Hi All, Just received my latest electric bill and saw a massive hike. The last four months KWH usage has been September - 981, October - 1,054, November - 1,206, and December - 4,515. I have absolutely no idea how we could have jumped from 1,206 to 4,515 in one month. A little background, though: - My wife and I moved into the home, a 1901 colonial, in September - We used two window A/C units all September and half of October - We have electric baseboard heat and have had it running since late October - I was concerned about electric baseboard heat bills, but all November we ran heat and had a 1,206 KWH reading. - This month we had a tree come down on the line to our house, severing our power for 4 full days. It ripped the line right out of our house and also damaged the meter since it yanked the wires almost right out of the meter. I've looked over my bill, and they did an actual reading on December 10th. December 10th we didn't have power to the house and the meter, while still attached to the house, was probably damaged. We now have a digital meter, but I just am clueless about where this power draw could come from. There are only two changes I can think of in December compared to November: - Christmas lights - we have about 14 100-mini light bulb strands around our split-rail fence, 1400 mini light bulbs in total, a Christmas tree, and a 150 watt spotlight on our door (only used for about a week's worth of nights from 6PM-11PM. - When we finally could live in our house again after getting power back, I had all baseboard heat on high for about 24 hours to warm the house back up. Could this really contribute to the high bill? My research indicates the Christmas lights should have a minimal impact on our bill, and given the reasonable usage we've seen while running baseboard in the past, I find it hard to believe 24 hours running at full heat really affected our bills that much. Any ideas? Could this be an issue where their reading of our meter really can't be considered accurate? What can I do here? Thank you!!

I am building a detached shed in my yard and would like to run power to it. The shed will be under 200 ft^2, nothing special wood frame on the floating dek-block foundation. I know my way around construction in both mechanical and electrical from growing up in a builder family. But it was mostly commercial so I know enough to be dangerous;) [B]Load[/B]: lights and 1 receptacle. Lighting would be a fluorescent inside, and a ~100W yard light. Receptacle would be running xmas lights/party lights most of the time. The largest load I can foresee is my 15A circular saw. This is a storage shed and no shop. So I don't have my whole assortment of power tools running off of this. I also don't see any chance of the load expanding in the future. Therefore 20A to the shed seems to be ample. Agreed, or am I over killing this and unnecessarily adding to my wire gauge? [B]Total run[/B] is 50ft. ~30 through house walls and crawl space, followed by ~20ft of underground though conduit. Yes my service panel is at the opposite end of the house to the shed location, but at least I have crawl space where I actually fit. My questions: [LIST] [*]Am I best served with a multiwire to the shed or subpanel? [*]What gauge would work for this and do I need to run romex from the service panel to conduit, then switch to stranded wire? I assumed 10-3 copper is best. [*]I have a poured foundation wall with wood frame on top for my house. Do I need to punch a hole for the conduit through the foundation below grade or can I go through the exterior wall above the sill plate to a LB then into the ground? [*]Is there any guidance/code on how I need to bring the conduit up into the shed since it is on the dek-blocks? BTW the shed will be on level ground so there is no space for a kid to crawl or a mower deck to slide under and snag a line. [*]RMC or PVC conduit? what diameter? [*]Do I need a GFI at my service panel? [/LIST] I'll likely have more Q's later, but this will get you all started! Thanks Dan