WaterFurnace Electric bills higher after renovation

[greener73]

About two years ago our house caught fire. Thankfully everyone was ok and the house was saved however the water damage required the entire house be gutted. It’s been about a year since the house was restored. Since then the electric bills have consistently been 20-30% more than they used to be and I’m trying to figure out why.
The most energy intensive electrical device in the house is by far the Water Furnace and one thing they changed during restoration was the thermostat. They installed a Lennox X4147 programmable thermostat and removed the old WaterFurnace brand. The furnace continues to work great however its behaviour seems different now than it used to be. It almost seems now like the fan continues to run even if heat or AC is not being applied to the air. Its not uncommon to hear the fan on the furnace running and then see the lights dim as the compressor kicks on. This would have never happened before if my memory serves me correctly. The unit used to be either all on or off.

My fear is they have setup this generic Thermostat incorrectly or that it’s not compatible. The system type they selected on this thermostat is “Three Heat/ Two Cool Heat Pump – With Aux heat”. Is that the correct setting? I don’t have the manual for this furnace anymore and I can’t for the life of me find documentation on the web for it.

WaterFurnace Model: WXV041A201S
Electric aux backup heat.
Age of unit: 25-30years +
The compressor was replaced about 15 years ago, but other than that this unit has worked perfectly

Any advice would be great
Thanks
Steve G

[waterpirate]

One of the biggest snafus IMHO is the incorrect setting of the thermostat. Your thermostat is so much more tan a slave to the unit, it is the brain that tells your machine how and when to do what. It is easy enough for a wire to be in the wrong place or the set points to in the wrong configuration. Everything else being equal/the same, I would start there.
Eric

[Desuperheater]

Sounds like the thermostat is set to run the fan constantly.
If your unit is a 3.5 ton nominal cooling capacity (041 in the model number) it likely has a 1/2 to 3/4 hp blower motor. Running the blower motor 24/7 will spin the electric meter. Check your thermostat settings.

[SkyHeating]

Call a WaterFurnace dealer to check the settings on the stat. The thermostat seems like it should work fine unless the settings are incorrect. They could have aux heat coming on to soon which would make electric bills skyrocket. E fan could usually only raise monthly cost by $30-40 at most even with that size motor.

[greener73]

thanks a lot for the input.
I will have somone come out and verify the stat is setup correctly and let you know what they say