Why Is My Electric Bill So High? A NJ Electrician Explains
A high electric bill is almost never a mystery. It is one or two large loads running longer than you think. At New Jersey’s average rate of 23¢ per kWh, central air alone can add close to $200 a month, an electric water heater around $90, and a dehumidifier running most of the day about $40. The average New Jersey household uses roughly 1,197 kWh a month and pays about $270 — around 11% above the national average.
Here is what each thing in your house actually costs to run, how to find the culprit in 24 hours without any tools, and the short list of faults where the answer really is electrical.
What things cost to run in New Jersey
Every figure below is watts ÷ 1,000 × hours × 23¢. The assumptions are stated so you can adjust them to your own house.
| What it is | Draw | Assumed use | kWh / month | Cost at 23¢ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Central air conditioning (3 ton) | 3,500 W | 8 hrs/day | 840 | $193 |
| Electric water heater (resistance) | 4,500 W element | typical family | 400 | $92 |
| Pool pump | 1,500 W | 8 hrs/day | 360 | $83 |
| Portable space heater | 1,500 W | 8 hrs/day | 360 | $83 |
| Hot tub | varies | year-round, covered | 250 | $58 |
| EV charging | — | 1,000 miles/month, efficient car | 240 | $55 |
| Dehumidifier | 500 W | 12 hrs/day | 180 | $41 |
| Heat pump water heater | — | same family, same hot water | 110 | $25 |
| Old second refrigerator | — | garage, 1990s unit | 100 | $23 |
| Electric clothes dryer | 3,000 W | 5 loads/week | 65 | $15 |
| Modern refrigerator | — | continuous | 40 | $9 |
| Ten 60 W incandescent bulbs | 600 W | 5 hrs/day | 90 | $21 |
| The same ten bulbs in LED | 90 W | 5 hrs/day | 13.5 | $3 |
Two things that surprise people
Phantom draw is not your problem. Unplugging chargers and turning off the television at the wall is worth a few dollars a month. It is not worth what people spend worrying about it. If your bill jumped by $150, no amount of unplugging phone chargers explains it.
Heating with electricity is the biggest single mistake. A single 1,500 watt space heater run through a cold snap costs more than your refrigerator does all year. Two of them in bedrooms will visibly move a January bill. The same applies to the emergency or auxiliary heat setting on a heat pump, which is discussed below.
How to find it in 24 hours, with no tools
Your meter is a measuring instrument, and you already own it.
- Read the meter and write down the number and the time. Digital meters cycle through screens; you want the kWh total.
- Read it again 24 hours later. The difference is your daily consumption. Multiply by 30 and compare with your bill.
- Now do a baseline. Turn off everything you reasonably can — air conditioning or heat, water heater breaker if you are comfortable doing that, pool pump, dehumidifier. Leave the refrigerator alone. Read the meter, wait two hours, read again.
- Multiply that two-hour figure by 12. That is your true idle draw for a day. For most houses it should be low. If your baseline alone accounts for most of your bill, something is running that should not be.
- Bring things back one at a time, giving each a few hours. The one that moves the number is your answer.
If your utility offers hourly or daily usage data through your online account, you can do the same thing in ten minutes instead of two days. Look for the shape of it: a flat, high line overnight is a device stuck on, while a spiky pattern that follows the weather is cooling or heating behaving normally.
When it really is an electrical fault
Most high bills are behavioral or seasonal. These are the ones that are not, and they are the ones we get called for:
- A water heater element shorted to the tank. A failing element can draw continuously instead of cycling. The tell is a bill that climbed steadily over a month or two with no change in habits, sometimes with lukewarm water at the tap.
- Heat pump stuck on auxiliary or emergency heat. This is the single biggest winter bill shock in New Jersey. When the backup electric heat strips run instead of the heat pump, you are heating with resistance elements at three times the cost. A failed outdoor sensor, a bad defrost board or a thermostat left on Emergency Heat will all do it. Check the thermostat first, because sometimes somebody just pressed the wrong button in December.
- A well pump or sump pump short-cycling. A pump that starts and stops every few minutes, rather than running properly, uses far more than one that runs steadily. A waterlogged pressure tank is the usual cause.
- A dehumidifier or freezer with a failed thermostat or humidistat running 24 hours a day instead of cycling.
- Pool equipment left on a timer that no longer matches the season. Common, and easy to miss for months.
