Hi everyone.We moved in a new house (not an appartment). The basement is finished. I am not usually be down there yet, so I can say it is not in use. I turned the separately partial heater down to 50 F degrees. The basement has some problem, the electric down there seems not steady. When I turn the neon lights on, it keeps blinking for the first 30 seconds. When I touch the switchers, it shocks me a little bit.For addition, my house is like 1600 square feet, 2 bed rooms, 1.5 baths. I keep the central air heater (pretty new, 2009) at 78 F degrees, and the electric bill first month came at $288 saying I used 2606 kWh for 20 days. I doubt that my basement's electrical wiring set-up is broken somewhere, so the electric leaks or wastes somehow.Questions are: Is it the first bill $288 for my house size weird? How do I test if my electrical wire set-up is not wasting my money?Thanks everyone.
Do you have any electric heaters? The electricity is not leaking. If you have an electical leak, it is not the same as a water leak. An electrical leak will not increase your electicial bill noticeably. It will trip a breaker, blow a fuse, or cause a fire. You keep the basement at 50 degrees. this is likely the reason your neon (fluorescent lights) flicker before coming on. Fluorescent bulbs often will flicker or glow when the are cold and/or damp. If your house is noew the electrical boxes should be proerly grounded. As for the electrical shocks, they could be static electricity discharging to the grounded electrical boxes. If you are not sure, hire a reputable qualified electrician to check this out. If your house is new; keep any bills and present them to the builder only if there a fault was found in the wiring.
Check the fixture for correct polarity,the 'hot' wire goes to the black ballast wire. Also try high output neon fixtures which work better in lower temperatures
