Ameren

Hi everyone. Maybe this is just a rant but, I'm Not sure where to post this, so if you have suggestions of other threads let me know.. anyway loll I'm basically looking for tips on how to save on electricity. I live in a second floor apartment that's probably no more than 800sqft..all electric. I understand that is part of it HOWEVER. I do not understand how keeping my thermostat 66-70 degrees (auto) amounts to $198 and then, when I was keeping it at 66, it only went down to $178. I've lived in apartments the past ten years and it really seems outrageous now. A friend's two story house (built in 96) is probably 2500sqft and that Ameren bill was $310. Any advice on how to lower this or what I could say to my landlord or Ameren essentially saying "how TF is my bill so high?"

EDIT:: yes my building's old but renovated. I have not noticed a window draft but could be wrong. I had just seen the bill so I was peak irritated when posting. I guess I didn't realize several things also, so thanks!

I’m not sure if it’s just me thinking this but I honestly believe that Ameren should and could afford to reimburse or partly reimburse people for loss caused by FREQUENT power outages that extend past 24 hours. This would motivate them to get the work done promptly and take preventative actions. Anytime the wind blows too hard, the power will be out for a minimum of 48 hours since we are often the last to be served. I’m only here during the summer, the rest of the time I’m in New Orleans where we take way more heat without losing power which is what leads me to believe that they could be doing a lot more to avoid these widespread outages

Edit: Seeing a ton of smart ass responses. If it’s truly no trouble you all could just send me the money or take me grocery shopping since it is just food. No wonder Ameren is okay with their mediocre performance. They’ll never do more bc you all are eager to settle for less. Truly wondering what you all get from defending them so aggressively.

I live in a 2b/1ba >1000 sq ft apartment... I moved in in November and my bill started at $80 and is now at a peak of $209. I keep my ac off during the day and somewhere between 76-78° at night. With my bill increasing literally every month I've been actively trying to take steps to reduce electricity usage.. it still keeps increasing. I'm on budget billing, but currently so far behind that it's starting to stress me out. What could possibly be causing this high of a bill? My neighbor keeps her apartment at 68° and her bill has never been higher than $130.

My kw usage is consistently reading at 1254 even after unplugging and getting rid of stuff. I've called ameren, they've checked the meter, said everything is fine. I'm at a loss, and starting to get really frustrated.

I'm a first time home owner in O'fallon and I'm concerened about my Ameren bill. I'm not sure what the average is or what is comparable so figured I'd ask. I have a ~1400 sqft home and according to my inspection the insulation was great. We've been in the home roughly half a year and each month the bill is increasing. This latest bill was $200. We keep the AC around 72-73. I know its been stupid hot recently but is this about normal?

Ameren has a "Peak Time Savings" program where they connect to our thermostats and make adjustments they claim will help the community. I enrolled thinking I'll help the community and make the $2 monthly appreciation bonus. BIG MISTAKE.

We left town for a few days, so I set our Sensi thermostat to 95 degrees. When I checked on the house, I found Ameren changed the thermostat back to 72 degrees after a couple hours, so I set it back to 95 degrees thinking I did something wrong, within a few hours the house was back to 72 degrees.
Wising up to Ameren's ways, I changed the system to "Heat" mode. That worked fine for a day or so, but when I got home last night, I found Ameren returned the system to "Air Conditioning" and returned things to 72 degrees. To make matters worse, when I woke up, I learned Ameren changed the stat to 77 degrees. WTH?
I am going to block the stat from connecting to the Internet, there is no way I am going to allow Ameren execs to make their bonuses by jacking around with my thermostat.

Several times, I thought "I must have done something wrong", but I have been using Sensi thermostats since 2015 - user error remains a possibility, but it seems more likely that Ameren jerks are seeing excess capacity and looking at my meter as an opportunity to hit their bonus numbers.

I work from home and have not had power since Saturday. So I have been driving Uber to make up for lost time at work. I have driven all over saint louis this week and I have not seen any of these trucks that Ameren says they have out working. I see them in the morning getting gas and breakfast but where are these crews during the day? I’d like to get power back eventually…

I live in a two bedroom apartment. My electricity has been anywhere between $400-900 a month and Ameren energy usage chart is pointing towards it being the AC. I decided to shut off my breaker and check the meter and it was still counting usage. Even had my power off for more than a week just to test it. I've called and messaged Ameren multiple times a week for the past three months to get a investigation for electricity theft started. They keep telling me a supervisor will call me back to help start it. They never have. Support keeps telling me the ticket is still active and I'll hear back in 24 hours. This has been going on for months now.

