Might want to check the “average degree days” listed on your SECO bill. If the average is higher on the higher bill then hotter weather may be the culprit. If average is same or similar I would suspect one of your home appliances may be to blame (A/C system, refrigerator, etc). As things get older they run less efficiently .

Ohiobuckeye
 

We as American citizens just sit back & let things like this happen,😲. Same thing going on everywhere not just in Florida! Something is terribly wrong!

I’m angry about increased rates as well as usage. My bill last month was $190. I’ve never had a bill that high in my patio villa.

$ difference was probably paritally related to increased fuel costs .

Mine went from 40 kWh to 1,997 kWh (from $44.24 to $277.69)!!!!! And they tell me that nothing is wrong....

40kWh seems unbelievably low. My house used between 175kWh and 400kWh when I was back north and it sat empty.

In another post I mentioned that my meter was read incorrectly one time resulting in an abnormally high usage followed by an abnormally low usage. Could this have happened to you?

What I decided to do was to record my own readings every day for a month. Then I could see that I used just about this much every day and I could multiply by the number of days to get an estimate of what the monthly bill would be. This is how I noticed the incorrect reading. You might try doing the same thing. My current usage is about 35kWh per day.

We had the same issue and SECO read our meter twice. I had the HVAC looked at though it was serviced last Sept. It appears that the AC was running more than usual. That is all I can attribute it to. The person who I spoke with at SECO also mentioned that sometimes the outdoor HVAC unit can freeze up which causes it to run continuously. That goes beyond my area of knowledge.

My June bill was 260, July bill 410 and August is 128! Obviously, incorrect meter reading in July.

Thermostats
 

Thermostats are not always the same. Your 78 degree setting could be different from my 78 degree setting etc. We were in a very good friends home lately and it was actually cold. 🥶. Their temp was set same as ours at 76 degrees.

The Ecobee has a setting for how the fan operates. It can be set to run the fan at least xx minutes per hour, even if no AC is needed. There are arguments pro and con, but most HVAC techs say that isn't necessary, and causes extra wear and tear plus wasted money.

Ecobee can be connected to your internet so you can make adjustments from anywhere. If you are gone for months (and have no internet service) perhaps you can talk to your neighbor and they will let you onto their network.

The outdoor unit gets hot and never freezes. The indoor unit, where the cooling happens, can freeze. That happens when the system is oversized, and too much cooling is produced for the volume of air. Bigger is not better when it comes to AC. It can also happen if the indoor coils are caked in dirt or the filter is clocking a lot of air flow. If no air can get to an area, and condensate gets trapped, it can freeze. Clean everything and check the filter housing for bypass leaks and for a bad filter.

I agree, but I actually have 3 thermometers, two of which are Acu-Rite devices sold at Home Depot and Amazon for about 11 dollars. The Acu-Rite devices monitor the temperature and humidity and display the high and low readings over a 24 hour time period. The temperature in my house never varies more than a degree or so away from 78 degrees. This morning, the humidity in my house is 41 percent, and it did not exceed 44 percent during the past 24 hours. It rarely ever goes above 50 percent. I think the poster who said that their air conditioner is set at 78 degrees and the humidity in their house is 64 percent is very inconsistent with my experience, unless they keep the windows open.

My first bill was about $100, covering May/June. 2nd bill was about $84. Still cheaper than my former place in Vegas during the summer... which had less square feet. I typically run AC all day at about 77 (did there too) during non winter months.

That seems totally out of whack to me. Our bill (patio villa) only differed $5, $96 in June, $101 in July. We have Duke.