Thread: Big Electricity Bill

You could always become a darksider.
Candles instead of that lecktricity stuff
Salt yer vittles instead of a frig
Pit toilets stead of a treatment system
handtools in the shed

How are we going unplugging various things.
Any answers yet??

Originally Posted by DavidG

How are we going unplugging various things.
Any answers yet??

He's unplugged his computer and is unable to answer.

Mick

Originally Posted by DavidG

Duh! You have to read the active.
If you have a Clamp meter you make an extension "lead" out (300mm) of three wire so you can access each.

With an ammeter I cut the active and feed it through the meter.

Either way I find the current flow and determine what the actual load is.

Not recomended for people who do not know what they are doing as it can bite.

yes, well you didn't actually say this in your post did you?

"cut the active" umm.. bad choice of words, especially if some DIY dunce was to read it.

clipsal have adaptors for clamp on ammeters that are made from double adaptor bodies. you plug them in the back and you can read the load through loops coming out the side.

Originally Posted by thatirwinfella

yes, well you didn't actually say this in your post did you?

The discussion at that point was about equipment and costs, not the use there of.

"cut the active" umm.. bad choice of words, especially if some DIY dunce was to read it.

How else do you connect an ammeter? (Not clamp on)
See foot note.

clipsal have adaptors for clamp on ammeters that are made from double adaptor bodies. you plug them in the back and you can read the load through loops coming out the side.

Not as cheap as a plug and socket.

Not recomended for people who do not know what they are doing as it can bite.

Just caught this thread Silent. All sounds like an interesting exercise, sorry I didn't come down this year.

Originally Posted by DavidG

Pull one fuse at a time until you find the loaded line.
Work along that line until you find the load.

I think David is on the right track. Find the loaded fuse, then narrow it down unit by unit that comes off that fuse.

Good luck with it all.

Hey Neil, no worries, we'll catch you next time. Wasn't the best summer this year anyway, water was cold.

I've got the sparky coming around for an unrelated issue (I think - hot water has packed it in), so I'm going to pick his brains and get him to check a few things while he's here.

Originally Posted by silentC

Hey Neil, no worries, we'll catch you next time. Wasn't the best summer this year anyway, water was cold.

I've got the sparky coming around for an unrelated issue (I think - hot water has packed it in), so I'm going to pick his brains and get him to check a few things while he's here.

You may have hit the nail on the head with this one i.e. heater packed it in, as, if the pressure / thermal valve is leaking (out of that drain thingy) then you are paying for the energy to heat that loss. This can be quite significant as the thermostat is constantly on to maintain the tank temperature.

Peter

Sorry to post one after the other but still thinking.

The other thing to keep in mind is with those mains pressure pump systems the motor start up current is around 6 to 8 times the run current and if it is constantly starting and stopping the power useage will be increased significantly.
Liken it to how the lights go dim when you start you circular saw and you'll get my drift.

Peter

The hot water is off peak, and our off peak usage is actually about half what it was before. It's only a new heater < 12 months old but the sparky is looking at it now.

We put the clamp meter on a few things. The average current draw for the house with everything switched on is about 2.4, which makes about 1/2 a kwh. We're going through twice that, according to the meter. I'll get him to put the clamp on the water pumps while he's here and I'll turn on a tap and see what it draws at start up and then while it's running.

http://www.altronics.com.au/index.as...=item&id=Q0960

Clamp meter attachment for a multimeter - $24

The Country Energy guy has dropped off a meter. It's one of the older mechanical ones with a bit of flex and a plug attached and a single power point. It's a bit hard to read because there's no way of resetting it and it's not possible to tell how far through a cycle it is because the counter is in kWh and the intermediate counter is graduated but has no numbers on it.

The idea is to leave it in place for 24 hours and check the reading before and after. It's a bit of a rough estimate because unless you stand and watch it, you don't know how long since it ticked over. It might read 145 but you don't know how far it is from ticking over to 146. It could take hours to move, depending on what it's connected to.

Anyway, since I got it, I've checked the two fridges and the freezer. Combined they use about 4.5kwh in 24 hours. That is within normal operating parameters for a fridge, ie. about 1.5kWh per day.

I've also had it on the water pumps since 6:00pm last night. I timed the rotor while the pump was running and it takes exactly 15 seconds to do one revolution. 187.5 revs = 1 kWh, so I worked out that it costs about 0.3 cents per minute to run. A 5 minute shower would use about 1/10th of a kWh and cost around 1.5 cents. There are 4 adults and 2 kids. The kids don't shower, they share a bath. So showering/bathing probably uses around half a kWh per day.

I've got some more calculations to do on the dishwasher (used daily) and the washing machine (used several times but usually on a single day), but I'll be surprised if in total we go through more than 1 to 2 kWh per day on electricity for the water pumps. The meter has already ticked over from when I hooked it up last night, but I doubt it has used anything like 1kWh over night and so I put that down to it being close to ticking over when I hooked it up. I estimated the beer fridge and freezer, which I metered last, would use about 3.5kWh but the meter only showed 3, so I'll assume that most of the kWh on the meter was actually used on them and not the pumps.

I'd need a clamp meter to check the startup current on the pumps because it's such a short burst and the meter I have wouldn't be able to show me anything meaningful. I'd like to buy one but funds are a bit low at the moment, so I might get the sparky to come around again. He's not charging me for his time, so I might as well make use of it.

Thanks for the link Clinton, a multimeter is something I'd like to get too. Multitude of uses around the house. I used to have one years ago but it got lost in a move.

Hang in there Silent. You've got me hooked. I can't add anything constructive, all my ideas have been forwarded, some of them several times. