We didn’t think much about the air conditioning running more than usual because it had been a hot summer.
In fact, Carter and I were optimistic that we had made major steps to lower our electric bills. In May, we shelled out $500 to install window film on sliding glass doors that faced west. The manufacturer’s literature promised the film would reject 65 percent of solar energy and 99.9 percent of the ultraviolet rays while it reduced glare 70 percent. Not only would our house be cooler, our furniture wouldn’t fade.
We were thrilled with the result. The house felt cooler and the effect of the sunlight was subdued. We couldn’t wait to see how much it would lower our electric bill.
But the electric bills weren’t reducing. We thought the weather was the culprit.
First, some background. Our monthly bill typically ranged from $78 to $137, not bad for a 1,700-square-foot single-family home. My husband, a former bank trust officer who loves predictable expenses, thought we could even out the summer peaks in the bills by going on Florida Power & Light Co.’s budget billing.
Little did we know what financial surprises were ahead.
The first month, our budget billing charge was $119.03. But the second month it had risen to $135.34.
“Something’s wrong,” I said. “That budget amount is close to what our highest bills have been. Either someone is stealing our electricity, FPL read the meter wrong or we have a bad problem with something electrical in the house.”
“I didn’t think much about it because FPL got a rate increase,” Carter said.
The Public Service Commission wouldn’t have agreed to this high of an increase, even under a Republican administration. When I looked at the bill, I almost fainted. Our usage had more than doubled — from 1,341 to 3,230 kilowatt hours in one month. The actual electric charge was a whopping $318.
The next day, Carter called FPL customer service. A competent and friendly representative called up our account history and agreed something was definitely wrong. After ruling out sources of high use, such as a recent addition of a pool or a hot tub, she suggested a load test.
FPL won’t come to your home to do the test, but an energy specialist will walk you through it over the phone. Carter was instructed to go to the panel box and turn off everything from the refrigerator to the air conditioner. Next, he was told to turn the air conditioning back on. Using a cordless phone, he walked outside to the meter and told the energy specialist when the meter had spun around once. The meter spun at such a high rate that the expert said, “There’s your problem.”
Two days later, the air conditioning repairman found the source of the problem. Our 3-year-old air conditioner, which had a heating sequencer that was malfunctioning, was causing us to use 104 to 111 KWH a day instead of 52 to 54.
We apparently are not alone. The FPL rep told Carter that more people catch the discrepancies when they are not on budget billing. It seems folks get a false sense of security and just pay the budget bill. What they should do is check the actual KWH consumption and the actual electric charge before they pay the bill.
We keep all our bills, so it was easy to see what was happening, but what about those folks who throw away their bills?
Pat Davis, FPL spokeswoman, says the Internet offers another tool to monitor usage. If you go online at you can access your account. Two helpful links are a log of billing history that shows service days, energy usage, electric bill and budget bill charge. But the most dramatic is the “Billing History Graph,” a bar graph that shows the bill in dollars for the past two years.
In May, Davis said FPL started sending customers letters in their bill to warn them if their usage was out of the ordinary. This is automatic, not something you have to sign up for. Evidently, it didn’t work in our case.
“When compared year to year,” Davis said, “your bill wasn’t high enough to trigger the system.”
A bill that went from $130.85 to $318.66 sure seems high enough to me. But, at least we were the lucky ones. We only wound up paying two high bills. The second bill was $316.69, a total in two months of about $475 more than normal. But, others, the customer service rep told Carter, weren’t as lucky. Some have had bills that were more than $1,000 in excess charges before they caught the problem.
Several years ago, FPL used to work with customers in these cases and offer an adjustment. No more. Now, Davis said FPL will work out a time payment, but you have to pay the whole bill.
The bottom line: If you’re on budget billing, you have to take the time to look at actual KWH consumption and the real monthly charges. Otherwise, you could get a surprise that is going to level you, not the bill.
Write Charlyne Varkonyi Schaub, Home & Garden Editor at: Sun-Sentinel, 200 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301 or e-mail her at .
