Yesterday I met with my landlord. He is fully aware of the power meter problems. Some of my neighbors are beginning to complain as well. It is actually turning out to be a similar problem to 2005 where EVN installed 287,000 faulty power meters. The same subsidiary, I heard, produced my house’s newly installed power meter.
Since June, 2007, I personally used between 7-8 kWh/day. Prior to that, I was averaging 12.5 kWh/day from October, 2006, to May, 2007 (In May, 2007, I turned off the kitchen light and fan which I left on all day for my dog, Lucky, who I moved unto the upstairs terrace. This saved me between 4-5 kWh/day!).
In January, my house’s water problems began. From January until last month, we (my housemate and I) were using about 18.2 kWh/day losing an average of 5.1 kWh/day due to the water pump.
Our average daily usage was roughly 13.1 kWh/day taking the above into consideration. This includes the use of one air conditioner all day and a TV (which uses nearly 1 kWh every 4-5 hours of usage).
The first day after the new power meter was installed, the meter said we used 19.4 kWh after one day. The next day we used 16.5 kWh followed by 15.5 kWh yesterday. Today, we have so far used 13.6 kWh for the day.
I have only had the air conditioner on for 4 hours! From 2 PM until now, I used 4.8 kWh with the air conditioner on. My computer is off, my housemate is not home.
With the new power meter, I would use 28.8 kWh/day that once only required 7-8 kWh/day (using the aircon all day, leaving my computer on, etc., which I do not do now). A big difference, eh? That does not include my new housemate’s power usages.
My landlord wants me to wait until the next bill and then we both will complain to EVN. I have a feeling I may be going with all my neighbors as well.
When we had similar problems with a new meter we had an electrician come by with an amp meter to measure our actual usage directly through the wires. Sadly, the outcome was that we actually were using what the meter said, and that we had a sweet ride before paying far less than our full consumption.
We went from paying about $65/month cranking our airconditioners and computers 24/7 to $150-$250/month taking considerable effort to use a minimum of electricity.