far more likely that there is a vampire using the power. AC units, even big ones are far more efficient than most people think.

 

If he/his GF is taking hour long hot showers that will be eating the power.

Ambient temperature in my place averages 28-34 without air-con. Ive got 3 condensing units totaling around 65,000 BTU I think. I have a large space. So when I use the AC I have to turn on all 3 condensing units at once. If I run them all for a couple of hours a day my bills are around 2,000-2,500. If I run them for 3-4 hours a day in March-May my bills have run as high as 5,000. And I have never ever run them at all overnight. If I ran mine overnight then my bills would probably be around 10,000 (or more). So if he's got a similar amount of BTU capacity running throughout the night, then 6,500 Baht doesn't sound that high. My figures are just estimates, but I'm just saying 6,500 Baht isn't over the top if his BTU capacity is in the 65,000-70,000 range. But I would still look into the possibility of faulty electrical meters first. 

[JoeyMac]

3 minutes ago, Gottfrid said:

In your case you probably have something that has gone bad or broke and running up the bill as it uses more electric than it should.

 

How do i identify what has gone bad ?

[Muzzique]

2 hours ago, soi3eddie said:

so long as the OP is paying MEA/PEA rates and not inflated rates by landlord.

 

And the eskimos in the flat below haven't plugged an extension cord in somewhere

[ABCDBKK]

3 minutes ago, JoeyMac said:

 

How do i identify what has gone bad ?

AC units use the most electricity out of anything in the home. If I only use fans, computer, phone chargers, microwave, refrigerator, hot water heater for shower, TV, air filters, and a few lights, then my bills run around 1,000 Baht.
 

But air-con can drive that up by 10X, depending on BTU and usage time. If you got a new condo with new air con units then the problem is probably not anything gone bad, but more likely a faulty meter and/or you are using a lot of air-con BTU. 
 

If you have a clothes dryer and run that once a week for a few hours then that could use a lot of electricity too. 

[ABCDBKK]

If you were to use fans only at night (and no more than 2 hours of air-con during the day) then your bills would probably drop by 60%, assuming no faulty meter. 

Edited February 24 by ABCDBKK

[ABCDBKK]

37 minutes ago, JimTripper said:

I just got mine and it's 653 baht.

The last bloke who lived here had bills averaging around 3,000-5,000 baht. All appliances and fixtures are the same.

 

What's changed? He ran the air-con day and night and you don't?

[NorthernRyland]

During the summer my house in CM is running AC nearly 20 hours per day and it still only comes to 2500 tops. Even if you doubled my rate to 10 baht a unit it couldn't reach 7000 baht. Condos are easier to cool than a house also so something is seriously wrong with that bill. 

[NorthernRyland]

1 hour ago, JoeyMac said:

The condo management say people have nearly double the bill we have, which i believe was meant to calm me down at my subliminal hints i felt something dodgy was going on, lol. 

BS they're lying. You could find out how much one of those AC units should in theory use in one hour and calculate how many units at the stated price you would need to use in order to get a 7000 baht bill or laughably a 14,000 baht bill.

[NorthernRyland]

41 minutes ago, ABCDBKK said:

Ambient temperature in my place averages 28-34 without air-con. Ive got 3 condensing units totaling around 65,000 BTU I think. I have a large space. So when I use the AC I have to turn on all 3 condensing units at once. If I run them all for a couple of hours a day my bills are around 2,000-2,500. If I run them for 3-4 hours a day in March-May my bills have run as high as 5,000. And I have never ever run them at all overnight. If I ran mine overnight then my bills would probably be around 10,000 (or more). So if he's got a similar amount of BTU capacity running throughout the night, then 6,500 Baht doesn't sound that high. My figures are just estimates, but I'm just saying 6,500 Baht isn't over the top if his BTU capacity is in the 65,000-70,000 range. But I would still look into the possibility of faulty electrical meters first. 

that's crazy, how big is your space? If you need 65000 BTU to cool your house then your living area must be too large, like an open office with 100 sqm or more.

[JimTripper]

31 minutes ago, ABCDBKK said:

What's changed? He ran the air-con day and night and you don't?

He was another one of those guys who needed to bring the country they are from (UK) with them. Likely ran the A/c constantly. There are also other things like thick comforters on the beds and fancy heavy European cookware, etc that don't fit into a Thai lifestyle very well.

 

My guess is he also ate out every day at overpriced foreigner restaurants and never shopped at local markets or ate Thai food much.

Edited February 24 by JimTripper

[Ben Zioner]

2 hours ago, Mike Lister said:

23 degrees is too cold I suggest. Also, running an aircon in dehumidify mode instead of cooling mode will often achieve similar results but at a much lower cost.

Honestly, that's not right the best temperature to sleep is below 20 Celsius. Bach in Europe I was always turning off the heater while sleeping. Here I set my aircon to 20. There is also another thing to consider at 27 one sweats when having sex, can ruin the experience...

[NorthernRyland]

8 minutes ago, Ben Zioner said:

Honestly, that's not right the best temperature to sleep is below 20 Celsius. Bach in Europe I was always turning off the heater while sleeping. Here I set my aircon to 20. There is also another thing to consider at 27 one sweats when having sex, can ruin the experience...

running AC at 22 in a bedroom for 8 hours a night is not expensive (unless you're in some ripoff condo perhaps). Something like 1100 baht a month. If that helps you sleep then it's totally worth it.

[Ohyesuare]

2 bedroom 2 bathroom condo here, AC is on 24/7 at 24 during the day and 21 at night. Rate is 5.5 and my electric bill is never more than 2500 baht a month. Something is wrong with the meter, a neighbor or two have tapped into it or the condo juristic office is scamming you with a fake invoice. Highly suspicious they keep saying some people's bills are twice yours, which seens impossible for a condo.

Edited February 24 by Ohyesuare