SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — A Carlsbad man whose latest SDG&E bill was more than a thousand dollars now knows the reason why.
This week, CBS 8 reported on the homeowner’s outrageous bill.
Sina Shayesteh bought the two bedroom, two bathroom condo in August. He lives there with his brother.
They both work from home, but say they don't feel like they use enough gas or energy to justify such a high bill, which rose dramatically compared to when they moved in.
"It started at $300 and now the last one was a thousand dollars,” said Shayesteh.
Shayesteh called SDG&E, and insisted they send someone out. A technician visited the home last week, but found nothing wrong with Shayesteh’s meter.
That's when CBS8 got involved. We reached out to the company and they admitted a $1,000 bill is rare, so they ordered a whole house audit.
That took place Friday morning. Technicians went through the entire home and turned off high usage appliances.
They then ran various tests to see if there's a problem, for example, a leak or energy surge coming from someplace else.
It took about an hour and a half, at which point, it was determined there was nothing wrong on SDG&E’s end.
It turns out, the owner's thermostat was miss-wired.
According to SDG&E spokesperson Anthony Wagner, that was causing the heater and air conditioner to run for hours at the same time.
"Mostly heaters and air conditioners cycle on and cycle off. This just stayed on because one device was attempting to heat the home and the other device was attempting to of course cool the home,” explained Wagner.
SDG&E technicians have since fixed the thermostat.
We're grateful he brought this to our attention so we could help fix the problem. We're grateful that we can definitively tell his thermostat was mis wired and this should provide extraordinary relief,” said Wagner.
As for any refunds, because this was not an SDG&E issue, the owner will likely not be getting any money back for the high bills he's already paid.
WATCH RELATED: "It just started getting higher and higher" | Carlsbad man receives SDG&E bill over $1,000 (February 2022)