tracyballard
Member
Our house, built in 1960, was repaired and remodeled by the previous owner and a lot of his work is very substandard, or worse. We would like to redo our plumbing and electrical systems, but we can barely afford food right at the moment, since I make less money during the last part of the year, and I'm trying to finish my bachelors degree. Our electric bill used to be around $300 in the summer, and $100-150 in the winter, varying in the months in between. But lately the last few months our bill has been over $400, $421 the last month, and it's been pretty cool here. We only have window ac units and haven't been using them very much. The area of concern I have is our kitchen The outlets used to spark when you plugged or unplugged something, until half the outlets in our kitchen went dead about a year ago. We haven't been able to fix this or even get anyone to look at it due to money, and I'm afraid our house is going to burn down someday because of this. But other than the fire danger, could this actually be the reason our bill is so high? Could it be that there is electricity draining away to ground or worse, and using up tons of power? I'm going to try shutting off each individual breaker to see if it slows down our meter - right now it's spinning at one revolution every 3 seconds. Any ideas? (other than to call an electrician - we would if there was any way). I've never done any household electrical work, but I am a pretty good auto mechanic and I have plenty of tools if that helps. thanks guys!