Mdthbs

They're kilowatt-hours. If you use 1000 watts for 1 hour, it'll add one to the current number displayed.

It's like an odometer on your car. It only counts up, and will never be at 0 except when it was brand new.

Where is your neighbor's meter? If you can't find a second one, chances are you're paying for their power too.

If your neighbor has their own meter, they will have their own circuit breaker panel too. If they're separate, then just turn off your breakers randomly and see if it affects your neighbor. If he complains that his heat or fridge keeps turning off then you know it's on your electrical service.

Best time to turn them off would be when they're home and trying to cook. That way they'll notice if their oven or fridge loses power.

If there is only one meter, then don't turn any breakers off. You're definitely paying for both homes if there is only one meter.

Dotes's suggestion for detecting whether any of your circuit breakers serves equipment for the neighbors is a good one.

There's a web page which describes how to read instantaneous current through an Itron meter. The meter model there is not the same model as in your picture, but they appear to be from the same family and are likely to display similarly. In a nutshell it says this: the three squares in the lower right corner of the display show an animation corresponding to power consumption. Each time one of these squares changes light to dark or dark to light it represents 1 Wh consumed.

It stands to reason that you could turn off or disconnect everything in your apartment and then watch these squares on the meter for several minutes to see whether power is still being consumed. If it is, start turning off breakers until you identify the circuit where the power draw happens. Then evaluate whether you can make do with that circuit left permanently turned off.

The photo seems to show another meter to the left of the one pictured. How did you determine which meter is yours? I assume they're labeled by address or unit number. Your electric bill may have the meter number printed on it. I suggest you confirm the number on the bill matches the number on the meter face -- or whether it matches one of the other meters instead.

When you do the power consumption test watch the animation on the other meters too. If the "wrong" meter shows zero power consumption, or if you're not able to match up numbers between your bill and the meter you believe is yours, then call the utility and ask for their help in confirming that your account is paying for consumption on the correct meter. I imagine it's a rare thing for the billing to get crossed, but it must not be impossible.

Find your breaker panel and turn off every breaker (except the main). The meter should register no increase even after an hour. If it is still counting up, you have a problem.

Turn on one breaker and see what comes on, then turn it off and do that again for the next one. After you have done that for all of your breakers, see if there are any that you cannot identify. If there are, leave them off. If your neighbor complains about things not working in their house, you have found the issue. If they were PURPOSELY stealing electricity, they will not say a word, but your power bill will go down. If that's the case, call the utility and report the theft, let them deal with it.

If you find nothing either way, then most likely you are calculating something incorrectly, but I don't think so. You don't say where you are or what rate you pay, but I am in California where the rates are the highest in the nation (37 cents/kWH) and my 1500 sq. ft. house is costing me half as much as you are reporting. So something is definitely wrong. Normally my first suspect is the water heater, because a faulty thermostatic switch can result in it running continuously by venting excess hot water through the blow-off safety valve. But you say it's gas? Are you sure? Can you see a gas valve on the side of it and do you get a gas bill? It would be unusual for an apartment to have electric baseboard heat, but a gas water heater. It's expensive to run a gas line to a residence, so they (the gas company) will not do it unless the space heater and stove is gas too, because a water heater alone doesn't make them enough money.

It looks like other answers so far have given good tips, but haven't answered the question "How to read the meter" very well.

You could measure the power usage like this:

1. Take a note of the current reading, e.g. 32676 kWh in your photo.


2. Wait one hour.


3. Take a note of the new reading, it could be e.g. 32679 kWh.


4. Subtract the two values and you'll get the usage in kilowatt hours. E.g. 32679 kWh - 32676 kWh = 3 kWh. Because the time was 1 hour, this means average usage was 3 kW during this period.

But there is a severe limit on accuracy here: a small home might only use about 0.5 kW on average. So you wouldn't see if you have a small amount of extra usage, but a huge amount would be visible. You could get more accuracy by waiting for e.g. 10 hours, but I doubt you want to leave your fridge off for 10 hours.

You can check how many kWh you were billed for in your invoice. Divide that by the number of hours in the billing period and you'll know how many kW the electric company says you are using on average. For example, if your bill for 1.4.2019 to 31.4.2019 is 400 kWh, you'd calculate 400 kWh / (31 days * 24 hours) = 0.54 kW average usage.

You can then compare that average usage to your set of appliances. For example this site has many of the common appliances listed.

The first thing I would suggest is to carefully read your monthly bill. There should be a place where it tells you last month's reading and this month's reading; the difference between the two are what you are charged for, plus any standard monthly fees. You should be able to do the math pretty easily: this month - last month = kWh used; kWh used x rate = power cost; monthly fees + power cost = total bill.

Assuming power consuption isn't the problem, I can think of a few other reasons your bill may be high, all of which should be revealed by reading through the bill itself:

• Whoever (or whatever) read your meter read it wrong. If this is the case, you'd only see a single month of error; it will correct itself next month, resulting in one high bill and one low bill (or even a credit). You may follow up with your power company just in case; having a documented picture of your current meter reading should be enough to reverse a bad reading.


• If this is your first bill, it may include a "new service" fee; again, this would be a one time charge, and wouldn't show up next month.


• If your bill is in someone else's name (ie, your landlord), there is a chance that it has some sort of "bill leveling" - bills are often high in summer and low in winter (AC vs gas-powered heater), so the power company will over-charge you in winter and under-charge you in summer, resulting in similar bills. If the last occupant used a lot of power, you may be paying off their bill. Again, this should be on the bill itself, and is something to talk to the power company (and your landlord) about.


• If you aren't getting an actual bill (ie, your landlord gets the bill, then tells you the amount), ask for one! It may be that he is overcharging you, either accidentally or on purpose.

Air conditioning uses quite a lot of power; varies of course, but you've quoted a capacity of 6000btu - a weird use of units - BTU = British Thermal Units.

On maximum, that's about 1.75KW each & every hour.

How much heat do you use in winter? - that's normally the major cost.

In the UK, its normal to be charged a fixed daily rate to cover the cost of providing the supply plus an amount related to your power consumption.