What should I do? I'm thinking of disputing all my electricity payments with my bank. I'm moving out of state next month so I'm fine burning bridges and not using Ameren again. I literally can't afford these bills.

We are on the "Ultimate Savers" plan.

I'm married and a father of 3 kids. I'm an overlord of the thermostat. I have Nest thermostats and I stagger the times they precool the zones in my house, trying to avoid the "demand charge." I have sticky notes on the washer, dryer, and dishwasher saying "don't use between 3:00 - 7:00 PM." I even turn the ice maker on and off throughout the day.

So, we do all our laundry in the morning or overnight, we use up the ice throughout the afternoons, while freezing around lunchtime but melting in the early evening. According to Ameren's own tools, I am saving $10 per month.

So, we are shaping our lifestyles around Ameren's restrictions, all to save $10/month. I'm done with it. This is probably what they want. They're probably qualifying for some government subsidy by offering "efficient" or "optimized" rates along with rebates on "smart" thermostats. As far as I can tell, it's either just a way to check a box to qualify for tax breaks, or it's a way to control how my family and I behave throughout the day. I'm done. Now I just need to wait until the next billing cycle for the change to take effect....

Is there places that help with electricity bills? There is no way I went from 285$ a month to a sky rocket of 912$ … all due on 12.12.23. There is no way I can come up with that on top of my 925$ rent. I’m so screwed. And could really use some help.

So is everyone in S. City in the dark as of like 12 minutes ago? 63109

So usually, my power will go out and I have to contact Ameren to report it or get a status on repairs.

After the recent storms I was lucky and my power flickered enough to reset my clocks, but stayed on and is still on.

I feel bad for all the people who lost power and are still without service.

But Ameren keeps robo-calling and texting me, even at 1:00AM in the freaking morning, to apologize about my power being out and to tell me crews are working to restore my service but there is no ETC for when my service will be restored.

WTF, Ameren?

You have never contacted me this often when my power was actually out.

Yet now that I have a brand new smart meter that talks back to your system, you don't know that my power is working? And you feel compelled to send a constant stream of bogus messages at all hours of the day and night just to tell me it isn't fixed yet? Even if my power was actually out, I wouldn't want a freaking call at 1:00AfreakingM to tell me it is still out. Tell me it is out, then leave me alone until you fix it. Except in this case, it doesn't even need fixing.

Anybody else being spammed with bogus notifications?

Happy Saturday STL!

I got an email from Ameren yesterday congratulating me on my new electric bill rate - they moved me to one of their 'saver' plans without my consent. This plan charges more per kilowatt between 9a-9p. It was easy to log in and switch back, but I would bet they're doing this for all of your plans too. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up!

Ameren said I used that much extra electricity. I have done nothing differently than the previous month. My bill went from $76 to $538 and the customer service representative said the only explanation is excessive use. I’m waiting on a callback from a supervisor. Has this happened to any of you?

My landlord split electric between three units, and wanted my name on my bill. Cool, done. November 1st, name on electric. Nov 7th, prorated bill for $11. 7 days of electric for 11 dollars, more than happy. 25th I open ameren to see a $320 predicted bill, which had already climbed up to $178. Ameren can confirm that my kw usage jumped drastically from the 12-13th, from 30 to 220 instantly and growing from there. The only other insight that Ameren can give me is my daily usage, most of which is from 8pm-5am. Landlord is saying that it’s “my usage my problem”. Ameren says they can’t help until i’ve been with them for a couple more months. Shoot I don’t own large appliances and my hvac hasn’t been on since august. Can anyone who had had a similar predicament point me in the right direction? I don’t want electric shut off but i sure don’t want to be paying someone else’s bills. tia for reading my mess !!!!!!!!!! ~ UPDATE in conclusion, NOTHING was ever split. I assume they thought i wouldn’t notice and would simply pay the bill. Someone came out on the 2nd of December to actually split. They claim they will “credit” half of the bill to my ledger? okay what does that mean. I asked for 65 percent, as even ameren dashboard shows 200 less kw usage a day since the 2nd. Hopefully I don’t have to take this to court. Speaking of court, trying to move out this year might take me there. READ YOUR LEASE YALL:)

DO NOT open any doors/allow anyone to enter your home, apartment or building claiming to be Ameren (it’s also a good rule not to let random people in anyways). It is a confirmed scam and Ameren has even cautioned against the people doing this on the internet. If anyone that you don’t know or anyone that you know doesn’t belong on whatever property you live on rings your buzzer and asks to speak with you (for this purpose or other forms of soliciting) or attempts to enter your building, they are trespassing and you need to call the police.

