Info before the story:
When we had our house built by a cookie cutter builder we babysat the building, making sure they did everything as they were suppose to. We also added a lot of extra insullation ourselves before the drywall went up. We had the insulation people out 3 times before they put the correct amount in our attic (it was blown-in stuff). We really made sure the house would be as energy effeicent as we could possibly make it.
Our gas and electric bills are combined (the companies merged). During the summer our electric bills are higher then gas and vice verse during the winter.
Our highest winter bill of 7 winters in the house is $217 (remember gas/electric combined) and that was last winter.
Neighbors around us easily have $500 gas/electric bills during the winter (they didn't make sure their houses were built correctly).
For our AC, in Michigan you can have a second meter installed that is an interuptable meter. Which means they give you a discount for having the second meter in which to run your AC during the summer, but they can cut the power to it during peak hours for 15 minutes of every hour. This hardly happens.
Now onto the story:
We just got a gas/electric bill, it was $532
$532
We came close to stroking out.
Something was wrong with the bill or our furance is about to explode.
Called the gas/electric company and said no way could our bill be $532.
Long story short ...
The person that reads meters in our area wasn't reading the AC interuptable meters. So we were not billed AT ALL during the summer for our AC. Once the gas/electric company found out about the non readings, they came out and read everyone's interuptable meter and billed them for it.
Our added cost was $313 for the second meter from April to October.
Now the interuptable meter is optional, hence the discount if you get it. A lot of people get it and I can only imagine what people's bills were. There had to be some that topped $1000.
Total Incompetence.
Posted by Quality Weenie at January 9, 2008 01:59 PM | TrackBack