otter
10-01-2009, 01:51 PM
Long time no post, but this should be a fun one...
Girlfriend moves to rental townhome. (previous tenants evicted) Utility hits her up for an obscene security deposit for electricity. When queried on the deposit, the utility answers that the deposit is based on the usage history of the unit and head's up... the electric bill goes to 300/month in the winter. Uh? The place has a gas furnace. It's heated with gas. Utility answers: yup and gas furnaces use electricity too.
Wtf? Normal bill for this place is about 100/month at about 17cents total (juice and delivery) kw/h.
Furnace (4 year old goodman 80) gets turned on for the first time last week and all is well for the first 15 min. Then it starts: burner shuts down, wait 20 seconds, inducer fan spools back up, burner lights for a few seconds, circulation fan kicks on and everything shuts down. Then inducer fan spools up.... repeat repeat repeat.
Landlord sends flunky handyman who twiddles with the anticipator on the old manual t-stat.. yep! there's yer problem, thermostat is set wrong. All good now! What about the led flashing trouble codes? No big deal, they all do that, see ya! (furnace doesn't act up while he's there).
Fast forward to last night, furnace starts acting up after g/f tries to bump the temp in the townhouse about 5 degrees. Calls landlord, tears a strip off him and apparantly the pros are on the way today.
Here's the question... assuming the previous tenants were unaware; could a furnace (fan, with all of that good starting current) cycling over and over and over and over add about 200/month to a hydro bill? Or did the previous idiots have a grow op in the place?
Girlfriend moves to rental townhome. (previous tenants evicted) Utility hits her up for an obscene security deposit for electricity. When queried on the deposit, the utility answers that the deposit is based on the usage history of the unit and head's up... the electric bill goes to 300/month in the winter. Uh? The place has a gas furnace. It's heated with gas. Utility answers: yup and gas furnaces use electricity too.
Wtf? Normal bill for this place is about 100/month at about 17cents total (juice and delivery) kw/h.
Furnace (4 year old goodman 80) gets turned on for the first time last week and all is well for the first 15 min. Then it starts: burner shuts down, wait 20 seconds, inducer fan spools back up, burner lights for a few seconds, circulation fan kicks on and everything shuts down. Then inducer fan spools up.... repeat repeat repeat.
Landlord sends flunky handyman who twiddles with the anticipator on the old manual t-stat.. yep! there's yer problem, thermostat is set wrong. All good now! What about the led flashing trouble codes? No big deal, they all do that, see ya! (furnace doesn't act up while he's there).
Fast forward to last night, furnace starts acting up after g/f tries to bump the temp in the townhouse about 5 degrees. Calls landlord, tears a strip off him and apparantly the pros are on the way today.
Here's the question... assuming the previous tenants were unaware; could a furnace (fan, with all of that good starting current) cycling over and over and over and over add about 200/month to a hydro bill? Or did the previous idiots have a grow op in the place?