high electricity bills

[Geoffrey]

We pay (currently) £92 a *month* which has just been reduced from £125. Currently they owe us about a grand that has accumulated over the past 18 months - handy as that'll pay the next installment of tuition fees/accomodation.

We have 5 on all the time, one on evenings and weekends and one more that is used every day but only for an hour or two.

We have 6. 3 are on for the morning news, 2 (or sometimes 3) on in the evenings and one is on for a couple of hours during the day. Only one of them is every actually switched off (as opposed to standby) as it doesn't have a remote.

1 fridge, one freezer - both 1.8m tall.

Dishwasher is used at least once every day

washing machine used every day and tumble dryer used after every wash for 9 months of the year.

Pretty much the same except more showers - 15 during the week, 12 at weekends.

Same as us. We also have a gas cooker (spit) but I don't think the electronic ignition uses much in the way of leccy.

We also have a couple of pond pumps that are on about half the year.

There is also the stereo stuff (OK, surround sound but we still call it the stereo) on every evening. Garden lights on in the evenings for about 4 months of the year.

There also seems to be a mobile phone charging in every free socket and a couple of games consoles on standby every day but I do go round and switch them off every so often.

I would not like to get quarterly leccy bills - at least at the moment the payments go out every month with the mortgage/gas/phone/insurances/sky/TV licence/ISP charge/mobiles/water etc so I don't have that thrice yearly shock (apart from, of course, when someone reminds me of it like now...)

[Andrew Gabriel]

My dual 2.8GHz Xeon at work idles at 200W and peaks at 310W When fully loading both CPUs and thrashing both disks.

I don't have figures to hand, but I did measure some comparable AMD opteron systems, and they idle at significantly lower power power consumption (although that may vary by OS, depending how well it handles power management), and outperform the Xeon system.

At home, I use an old P160 as a fileserver, and that runs at between 40 and 60W depending on system load.

[Andrew Gabriel]

In 1995, PC power consumption was around 60W, plus another 60W for a monitor. These figures had remained pretty much unchanged for many years prior too, in spite of CPU performance going up. However, the power factor was low and the inrush current high.

There's a wide range of PC power consumptions nowadays, but the top end systems have all broken well away from that 60W figure which applied for many years.

[Ian Stirling]

Many power supplies will not produce their 'sticker' outputs, and even if they will, some boards load the power supplies in different ways, and can't make use of all the power. Not to mention that power supplies, especially cheap ones age, and their ability to provide ripple free current decreases.

Some power meters are very inaccurate.

[Andy Hall]

Utility companies love to borrow money interest free from their customers.

A better strategy is to arrange things so that at the end of the billing year you owe them a small amount of money and they agree to carry it forward, and put the excess into a suitable interest bearing account.

That way you achieve the same objective, make more money and have a better negotiating position with the utility suppliers, although it may initially shock them that you are not willing to lend them money. However, they soon get over that once you point out that you can shop elsewhere and they can take the situation or leave it.

[Blair]

I am interested in obtaining this measuring device but would like to know how it is used and how much information I can get. Looking at the picture of the device I have assumed it plugs into a socket any where on the circuit and you then plug in the item you want to check. The reading will then be for this item only when it is operational Then carry this out for every piece of electrical equipment. Am I right in this assumption? Blair

[manatbandq]

18 x =A3125 =3D =A32250. So you actually used =A31250 of electricity or =A370/month. You are still paying way over the odds. Don't let them bully you into making these payments, you can always change supplier.

MBQ

[Geoffrey]

Actually the reason they owe us so much is my fault - I misread the meter early this year (transposed a couple of numbers) and as we hardly ever seem to be in when the meter man comes to call it took till last month before they realised. To give them their due, as soon as they saw the problem they got right on it and phoned me up. I rarely look at the bills myself.

I'm sure you are right - I'll see how it goes for the next half year.

We certainly have reduced our leccy consumtion by just replacng all the lamps with energy saving ones and nagging the kids to TURN THE BLOODY LIGHTS OFF! every ten minutes or so.

[David Hearn]

You'd be amazed at the power some graphics cards can consume these days. Many requiring a dedicated PSU connector as the AGP/PCI bus can't supply the current it requires. I've got one such (few years old) and there's plenty of cases of people having stability problems using PSUs <

350W. I have something like 200W in mine (small form factor PC), but it's a good PSU - maybe the cheaper ones are just more dodgy. D

[manatbandq]

On those figures you are still paying way too much.

MBQ

[Ron Clark]

On 20 Dec 2005 07:29:13 -0800, [e-mail] wrote this (or the missive included this):

If any of you guys are over 50, check out Swalec Easywarm.

I cut my combined Gas/Electricity bills by 50%, and I can use as much power as I like. Standard monthly charge of £58.

All my neighbours are on it.

[Peter Lynch]

exactly

[Geoffrey]

Nothing on the Swalec website about it. Got a link?

[Michael Chare]

I think you have the right answer.

[Dave Liquorice]

A flat rate, use as much as you want, no penalties?

Sounds a rip off 25units/day (we use less than that), 31 days/month (average month is 30.5 days) 7p/unit (we pay less than that) is still only =A354.25. I guess if you are using a lot of power for space heating= you might benefit in the winter but what about the summer?

And so much for energy conservation...

[Ron Clark]

On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 19:08:31 GMT, Geoffrey wrote this (or the missive included this):

SWALEC Easy Warm Scheme:

Paul Thomas on 01639 870178 or 07767 850931

(I am given to understand that this scheme is NOT limited to Wales)

Good luck

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well you do, but its is only nanoseconds.

[Ron Clark]

On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 21:16:24 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice" wrote this (or the missive included this):

I didn't say it would suit everybody. For various reasons we use a fair bit of power, we were not with one of the highest charging providers and we were using (and paying for) £118 monthly for gas/electricity. Now it's, as I said, flat rate £58, no cap and no penalties.

[marbl2]

Maybe you have underestimated the FF, a typical new grade A one uses

350 to 400kwh a year so ~30kwh per month. Some grade B American ones are > 800kwh per year.

I think some older ones with poor insulation leaking door seals and ineficient compressors, the ones where the motor seems to be running continualy, can use vastly more than 400kwh/year.

I read somewhere that refrigeration represents 37% of domestic electricity consumption.

[Weatherlawyer]

And the warmer it gets the warmer it gets. It's a positve feedback increasing returns thing. The good thing is that as it gets hotter and hotter it will grown ice new crystals inside itself and fail.

Then the new CPU/Mobo will run cooler until you let enough crud build up on it once more.

If the OP is not fully switching his appliances off but is leaving them on stand-by, he may have much higher useage than he thinks he is.

Older stuff uses something like 80% of the full value and it will use it 24/7 -only relieving the deficit when it is increased by switching the machine on.

So it may be 3 TVs at 80% capacity plus all the ancilliary equiptment connected to them if they too are on standby.