Thread: Big Electricity Bill

Have had the meter on a few things over the last week. So far I've accounted for about 18 out of 36 kWh per day. The septic system uses about 5 kWh per day, most of which is the aeration pump, which must run for 6 hours a day.

When I first put the metre on it, I calculated it was using about 700 watts per hour. We've got a spare in the shed and the label on the box says it's a 400 watt pump, so I suspected it might be faulty.

We contacted the manufacturer and they told us there's no way it should be using that much power and could we replace it and send it in for testing? We pulled the old one out and I decided to throw the new one in a 44 full of water and check it. It was pulling the same. I had a look on the specification plate and it says 3.9 amps. That's over 800 watts! So we rang the manufacturer again and the guy ended up admitting he wasn't really sure what it should be using, so he got onto the engineering department and came back with the answer that 800 watts is correct.

The 400 watts refers to the power output of the pump itself, not the electric motor that runs it. Wonder where the other 400 watts goes (isn't there something in the law of conservation of energy about that?). Maybe I am responsible for global warming...

So, no solution yet. Still a few things to meter but I can't see what's left adding up to another 18 kWh. In the meantime, we've contacted Country Energy about having the meters tested. But they never have any problems with the digital ones...

In the meantime I've been talking to my Uncle Charlie (he of the bushmill) and he has a bank of old GPO batteries and an inverter he's not using, so we might have a go at rigging up solar power for the septic system. He's got most of his stuff running off solar. The panels are hooked up to the grid when they're not recharging his batteries and he loves to watch his meter running backwards.