Sub-metered Electric bill seems fishy

[traci25td]

Hello,

I moved into my current apartment in Brooklyn in March of this year. In the lease it state that each tenant is responsible for obtaining electric and gas services from Con Edison. In reality, our entire building (200+ units) has a sub-metered electric/gas bill through QLC Logic.

The problem is that my bill has been rising substantially each month since I moved in without a severe change in usage. My electric bill for a 700sq ft 1 bedroom apartment in May was $161, June $213, and July $255. The apartment has central air but I use it very sparingly. My use hasn't dramatically increased from May to June.

Since I don't have a direct account through conEdison, I feel I don't have any recourse to question this bill. QLC Logic appears to be the manufacturing of the submetering equipment and a billing company. The management of my building is absolutely terrible and unresponsive to issues. Back in May every tenant of the building received a letter from conEdison stating that the management of the building owed $10k in back monthly charges from lighting the common areas of the building. I am thinking that the management are adding charges to my bill to recoup these costs.

Optimally I would like to establish my own account with conEdison to avoid any shady billing practices. Does anybody have any advice?

[Emeraldstar]

Hi All
Have you called Con Ed for advisement how to get their service installed for your apt? I would think they would be most helpful since they want your business.
Years ago I posted on the forum & TN advised to purchase Kill A Watt. It measures how many killawatts are used in a period of time. At the very least it can give you readings for your appliances, lamps etc. Than you have an approx. guess how much is over the top on your usage. There are a few types & also can be combined with a computer. Just google it.
You can also call the AG's office for advice on how to get past bills reviewed for accuracy.
Please keep us posted. This is valuable learning for us all. I can't speak for your bld. or others for that matter, but I called Con Ed years ago & spoke with a rep in their version of fraud dept. & was informed, though they would not say how, that there is a way to steal electric from apt. to apt. rather than going through the basement meter lines. Maybe an electrician poster could shed more light on the topic if interested.

[ronin]

The stealing of electricity is often done by linking to some innocent tenant's Con Ed meter. Usually this is done in situations where there is a store in the building, and also when squatters take over abandoned apartments.

This wouldn't be the situation here as there is submetering controlled by the building owner. The question is how reliable is the submetering. You gave the square footage of the apartment but left out any information about your electric usage. You could have a 10 square foot apartment, but if you kept a chandelier with 50 150 watt bulbs on, a hot plate burning, a heater and an air conditioner going 24 hours a day your bill would be extremely low. Or if you had a 7000 square ft apartment but kept the fridge off, and never used the lights or any appliances then even $10 might be too much.

You need to figure out your usage before crying wolf. Electric rates have been going up because of the oil prices, and they tend to rise in the summer as well. You could raise a big stink only to find out that you owe more money than they charged you.

[concord]

'Kilowatt-hour’


FIGURING OUT YOUR ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION

The charge appearing on an electric bill is calculated based upon kilowatt-hours (kWh). KWh represent how much electricity you use. E.g., your air conditioner uses so many kWh in order to operate.

The electricity supplier can tell you how much they charge the account holder per kWh.

The electricity supplier can tell you how many kWh your appliances consume if you can tell him/her how many ‘Watts’ your units are (as indicated in the Owner’s Manual). (Example: Your portable heater is ‘1500W’.)

So, you can calculate how much electricity your units consume and if the charges on your bill are accurate.

This link explains the kWh very well under ‘Examples’:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowatt_hour

BASE CHARGE

Bear in mind that there may be a base charge on your bill which is unrelated to your actual electricity usage (just like a phone bill will charge you a base charge of $15 per month and also 5 cents per phone call per month as opposed to, just charging you for the actual phone calls made only).