[Floridian]

A few months ago I bought some piece of land to build a small home and also store our RV. Everything is going OK but I then installed the electric pole and I have had the RV connected 24/7 but pretty much empty (we are not living in there or anything like that), this month the electric bill came and it says that it used 412Kwh for the past month, every now and then we go in, turn on the ACs (less than an hour but that happened 3/4 times this month) 

Does that sound like the consumption should be that high? 
Does anybody else pay attention to this that can share your average consumption while almost in storage? 

I installed a 50Amp receptacle for it and I don't see anything going up on the ammeter inside the coach so I don't understand where is all this consumption going.

Thanks!

[ccjohnson]

Might be your battery charger. Especially if you have the old Hart battery boiler. Check electric heater thermostats to be sure they are off as well as hot water heater turned off on electric for storage. It may also be your 110V compressor running intermittently. Are AC units turned off?

[Fulltiming]

That is the equivalent of using 572 watts continually, 24 hours per day, for 30 days. The AC's should be pulling about 14 amps each and if the coach is hot, they could be running the entire hour. If you are running 2 AC's for 3 hours a month each, that is 10,080 watts or 10 Kwh so that isn't contributing that much. Is your electric water heater running while you are gone? That has the potential of using more electricity than the AC's over the period of a month. The battery charger will consume some electricity but unless you have the old battery boiler, it shouldn't be cycling on very often nor staying on that long each time to replace the battery drain from parasitic loads in the coach. If you have a bad battery that could cause the usage to increase. Your refrigerator could be using some electricity if it is left on. Is you ice maker turned on? I found that those drink electricity like it is going out of style. I had to turn mine off to keep the batteries from discharging badly overnight when dry camping.

Any neighbors that might be tying into your meter from time to time?

[Guy]

Read your electric meter yourself. Compare the next reading with what the power company reads.  Could be human error, or a bad meter ? I know most are read via internet.

[Floridian]

Might be your battery charger. Especially if you have the old Hart battery boiler. Check electric heater thermostats to be sure they are off as well as hot water heater turned off on electric for storage. It may also be your 110V compressor running intermittently. Are AC units turned off?

I have a Progressive Dynamic charger for the batteries so I don't think that is too old. It is very similar to this one in Camping World

All heaters and thermostats were checked and the are in the off position. The water heater button on top of the microwave is off as well. I think the 110v compressor is the one on the passenger side bay? That one has a button on the dashboard that let me turn it on and off and I always have it off, haven't had the need to run it. ACs are definitely turned off.

That is the equivalent of using 572 watts continually, 24 hours per day, for 30 days. The AC's should be pulling about 14 amps each and if the coach is hot, they could be running the entire hour. If you are running 2 AC's for 3 hours a month each, that is 10,080 watts or 10 Kwh so that isn't contributing that much. Is your electric water heater running while you are gone? That has the potential of using more electricity than the AC's over the period of a month. The battery charger will consume some electricity but unless you have the old battery boiler, it shouldn't be cycling on very often nor staying on that long each time to replace the battery drain from parasitic loads in the coach. If you have a bad battery that could cause the usage to increase. Your refrigerator could be using some electricity if it is left on. Is you ice maker turned on? I found that those drink electricity like it is going out of style. I had to turn mine off to keep the batteries from discharging badly overnight when dry camping.

I didn't want to make the conversion but looking at it that way there is definitely something in "standby" that is using more than what it needs. I did have some issues with the groups of batteries from the driver side, I left one of the wardrobes door open and that tiny light drained the batteries and I needed to recharge them and they are just fine now. But I'll keep an eye on them. My fridge IS on, but I can't seem to find this as the source of the consumption, I think it's a 4 amp fridge? (and this is not on 24/7) I removed the ice maker, we didn't use it that much and installed a dishwasher my wife wanted in there (a tall one).

Any neighbors that might be tying into your meter from time to time?

That is an interesting thought....I'll install a camera to find out if that is a possibility.


Now that I think about it, I did change something on the fridge, there was a switch at the top of the Fram that control the temperature and it was set to on and turned it off (when I was disconnected and running it from gas it wasn't cooling that much, when I turned that control off it seemed to cool better) but now that I think about it that will cycle the cooling process based off of the temperature so if that fridge IS 4 amps, that will be close to 500 watts a month.

I'll take a look at that, I'll turn it off and see if that changes.

I also read my meter every weekend and it keeps going up!  

I want to build a radio receiver to receive the updates those power meters things emit so I don't have to keep an eye constantly on it, and send it to me when there is new info, one day...one day I'll have the time to do it!!!

THANKS for all your responses, it helps to make me think harder!!!
Juan

[Richard]

Juan,

If you don’t have a clamp on AC ammeter, you should invest in one. They are not expensive.

You can open the cover on the AC breaker box, and measure the amp draw on each circuit. It will help you find a high draw circuit if that is your problem.

[HoosierDaddy]

Juan, you might want to check out products from monnit.com I have used their temp monitor. It has been very reliable. They have all kinds of monitoring devices that relay via the web.

[Floridian]

I appreciate the good suggestions. I went ahead and turned off all breakers AND the inverter, now consumption is between ~1kw a day so I need to start chasing inside the RV what is going on.

My inverter is the originl inverter so it might not be the most efficient inverter out there but I need to spend time finding what exactly is consuming that much.

Again, thanks for all the suggestions!

[CaptainGizmo]

You’ve got a good question and precisely why I bought a clampmeter as well as created this video to explain why we need one.

Enjoy this…

https://youtu.be/0eEdXfTxgwE