Good point.
Yup, one reason for getting my HP Microserver a few years ago, was how much power the old PC I was using before was consuming. And when it only cost me about £120 (initial HDD's came out of the old machine) it soon payed back
You seem to be making it harder to test than is necessary. Assuming you're talking about a small electric hob designed to be plugged into a 13A socket on your kitchen ring main, just unplug/switch off the fridge for the required time to get a useful reading off the supplier's meter (or else use the plug in monitor).
The fridge will keep its cool for an hour or more provided you keep the door closed and it shouldn't take more than 10 or 15 minutes of rev/led blink counting on the meter to collect the data you're after (assuming you just want to verify the manufacturer's data on element wattage(s) - select maximum heat so the stats don't kick in too soon).
An electric oven is usually connected to a cooker point fed via a dedicated spur from the CU, usually 6 or 10mm FT&E cable fused at 45A (same applies for the immersion heater but fused at 15A using 2.5mm FT&E). You'd need to make sure everything else was shut off to test this by counting revs/blinks at the supplier's meter.
Again, you can set the oven stats to max to verify the manufacturer's wattage figures for the various heater element combinations. Any further analysis regarding real world consumption will be a matter of stopwatch timings for the on/off cycling of the thermostats during a typical cooking cycle and temperature setting. For heavy duty fixed wired loads, the use of a plug in energy monitor is precluded so you're really stuck with timed consumption registered by the electric meter or a whole house energy consumption meter. You'll have to shut off every other load in either case.
A clamp on whole house energy meter might have an option to measure such loads by allowing you compensate for the effect on the conductor and insulation thickness variations (possibly by using an optional plug adapter to pick up the voltage from a handy 13A socket such as the one commonly incorporated into most cooker points)
I'd expect the outer of the clamp to have an electric screen to isolate it from such external influences. I haven't seen the spec on any of these clamp on monitors but I could well imagine it might well cater for an accessory 13A plug and cable to get a more reliable access to the Live and neutral for sensing the voltage component. Such an accessory would be most useful to allow testing of other fixed wired kit where there's room to clamp onto the live wire to sense the current component.
If the transformer is a modern one with built in thermal fuse protection and mains terminals designed to accept 2.5mm FT&E cable, he's probably wired it into one the ring main circuits using a short length of 2.5mm FT&E.
I'm not sure whether the older designs of decades gone by were designed to be so directly connected to a 30A fused circuit. Possibly they required a mains connection via FC box with a 1 or 3 amp fuse fitted. I'd check that your existing one has been safely connected to the mains.
I tried searching for info on these little power vampires but the suppliers/manufacturers seem just as coy about the running costs as the manufacturers of UPSes are, i.e. no information whatsover on their efficiency or idle consumption. However, one interesting point that stood out was that the overheat protection was a one shot deal in that once the thermal overload protection had operated, you would have to toss it away and buy a new one. Fair enough in the case of a transformer fault but a kick in the goolies if it were simply due to an external wiring fault.
When we moved into the present house just over thirty years ago, I decided to make good use of parts I already had in my possession rather than spend money and make more work for myself, hence the ex-GPO trembler bell screwed onto the door frame behind the bell push with a couple of 8 cell AA battery holders stuck back to back with double sided adhesive tape to provide an everlasting 24v to lend the bell enough loudness (it could be adjusted to run off a DC voltage in the range of 10 to 24 volt - it wasn't really loud enough off just
12v, hence the 24v battery pack (now 27 volts).The alkaline cells lasted long enough, about 15 years or so. what retired them was corrosion which had damaged my home made 16 cell battery holder to the point where it seemed simpler to try a cheaper (and far less bulky) alternative. Despite all the corrosion, the bell still worked, albeit just a little bit queter than it once did.
Since the idea of using a large enough battery to, in theory, last for decades was rather flawed by age induced corrosion, it finally dawned on me that a cheaper, shorter lived battery option would be much better. Since the local pound shops were selling zinc carbon PP3's in packs of three, it was a no brainer to turn the whole pack into a 27 volt battery instantly ready to hang off the screw head I'd originally used to hang the first 'monster battery pack' off of.
All I had to do was solder a couple of straps and connect the resulting 27 volt battery to the bell wiring. The result was a less intrusive neater looking bell and battery installation which had only used a couple of feet of bell wire from the bell push which also activates the wireless bell push sender unit fitted on the inside of the door frame so the wireless door chime in my upstairs office could act as a repeater.
I added a a zenner dropper and reverse polarity protection diode so I could power the sender from the 27v bell battery but I kept the 12v internal battery which allows independent operation of the remote office door chime for testing purposes.
However, it has also proved handy for when the XYL gets in late from her nannying job to alert me of her return without having to shout to be heard through the closed office door against the sound of a TV program I would often be in the middle of watching at that time of the evening.
The battery powered door bell has served me well these past three decades with a running cost on a par with a mains powered bell but without the faff of running yards of bellwire and the capital investment of a bell transformer.
In this case, battery power trumps mains power despite the energy cost using primary cells being several thousands of times greater than what the electricity supplier charges. And, one more thing, it'll still function during a power outage. :-)
You're welcome. Sorry I couldn't offer any experience based help in regard of the bell transformer.
Occupancy sensor. Works very well in my kitchen.
