Learn More About Charges

Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tives are always hap­py to assist you with your billing ques­tions, but you may con­sid­er gath­er­ing this infor­ma­tion pri­or to call­ing. It may answer your ques­tions or pro­vide valu­able infor­ma­tion when you do call.

Accu­rate his­to­ry

Review how much pow­er you’ve used for the last 13 months. This his­to­ry is pro­vid­ed for you on every bill. You can com­pare your most recent month to that same month one year ago.

The best tool for ana­lyz­ing your bill is to view your dai­ly and even hourly usage on our Mem­ber Por­tal.

Click on the “New User” tab if you are log­ging on for the first time and do not have a user­name and pass­word.

Weath­er fluc­tu­a­tions may be a fac­tor in any major usage dif­fer­ences, but this is a good place to start your search.

The kilo­watt-hours you use dri­ve the amount of your elec­tric bill. Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive res­i­den­tial cus­tomers aver­age about 1400 kWh of ener­gy use per month, but most mem­bers use sub­stan­tial­ly more than that in peak win­ter and sum­mer months.

True elec­tric bill

Check to be sure this is a true high elec­tric bill.

• Are there oth­er charges beyond elec­tric ser­vice?
• Any addi­tion­al ser­vice fees (i.e deposits, connection/disconnection fees or returned check fees)?
• Have any past-due amounts from a pre­vi­ous bill been added to the total?
• Are there ancil­lary charges added to the bill for oth­er Coastal Elec­tric prod­ucts or ser­vices (surge pro­tec­tion, secu­ri­ty lights, etc.)?
• Don’t for­get about state, local and fran­chise tax­es.

Days of use

Check the num­ber of days that are billed for your elec­tric use. This varies from bill to bill due to the num­ber of days in a month, and a billing cycle may be a bit short­er or a bit longer so as not to make your bill due on a week­end or hol­i­day.

Is the num­ber of days greater than oth­er months in ques­tion because of meter read­ings or meter read­ing cycles? Is the dai­ly aver­age sig­nif­i­cant­ly dif­fer­ent from oth­er months in ques­tion?

Com­pare win­ter to sum­mer

Check the kWh total by month. From the his­to­ry, if the win­ter months are high­er, it could indi­cate some form of elec­tric heat and high­er hot water heater use.

Do the sum­mer months indi­cate air con­di­tion­ing? Were tem­per­a­tures high­er or low­er than nor­mal dur­ing the peri­od?

Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive offers a Lev­elized Billing pro­gram to help mem­bers with sea­son­al fluc­tu­a­tions.

Your elec­tric meter doesn’t go on vaca­tion

If you leave your home for an extend­ed peri­od of time for busi­ness or vaca­tion, any appli­ance you leave plugged in or con­nect­ed will con­tin­ue to use elec­tric­i­ty even while you are gone, espe­cial­ly your hot water heater, freez­er, refrig­er­a­tor, HVAC sys­tem, land­scape irri­ga­tion, well pump, etc.

Most of us note that the TV and lights were not on, but we for­get about these oth­er items.

Lifestyle

No two house­holds use ener­gy the same way, so com­par­ing your ener­gy bill to your neighbor’s is like com­par­ing apples to oranges. It is best to com­pare your cur­rent use to your past use.

• Deter­mine if the size of your house­hold has increased or if some­one stayed at home more.
• Have you added a new swim­ming pool or hot tub in your back­yard?
• Have you had “guests” stay for an extend­ed peri­od?
• Do you have hob­bies that include the use of pow­er tools, ovens or oth­er high elec­tri­cal resis­tance tools or appli­ances?

Light­ing, refrig­er­a­tion, cook­ing and appli­ances account for 56 per­cent of the total ener­gy use in the nor­mal house­hold. The loca­tion of refrig­er­a­tors and freez­ers is very impor­tant. Nev­er place a refrig­er­a­tor or freez­er in direct sun­light or in an uncon­di­tioned space such as a breeze­way, garage or out­build­ing. The refrig­er­a­tor or freez­er will have to work hard­er to over­come exces­sive heat dur­ing warmer months. Also, make sure that your refrig­er­a­tors and freez­ers have ade­quate ven­ti­la­tion.

Equip­ment main­te­nance

If an appli­ance is more than 15 years old, the effi­cien­cy of that appli­ance may be decreas­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly and require more ener­gy to do its job.

It is impor­tant to clean or replace the con­denser, coils and fil­ters on some appli­ances reg­u­lar­ly. You may need to replace the appli­ance itself. Many times old elec­tri­cal wiring will have loose con­nec­tions, result­ing in increased elec­tri­cal use and poten­tial safe­ty haz­ards.

Sea­sons

The addi­tion­al heat­ing or cool­ing load will cause an increase in elec­tric use. Heat­ing and cool­ing your home aver­ages around 44 per­cent of your total ener­gy use. Using space heaters, fire­places, live­stock heaters or vehi­cle block heaters in the win­ter can dra­mat­i­cal­ly increase your ener­gy con­sump­tion. Run­ning a dehu­mid­i­fi­er or water­ing lawns, gar­dens, and ani­mals in the sum­mer months will increase your ener­gy use.

Weath­er

Light­ning can some­times dam­age your well pump, sump pump or appli­ances, increas­ing the run­ning of these devices. If under­ground wiring insu­la­tion is dam­aged, an increase in elec­tri­cal use may occur when the ground is sat­u­rat­ed with mois­ture. You may want to con­sid­er hav­ing Coastal Elec­tric test your home’s ground rod instal­la­tions and sign up for surge pro­tec­tion.

Field vis­its

If after study­ing all the above infor­ma­tion, you still feel there may be a deep­er prob­lem, we are hap­py to take your call and assist you. After han­dling the high bill com­plaint on the phone, we deter­mine if a field vis­it is nec­es­sary to deter­mine any ener­gy effi­cien­cy prob­lems or check the meter. Coastal Electric’s Mem­ber Ser­vices Depart­ment can offer effi­cien­cy solu­tions.

When should I ask Coastal Elec­tric to test my meter?

Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive encour­ages mem­bers to look for the cause in the above sit­u­a­tions first. Meter tests should be a last resort instead of a first. Meters mea­sure ener­gy use, and it is very rare that they run fast. They are sel­dom the cause of a high­er bill but are often blamed.

Less than 2 out of 1,000 meters are going to be wrong when test­ed. This includes run­ning slow or run­ning fast. Most old meters will like­ly run slow­ly.

A faulty meter would more like­ly run slow­ly. In the case of a meter check, a Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive field rep­re­sen­ta­tive will check the meter.