3046 kWhs Are You @#$! Kidding Me?

For those of you who have known me over the past few years, you may be familiar with my Don Quixote fight with electric usage in our home and astronomical electric bills we have been experiencing for the past two years. This festering issue has followed us to San Antonio. Yes, I still track our kWh usage. I don't look at the $ portion to battle the electric bill because rates go up as many of us are currently experiencing. But you can tell a lot from your kWh usage- that's the true measure of the your electric habits.

Yesterday we got the July electric bill. To our dismay there was another rate increase, however there was an even more perplexing issue that has been haunting us for the past two years. We seem to be using a LOT of electricity. This month the bill said we used 3046 kWhs. This has to be a mistake I thought. In the past year we have left our 1960's home in San Angelo, bought a new energy efficient one, upgraded our washer dryer system for the Whirlpool Duet, etc. We should not be using this much electricity. Even when we were in San Angelo we had something sucking serious energy. With all this energy sucking I have been on a war with everyone- no using electricity except the AC (its a 100 degrees here) between 3pm and 7pm (peak billing hours), turn all the lights off, hanging the clothes out on a clothing line, etc. Yet the kWh keep rolling onward and upward.

Today I solved the mystery. It proved to be a bitter sweet resolution. The evil culprit is our wine storage thing that Tim bought in September of 2006. In the past couple of weeks it has come to our attention that if you touch the top of the unit it is hot. This is a noteworthy sign something is amiss. I also have been taking notice that the thing seems to continuously run. When I say continuously- I mean all the time. I even timed it this afternoon. Within a one hour time period- it only turned off for 4 minutes. It ran the rest of the time! I looked the unit up on the Internet, it is an Everstar. Low and behold it apparently has some problems and no one can locate info on the company Everstar. SHOCK!! I know.

This demanded a solution. I ran to the file cabinet and poured through our receipts- great he bought it at Home Depot. . . even better he bought an extended warranty that does not expire until this coming September. JUSTICE.. I beat the expiration clock - or so I thought. This not a simple piece of equipment- it is listed as a major appliance is expensive.

I went to the local HD store and asked for assistance. Andy at the front desk was a dear and a great help. He showed me the "800" number to call for service. I went to my car and called the number to be informed that there was no such warranty on file and that the warranty was an exchange warranty and must be handled on the "store" level. I went back inside. The store called the "800" service number and spoke with them. The conversation went something like this:
Andy: I have a customer here with an extended warranty and it is needing service.
800#: lalalalala
Andy: Excuse me? Well I have the original receipt here with the original paperwork and yes, it does exist. What do you mean? I have to do what? You do realize that I am the store calling? You want me to what? Okay fine. Give me the information.

Andy got off the phone and explained that the "800" did not believe him and he had to fax a copy of the receipt to them to prove the item existed. WTF? He told me that someone would contact me within the next 24 hours. Well they did. An hour later I received a call from a lady with servicing giving me a contract number and another "800" number to call and book a service. When I described the problem to her she said for me to get it serviced right away because if the wine goes bad they would have to cover the cost of the loss. I called the number right away.

After going through several voice automated selections I was connected with someone from a 3rd world outsourcing answering service for GE. GE is handling all of HD's service contracts now. While speaking with Caesar (the service agent) I explained that the compressor was running continuously and never turning off, while the outside was hot to the touch. He then asked me that if I opened the door was it cold inside. Boy did I pick the wrong answer. Here is Caesar's response: "If it cold inside, it working and we no fix. If cold inside it meet term and condition of working unit and no service by warranty. It must be hot inside for us to send service to you." I asked him to repeat himself and he further explained that only if the unit was not cooling and the wine was spoiled would they send out a service person. I explained that something was wrong for it to run continuously and be using up to an excess of 500 kWh a month.

SIDE NOTE: I figured out how the minimum electricity this sucker is pulling because our neighbor has a house that is approx 600 more square feet than ours and they keep it at 70 degrees or lower and their bill has been for the past 2 months at lease 500 kWh less than hours. And theirs does not have the extra insulation that our house does, and they do not have the energy efficient washer/dryer system we have. Besides that we have similar appliances- almost exactly- including the extra outdoor freezer.

Back to the story with Caesar: Caesar upon hearing the electricity usage told me that I needed to contact the local electric company because the problem was with them allowing that much electricity to go into the appliance. It is not the appliances fault. With this I demanded to speak to his supervisor. A language barrier was evident- unfortunately Caesar spoke better English than his supervisor. She told me that the warranty did not have to be honored unless the machine was completely broken. I told her, fine then say the thing is hot. Ah, but now you are lying she tells me. I yelled at her, but did not cuss that she needed to get someone out there to fix the thing. She then told me that I was receiving my first warning about yelling at her and if I continued to make her feel uncomfortable that she would refuse me service. She also was frustrated that I needed her to repeat herself multiple times to understand her. Needless to say, I hung up with a promise to contact corporate.

After I calmed down, I called the store we bought the thing at. The San Angelo store- I knew they would understand my predicament with the 3rd world outsourcing issue. And I was right. I explained the problem (SURPRISE!) since they spoke English they understood what I was explaining and said that yes, there is a definite problem with the equipment. I am waiting to speak with the store tomorrow- it appears they are having the same problems I did. Until then- I could not stand it anymore. I moved the wine to a different refrigerator and unplugged the damn thing. To make my stomach churn even more... Tim came home and told me that SOB of a wine cooler not only has 1 but 2 compressors- that are the same size as a full size refrigerator. That thing will not be plugged in again!

Suggestions are welcome in dealing with this situation.