Chris
In message , bert writes
I have already done that, and, when the power to the house was killed, the shop lighting and computers were OK. However, the shop comprises one room which was part of the house at one time, plus extensions to one side and the rear. Knowing how odd [1] some of the wiring is in the house, I would not be too surprised to find that, for example, the sockets in that part of the shop which was originally within the house are still fed from the house. Those sockets would not be part of usual shop usage, and would take a while for anyone to realise they were dead.
[1] Not odd as in dangerous, but odd as in four consumer units/fuse boxes, with not a great deal of logic, at least to me.In message , Johny B Good writes
Oh, I agree. However, yesterday, I did get the usage down to 84w by switching off almost everything, except a router and a couple of phones. What I don't know yet, of course, is whether something else, somewhere, is coming on at other times, and boosting usage. I also don't yet know whether the main meter is reading correctly. Investigations are continuing, although I do have to work around the family's requirements. I could just send the wife out shopping, but that may obliterate any savings achieved :-)
In message , Tim Streater writes
I had the power off, then watched the change when turning the power on, so they must have been charging, if only a slight top up.
Yes, they were all switched off last night. The dog survived :-)
Both are more than 12 years old. Probably about 15 years.
Unbelievable, but I had never set power saving options. Now set to sleep 20 minutes after non use.
Neither, you would be better off measuring the actual voltage and using that in this circumstance.
Nominal
I found taking readings as you turn stuff off was a bit more reliable - quite a number of things will draw more after first switch on (e.g. any exterior PIR controlled lamps tend to come one and stay lit for the timer time on applying power).
Sadly true here as well :-((
Does your meter allow you to see VA as well as W readings (and is it any good at spotting the difference?)
For example the power monitor on the feed to all the IT kit in my office currently reads 375W but 422VA - so if I were just looking at current draw I would be overestimating consumption by 10%
No, T&E into a cooker point.
Yes, I was just trying to illustrate an example use of subtraction.
Or... supply the other stuff (eg fridge) via plug-in meter... and subtract, which is the point I was making.
Yep, that works too but I'd have thought a relatively short test for the oven/hob would allow you to disconnect things like fridges and freezers and avoid the need to subtract a reading made by another meter with its own accuracy tolerences.
Obviously, if you're going to do a protracted test over a matter of a day or so, you might need more than a single plug in energy monitor that can register the KWH usage.
It depends on what type of data you're trying to collect. There are often a few ways to skin this particular cat. In the end it all boils down to what you think is the most pragmatic solution.
Did you find any hogs?
Many digital TVs have a default setting that powers the TDTV tuner when in standby and consumes 20-30W continuously doing this. Check options menu on system settings to disable default power hog mode.
The amplifier for my PC speakers consumes 10W whether it is switched on or off! The only thing that changes is the on LED lights when on. (unless the volume is wound up very high)
I found several wallwarts for ancient long unused modems plugged in lurking behind desks and cupboards too. If you work at it you should be able to get your overnight base load down to (well) under 100W.
It is useful to have a 13A plug/socket version to check individual components behaviour with higher precision. Much modern kit these days is on standby at consumption well under 0.5W.
My base load consists of the alarm, emergency lights, clock radio, kitchen appliances and various kit on standby totalling 90W all up.
I'd accept that some do, but not necessarily many, both mine (one a few months old, the other seven years old) are 1W when on standby.
In think in the O/P's case, he'd need to find fifty TVs eating 30W to explain his consumption ...
Still searching, although away from home ATM.
I remain (almost) convinced that it is a lifestyle thing, mainly carelessness. That has been tightened up considerably, but will really be long term to see any major effect.
In the meantime, I have purchased a usage monitor which is being used with various appliances, to see if any are using more than expected. No unexpected results yet, but I'm running each one for a week at a time.
Odd house. There are five lofts, two of which I have never investigated. Could there be something up there? I suggest because there is a tube heater in one loft, presumably to protect the cold water tank. I insulated the tank years ago, and the tube heater is off, but I begin to wonder what may be hidden elsewhere.
In message , News writes
Apologies in advance for following up my own thread, and resurrecting an old subject.
Just out of interest, I never did find a 'phantom' usage, which does not necessarily mean there isn't something ticking away that I haven't found; just that I haven't found it yet.
However, I have been carefully noting meter readings since we discussed this in October, and our quarter October last year to January is 25 per cent down, which is a result. No major changes - just being aware, really. The only changes are two desktops off when not in use rather than on 24/7, and lights off in rooms not in use.
Even at 75 per cent of the units quoted above (9128pa) our usage is high compared to some, so I'm still being vigilant, but delighted that total usage is going down, particularly during a winter quarter.
Cheers,
Reading the meter once a year doesn't give you much data to go on!
If you are serious about figuring out where the electricity is going get one of the realtime meters like OWL or similar. Getting the base load down will make a significant difference ~10% of your bill.
Mine paid for itself within two years. The one in our VH paid us back much faster since it stopped people leaving power hungry kit on.
You also could do with one that can measure individual appliances to see which are quietly gobbling power whilst in standby. Much modern kit is
Should be reading every first of the month. Then it's easy enough to plot a graph showing monthly usage.
Yes base load is a major thing. But all you need is a ?10 plug in meter. Start with fridges and freezers. A faulty thermostat here can run away with a fortune if stuff is running continuous. Get yourself LED lights. Dump your tumble dryer/dishwasher. Use your washing machine efficiently.
I use around 4000Kwh per year. (But no gas, so occasional fan heater.) Two people three bed bungalow. Main users are fridge/freezers. And the TV, remarkably.
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