I read the Jan. 12 article on Central Maine Power and consumer problems (“Customers perplexed by findings of PUC staff,” Page A1), and the Jan. 12 editorial (“Our View: PUC report shouldn’t end concerns over CMP,” Page D2).

Have you considered the possibility that CMP may be right? The fact that a detailed examination of current billing issues didn’t identify problems may mean that some consumers do have real problems with excessive electricity usage.

A few years ago, we received an unusually high bill from CMP. We decided to look for the root cause of the problem. First, we looked at our daily usage on the CMP website. We saw a one-day spike in usage, that continued to be high. A clue was that our washing machine was not doing a good job. But we could not find any electrical or other problems.

We did find low water pressure. Perhaps the well tank had an air leak in its compressed air system. We checked for air leaks; no problem found.

That left the well pump. Once we located the wellhead we had the well opened and the pump pulled up and examined. It was broken, and the root cause of our problem with electricity usage. A new pump was expensive, but solved the problem.

My point is that some problems with high electricity usage are difficult to identify and expensive to fix. A second point is: If the cause of a problem can’t be found, perhaps you are looking in the wrong place.

George C. Maling Jr.

Brunswick

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