I saw that someone posted about this around 3 months ago, but these guys are back again as of yesterday at least.

Someone unfortunately let them into our building yesterday and they were walking around in it trying to talk to people, get them to open their apartments up and find their Ameren bills to give to them. This not only creates an opportunity for these people to steal your property and/or potentially harm you as well as scam you out of money, but it also opens people up to potential identity theft (utility bills are one of several documents often used to obtain ID cards and open bank accounts, for example).

When they got to the area where my apartment is, they saw that I had a camera, immediately abandoned ship and one of them even left the drink that they were carrying in the hall. If you have to get away from cameras that fast, then you’re 1000% up to no good.

Please call the police if you see these people.

Stay safe!

So I wanted to make this post for anyone who has been invited to take the Ameren Missouri apprenticeship evaluations. I just recently finished my evaluations, and passed thankfully. Before I went to my evaluation’s, I couldn’t find anything on the Internet about what to expect, so here’s a little in-depth detail of what you should expect.

The evaluation process is a three day evaluation. It used to be five days, but they cut it down to three. There was about 10 guys in my group, Some went to climbing school, and a majority of us did not. Some just fresh off the street, doing construction work, stuff like that. So here’s the breakdown of what the days look like. Keep in mind this might be different for everyone, one day it rained so we couldn’t climb a full day. just keep an open mind on what to expect.

Day 1: the instructors introduced themselves, went over expectations and general information. They then made us read modules on digging holes, knots, and measuring. Make sure you read them thoroughly, you need an 80% on each one to pass. The questions are easy, and there was only about six or seven questions for each module. We had one guy fail, he went home immediately. They then took everyone outside to dig a pole hole. The pole hole needed to be 5’6” deep and 12 inches in diameter. 20 minutes digging, 10 minute break, 20 minutes digging, 10 minute break, and 20 minutes digging. They had a tube the size of a utility pole to check to see if everyone met the requirements. one person did not make it that day. He also went home immediately. After that, we spent the majority of the day going over knots and measuring. They let you practice the knots before taking the final comp on it. These are the following knots you must know. -Bowline -half hitch

• Double half hitch -Timberhitch -Clovehitch -Square Knot -Overhand knot

If you get them down before going to the evaluation, you should be good to go. I decided to take my final comp on knots and measuring my first day. For the measuring comp, they made you measure five or six metal bars with a folding ruler. Then they made me measure some other miscellaneous stuff. The measuring is up to the 16th. If you are good at measuring, you should be just fine. That was all day one.

Day 2

Day two was pretty light because of the rain we couldn’t go outside and climb. So they Did the actual behavioral interviews, they ask questions in regards to situations that you have been in at your workplace. That took up most of the day.

Day 3

Day three was pretty intense. All we did was climb from 8 AM till 3:30 PM. the instructors went over different things, and different scenarios. they also instructed us to do different things on the polls all afternoon, like lean out or tie a square knot on the pole, or do a 360 around the pool, etc. I cannot stress this enough, by volleyball pads and put them around the side of your knees before coming to climb on day two and three. Having those pads saved my legs, we had another guy drop out because of his knees hurting. He went home also immediately. they let you climb all morning and afternoon and practice, then they pull two or three guys at a time to do a final climb. The final climb is not that bad, just be sure to listen to the instructions that they want you to do, they will only tell you twice what to do. They made us go up the pole, do some transitions over some rope they put on the pole, do 360 and 180 etc. after everyone was done, and if you didn’t mess up, you were sent back to the classroom to wait to be called for an exit interview. The exit interview was basically an overview of what they saw in you over the 3 days and what to expect next.

Here are some quick tips and helpful things you can do to prepare. Make sure you are in shape. Start doing sprints, going on jogs, doing cardio exercises will definitely help. Buy the volleyball pads and use them on your knees, the climbers that go over your boots they provide will dig into your knee after some time. Make sure you stretch every day and stay hydrated. other than that just go in and give it 100%, do not quit. They want to see who is strong enough and has a strong will. make sure to listen, and don’t say “i know” or “ I got it” just say yes sir thank you, when they are trying to explain something to you.

For me, the hardest part was digging. Especially in the heat. Once the digging was over, everything else seem to be not as bad. If you’ve never climb before, I suggest you watch YouTube videos, or if you have someone in the field, ask them to help you with climbing if they can. Good luck and give it 100%! I hope this helps anyone else who is looking for information.