- A genuinely bad connection. Rare, but worth naming. If the high bill arrives alongside flickering lights, a warm panel, or lights that go bright in some rooms and dim in others, stop reading and call. That combination can indicate a failing service neutral, which is both expensive and dangerous.
What is actually worth changing
In rough order of dollars saved per dollar spent, in a New Jersey house:
- Get off resistance electric heat wherever it is running. Space heaters, baseboard used as a primary source, and heat pumps stuck on auxiliary.
- Fix the thing that is stuck on. A $229.99 service call that finds a continuously running element pays for itself in a month.
- Retire the second refrigerator in the garage if it is older than about fifteen years and holds four drinks.
- Finish the LED conversion. Not glamorous, but ten incandescent bulbs to LED is roughly $18 a month.
- Move the pool pump and the EV charging to overnight if you are on a time-of-use rate. If you are not on one, check whether your utility offers one, because for EV owners it often pays.
- Heat pump water heater if you are replacing an electric tank anyway. On our numbers above that is roughly $67 a month.
What we charge to find it
If you want the circuit-level answer rather than the guessing game, a service call with initial diagnosis is $259.99. We meter individual circuits at the panel, which turns “something is using power” into “this circuit is drawing 18 amps continuously at 2am”. A service call with one small repair such as an outlet or switch is $229.99, and after-hours emergency calls are $389.99.
Worth saying plainly: if your bill is high because you ran the air conditioning through a July heat wave, we will tell you that and not sell you anything. The number in the table above is the honest explanation most of the time.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my electric bill so high?
Almost always one or two large loads running longer than you think, not phantom draw. At the New Jersey average of 23 cents per kWh, central air conditioning can add close to $193 a month, an electric water heater about $92, a pool pump or a space heater about $83 each, and a dehumidifier running twelve hours a day about $41. The average New Jersey household uses about 1,197 kWh a month and pays around $270.
What uses the most electricity in a house?
Air conditioning, at about 19 percent of US residential electricity, then space heating and water heating at about 12 percent each. In practice the biggest single mistake is heating with electricity: one 1,500 watt space heater run eight hours a day costs about $83 a month, which is more than your refrigerator uses in a year. A modern refrigerator costs about $9 a month.
Is phantom or vampire power really costing me money?
Very little. Unplugging chargers and switching off the television at the wall is worth a few dollars a month. It is not worth the worry people give it. If your bill jumped by $150, nothing you can unplug explains it — look at cooling, heating, hot water, a pool pump or something stuck on.
How do I find what is using all the electricity?
Read your meter and note the time, read it again 24 hours later, and the difference is your daily use. Then turn off everything you reasonably can, read the meter, wait two hours, read again and multiply by twelve. That is your true idle draw. Bring things back one at a time. If your utility offers hourly usage data online you can do the same thing in ten minutes.
Can an electrical fault cause a high electric bill?
Yes, and these are the ones worth calling about. A water heater element shorted to the tank draws continuously instead of cycling. A heat pump stuck on auxiliary or emergency heat is the biggest winter bill shock in New Jersey, because you are heating with resistance strips at roughly three times the cost. A short-cycling well or sump pump, and a dehumidifier or freezer with a failed thermostat, do the same thing.
Why did my electric bill double in winter?
In a New Jersey house the usual answer is electric resistance heat that should not be running. Check whether your thermostat is set to Emergency Heat, which is the most common cause and is often just a wrong button pressed in December. A failed outdoor sensor or defrost board will do the same thing automatically. Space heaters in bedrooms are the other frequent cause.
What is the fastest way to lower my electric bill in NJ?
In order of dollars saved per dollar spent: get off resistance electric heat wherever it is running, fix whatever is stuck on, retire an old second refrigerator in the garage, finish the LED conversion, shift the pool pump and EV charging to overnight if you are on a time-of-use rate, and replace an electric water heater with a heat pump model when it is due anyway.
Sources
- New Jersey residential electricity rates and consumption — U.S. Energy Information Administration
- New Jersey average rate and monthly bill, August 2026 — EnergySage
- Residential electricity end uses: air conditioning 19%, space heating 12%, water heating 12% — EIA, Electricity use in homes
- Residential Energy Consumption Survey data by state — EIA RECS
Serving Central and North Jersey
We diagnose high electric bills and the faults behind them across Monmouth, Middlesex, Somerset, Union, Morris and Essex counties, out of our Hazlet and Bridgewater offices. See our guide to flickering lights, what it costs to charge an EV in NJ, or get on the schedule.