I am looking for some advice. I have lived at my current residence for about a year now. In that time I have had multiple heating elements fail. I have gone through 4 water heater elements, 3 dryer elements (between 2 different dryers), 2 oven heating elements, 3 heating elements for a pellet stove, and also countless light bulbs that burn out well before they should. My electricity bill is also about $300 a month and other people in my area with similar sized houses and similar usage pay about $100 - $150 a month. I do have a basic knowledge of electrical wiring and I have checked the voltage in the house and it is good. Also as far as I can tell everything in the circuit breaker box appears to be connected correctly. Any thoughts on what I could try would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

Welcome to the forums!

How did you check the voltage? Did you use an analog multimeter to check across the two hot legs, from each hot leg to neutral, from each hot leg to ground, and from neutral to ground, at the point where those are connected to your main distribution panel?

If so, what readings did you see?

 

did not try that way. I just measured voltage across a few outlets to see if the voltage in the house was to high. I will try measuring the way you suggested and post what I find.

 

You'll have to remove the panel cover to do the tests Nashkat suggested, so make sure you feel comfortable doing that. If you get an errant reading (too high), call your POCO and have them come out and check their side of the entrance. Your heating elements are most likely 240 volts, so I believe you will find from hot leg to hot leg more than 240 volts. Let us know what you find.