How is my home using so much electricity!!!!

[Anonymous]

We have solar panels and an app showing what our home uses per day, month, etc. We are a family of 5 in a 3000 sq foot home built 2000 with two electric cars. The app says we consumed 215 mW in 2023. What gets me is that last week—-when we were out of town, we were using 16-20 kW per day. The lights were off. Out heat is gas, so nothing there. We have an energy star fridge of normal size plus one older smaller fridge in basement — but Google says a fridge should only use 1-4 kW per day. I unplugged all the appliances before we left except the TVs (which were off). What is using all this energy?????
Any ideas? This is driving me nuts. I noticed the same thing last time we went on vacation.

[Anonymous]

I have no ideas, OP, but I'm eager to see responses to this post. Thanks for posting and good luck!

[Anonymous]

Is a neighbor using your car charger when you're not there?

[Anonymous]

Huh, that's weird. The cars weren't charging?

Do you have an HVAC circulating fan that comes on, even though the heat itself is gas?

[Anonymous]

I would expect to use that much, but I have an all electric house, outside lights, etc.

[Anonymous]

We do have outdoor lights but they only stay on for a sec if you’re on our stoop and we get zero foot traffic there so I don’t think that’s it. No way our neighbors are charging off us — they are super nice plus also it’s in our garage which was closed.
Keep the ideas coming though please!

[Anonymous]

That’s a big pull. Hmm. My dad was an electrician. I’m going to call and ask him if he has an idea and I’ll be back!

[Anonymous]

Hot water?

[Anonymous]

Hot water maybe? The forced air is still electric even if the heating part is gas.

[Anonymous]

I think you mean kWh?

Are your EVs plugged in? If they are, they could be drawing power to keep the battery warm & replace power to run electronics, even if it is “fully charged.” I did a bit of searching, and it’s not easy to find the answer to how much electricity that is, but people have posted anecdotal evidence that the battery warmer can draw 3-5 kW+ so it would have to run much to get up to 15 kWh.

Also, a gas furnace still uses electricity to run the fan (can be up to 400 watts, so if it’s running 12 hours a day, that could be almost 5 kWh).

Finally, an older refrigerator can use 4x as much electricity as a new one (so add another 4 kWh).

It all adds up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you mean kWh?

Are your EVs plugged in? If they are, they could be drawing power to keep the battery warm & replace power to run electronics, even if it is “fully charged.” I did a bit of searching, and it’s not easy to find the answer to how much electricity that is, but people have posted anecdotal evidence that the battery warmer can draw 3-5 kW+ so it would have to run much to get up to 15 kWh.

Also, a gas furnace still uses electricity to run the fan (can be up to 400 watts, so if it’s running 12 hours a day, that could be almost 5 kWh).

Finally, an older refrigerator can use 4x as much electricity as a new one (so add another 4 kWh).

It all adds up.

Typo — I meant the EV heater *wouldn’t* have to run much

[Anonymous]

I checked our bill for November. We used 216mw so nearly the same as you. We don't have solar panels, and we have an 8,000 sqft house (2 heat pumps, 2 gas furnaces, 2 gas water heaters), with one electric car that's used lightly. Based on that, your usage does seem high. Does your electric bill match up with the usage you're seeing in the app? It could be the app has inaccurate data. The electric bill is based on the meter data and that's definitely accurate.

[Anonymous]

20.53 here. 2.16mw.. The bill has it as 2,161 kwH and was writing it to match OP's units.

[Anonymous]

The app may be wrong.

[Anonymous]

You're sure that the app is showing energy consumed and not energy generated?

What does your electric bill show for usage?