Just how much power can a fan oven consume...?

[Peter Kemp]

a) it's one of those new-fangled electronic meters with an LCD readout. No decimal point.

b) as I press the blue button, it cycles between the four readings (Night, day, Evenings/weekends, Heating)

c) the meter specifically says "kwHr". And the numeric reading is the one on the bill, charged as one kwhr per unit.

As planned, we turned *everything* off at the plug before going out shopping this morning. Even the fridge freezer. Not too surprisingly, the meter reading when we returned was the same as when we went out at 8192 Into the house, put on a 1.8kw fan heater fire. Absolutely nothing else, not a lightbulb, not even the kettle.

Here are the results:

09:25 8192 10:56 8192 11:16 8194 11:20 8195 I watched it flip from 8194 to 8195 at 11:20 11:30 8196 I watched it flip from 8195 to 8196 at 11:30

Six kilowatts per hour!

So I call EDF. "Hmm. Perhaps your appliance is faulty."

Short conversation along the lines of 6kw => 24 amps or so, with appliance having 13A fuse.

Their "Customer Care Team" will call next week with a test device. Let's hope they bring along a calibrated resistive load so we can agree what the consumption *should* be...

Regards Peter

[Mathew Newton]

I'm looking forward to the outcome of this one!

I reckon that given your meter seems to be out by a factor of three you should be alright even if they don't, particularly as it is surely likely to be a high-current device in order to get a reading without waiting around too long.

Mathew

[Bill Taylor]

Presumably you're on an old tariff. It looks as if the range is about

15.6-17.6 p.p.u. at the moment.

[Martin Brown]

It seems unlikely. If it is a smart modern one it is limited to at most

3kW peak when warming up and will quickly drop back to short bursts to maintain oven temperature when you open the oven door.

Your base load looks alarmingly high unless you have electric lights and many random appliances on continuously all over the place.

Under 100W average base load is more normal as a quick and dirty rule of thumb. I'd hazard a guess that spike was an oven plus one or two electric cooker rings or some other hungry appliance like a toaster. Even the kettle can't explain it - runs at 3kW but only for 3-4 mins.

Simplest thing is get one of the OWL clip on meters that shows your actual current consumption in Amps or kW in real time. You can expect to save around 10% off your electricity bill even if you are already frugal

- which with a base load that is 10x the norm you are not.

Some electricity companies will give you one on the right tariff.

To isolate the badly behaved appliances (suspect TV, video, hifi first) you will need one of the plug in power monitors that checks the performance of device on a 13A plug.

[Martin Brown]

Base load with the house lights off should be around 100W or less. Easily acheived once you have some feedback from a realtime monitor. I found various wall warts for long since defunct modems warming up the back of desks when I audited my own home for electricity usage.

Mine would be lower still if I allowed the router to drop offline when idle and disabled the emergency lights and burglar alarm. Each of these represents a continuous 10-15W load (as does my host of PCs in standby).

It is really hard to go below 50W minimum base load without switching everything off at the wall which is a real PITA since so many things like cookers require their clocks to be set before they will work...

[Andy Burns]

I can achieve that, but choose not to.

You can say that again.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If the oven is too hot, possibly yes. Although I've never known this.

I'd assume the heating instructions on the item are designed to heat it through correctly. But all the ones I've seen say 'place in a pre-heated oven', since they ain't going to know how long it takes an individual oven to heat up.

[Andy Burns]

I'm with e.On rather than Ebico just using them for illustration, I changed tariff in mid-December to a 12 month discount with tie-in (only £5 per fuel to leave them).

[Terry Fields]

I'm with OVO, currently 10.27p/kWh + VAT + standing charge, effectively that's

12.3 p/unit.

[RJH]

With standing charge (25p/day) and on a standard tariff - 12.2p/unit. I use about 200 units/quarter, coming in at 18pish including standing charge.

No, *I'm* a low user by comparison! About £200 pa. But that's as much to do with my domestic arrangements (away quite a bit) as parsimony and careful use.

Rob

[Dave Liquorice]

9.04p/unit is N-Power "Go-Fix 11", standing charge(*), pay by fixed monthly direct debit and paperless. Remember that prices vary from the same supplier with the same tariff depending on which region you are in.

If you really are a low user, ie struggle to use all of a Tier 1 amount of power, have a look at Equipower. That is 14.08p/unit flate rate (might vary due to region), no standing charge of any sort.

(*) 39.9p/day but if you always use more than the Tier 1 amount on the so called "no standing charge" tariffs in makes sod all difference. As the Tier 2 rate is the same as the standing charge rate (for the same tariff).

[Harry Bloomfield]

Peter Kemp explained on 28/02/2013 :

With no decimal point, the three, could be just over one. If you switch on just before the number is about to click over and switch off, just after it has clicked over, your 3Kw might actually be no more than 1002 watt / hour.

[Andy Burns]

Ah if you're spreading the standing charge over a lowish number of units, then it will tend to bump up the apparent rate per unit.

yeah, that's quite light.

[Dave Liquorice]

And be very confusing unless *all* the details are provided.

Miniscule... using so little that a few p/unit isn't worth worrying about. Switching to Equipower to get rid of the standing charge is probably worth while.

[Adam Funk]

That would have been OK with the old one. When you switched it off, it stopped doing anything (except running the clock, of course). The new one (I guess this is standard now) has an external fan that runs for a while, as you say. We've become able to tell from the knob position at a distance that it's off.

[Chris J Dixon]

Me too!

be alright even if they don't, particularly as it is surely likely to be a high-current device in order to get a reading without waiting around too long.

They could also do a quick check with a clamp-on ammeter, which would easily verify that the connected load is roughly what it is expected to be.

Chris

[Peter Parry]

Those meters usually have one or two flashing LED lights, one will flash once per watt used. If no current is being used they stay on constantly.

[harry]

I think you have shifted a decimal place here.

The last figure on electronic meters is tenths.

BTW, you can also count the flashing light.

1000 flashes per KWh.

If it's a spinning disk meter it may have tenths and hundredths of a KWh shown.

[Andy Wade]

I think the flash rate varies with the meter make & model, as did the revs/kWh of the old spinning discs.

The number of flashes per kWh will be marked on the meter. Mine says

1000 flashes per kWh - so counting the number of flashes in a minute and multiplying by 60 will give the load in watts, averaged over that minute. YMMV.

BTW it is EDF that the OP needs to phone, if that's his supplier, not UKPN. For metering queries you need your supplier, not the DNO.

[Bob Eager]

Same here. Just reda the meter - 850 units in the last 28 days...