high electricity bills

[alanjones]

I presently pay =A3100 per quarter for electricty which I find pretty high. At home we have 2 computers one of which is on most of the time.

3 TV's 1 always on in the evenings, 1 fridge/freezer, dishwasher (no longer used), washing machine used every second day (40 degree setting), microwave/combination oven used every second day for half an hour, lighting is mostly energy saving bulbs, electric shower (8.5 kw) no more than 20 x 15 mins a week,

We heat using gas so there's the boiler pump (2 years old). I have tried to reduce our electricity use but can't get usage down to less than 12 kw/h per day. Average use is 15 kw/h. Also we keep getting bulbs blowing - at least one per week. We had a man from SWEB to test the meter about 6 months ago but nothing conclusive was found. Unfortunately we have a new digital non-spinning disc meter so you can't switch appliances on and off to see which is using a lot of electricty. We have all RCD fuses fitted on the fuse board. Any thoughts. Many thanks Alan of Exeter.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

You're Shower and Washing machine will take up the bulk of electricity useage then the oven, followed buy TV's and monitors, if and when the most used computer is not being used but stays on, turn off the monitor.

Are you on a card meter? this type of supply generally works out dearer than DD payment.

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

[Sadly]

I suppose the computers probably use about 300W each.

TVs say 100W each.

FFreezer, maybe 25W average.

Washing machine ~2kW (but not for long)

Oven, maybe 1.5kW average while on.

Say average lighting (when in use) 200W.

So, guessing at times:

Computers: (300W * 12) + (300W * 2) * 30 =3D 126kWh TVs: (50W * 6) + (50W * 2) + (50W * 1) * 30 =3D 13.5kWh FFreezer =3D (25W * 24) * 30 =3D 18kWh Washing: (2kW * 0.5) * 15 =3D 15kWh Oven: (1.5kW * 0.5) * 15 =3D 11.25kWh Lights: (200W * 6) * 30 =3D 36kWh Shower: (8.5kW * 20 * 0.25) * 4 =3D 170kWh

Total =3D 389.75kWh per month.

At 5p per unit this should be about =A320 per month.

This back-of-an-envelope calculation shows that you should be paying about =A360 per month for the above usage. If you think you are using a little more that the times I guessed then it all works out about right

- otherwise you need to look for possible problems such as an immersion heater switched on or being on the wrong electricity tarriff (maybe you are on economy 7!)

[Rick]

100 quid a quarter is cheep - thats not far off my monthly bill, and we have a gas bill.

I have recently fitted switches to some of my electrical devices, so we can actually switch them off (Not just to standby) without a major hastle of getting the the wall socket behind them. I am hoping this helps my bills.

Rick

[The Wanderer]

But it should have a flashing LED in the fascia, and the flash rate is proportional to kwh recording.

First thought, have you got and left on a loft light? 100w bulb will use a nominal 2.4 units in 24 hours.

Switch everything off at the consumer unit, does the light stop flashing? Check for several mins if you can.

Pull out all of the fuses in the C/U and replace them one at a time, watch for when the light starts flashing frequently. That should pin down the circuit.

Then check everything on that circuit, including pulling out all 13a plugs and replacing them one by one, even if the appliance is switched off.

[PeTe33]

for about 5% of their working life perhaps. Just because the PSU can supply 300 W it will normally be supplying a huge amount less.

[Sadly]

300W for a PSU is small today. But what about the monitor, speakers, printer, scanner...

My PC uses enough power that it can make the room noticably warm even with no heating on in that room!

[Christian McArdle]

That is a false economy. A modern European spec dishwasher will likely use less energy than hand washing.

20 x 15 minutes a week for a year is 13,520 kWh. At 8p per unit, that makes 175 pounds a year. This leaves 225 for the rest of the house, which is quite good.

Do you have a gas fired hot water system? If so, consider replacing your inefficient electric shower with a decent mixer (with pump if necessary). You will get a much more powerful shower that uses less energy.

Christian.

[Ian Stirling]

Err, no, it's not, it's unbelievably large. Yes, the 'sticker' rating may be 300W. It will not be using 300W. As a benchmark, my server, with 8 drives and monitor active used well under

200W.

[Dave Liquorice]

=A3400/year or =A333/month seems ball park OK to me.

=3D 5hrs/week =3D 42.5kWHr/week =3D 6kWHr/day...

Lucky you we sit at around 22kWHr/day, without an electric shower, cook by electric though, most lights are low energy.

You have gas for space heating and hot water? I suggest you switch the shower to using your gas heated hot water. Pay a few pennies per kWHr instead of your 7.33p/kWHr:

100/91 =3D =A31.10/day / 15kWHr/day =3D 7.33p/kWHr.

You can probably find a cheaper tarrif, by maybe 2p/unit, if you look around.

You mean you are having low energy bulbs blow once a week or ordinary incandescant ones? Did the man from SWEB just test the meter (for accuracy of power measurement) or did he measure the supply voltage as well. He doesn't need to do the latter to check the former.

[Christian McArdle]

The power supply needs some headroom so that the computer doesn't conk out when working hard. Think of it like a car engine. Just because you have a

150PS diesel, doesn't mean that you're going to be using anywhere near that pottling about town. To use anything remotely like that you'd need to be playing 3D computer games, which give the graphics card and processor a good work out.

LCD monitor up to 40W when on. About 1 or 2W when off.

Approximately 0.5W.

About 1 or 2W when not printing.

About 1 or 2W when not scanning.

Christian.

[Matt Helliwell]

Buy at power meter thingy from Maplins (currently half price

and you can spend endless hours tracing the last few Watts being drawn.

For the very bored,

has details of what was sucking all my power when I went though the same process.

[Ian Stirling]

Even with that, you'd struggle to hit 150W. Maybe add on 10 drives, and you'd get 300.

[tarquinlinbin]

Put some of those blank plug plates in all the un-used plug holes as electricty may be leaking out and spilling onto the floor.

Remove antispam and add 670 after bra to email

[John Cartmell]

I have one here that uses a power supply outputting DC 5V 4A. OK most of that power isn't used unless you populate all four of the USB ports.

[Peter Lynch]

The little plug-in unit I got from Maplin that measures power consumption through a mains socket shows my computers are currently using 670 VA That's for 3 PC style computers (1 dual-processor), 2 monitors and a few other odds 'n' sods like an inkjet printer, broadband etc. If you want to know where all your power is going, I'd recommend spending

12.49 on a L61QAQ

Pete

[The Natural Philosopher]

Dunno about these days, but circa 1995, a room of 50 PCS and a few other bits and pieces blew the 60A mains fuse to the whole site.

We rplaced it with 100A, and even then we had to switch em on in realys after a power cut.

I'd say a PC and monitor is about 100-150W these days.

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , Dave Liquorice writes

Me too (£32/month), and my mix and usage of appliances is very similar to the OP's. Although I do use the dishwasher and tumble dryer once or twice a week, and don't have an electric shower.

[Christian McArdle]

I wouldn't be so sure. I once upgraded my computer to a more recent motherboard but didn't bother upgrading the ATX power supply, which was only

185W. Despite only having one hard disc and quite modest graphics (GeForce 2MX/Athlon XP 2400+), it would often cut out when doing hard graphical work, or after about 10 seconds of disc access. Replacing the power supply with a 350W fixed it. So when it does hard work, the peak current draw can get quite high.

Christian.

[PhilC]

landlady thought that when the electric was turned on to her garage/shed you had to wait for it to arrive at garage/shed.

PhilC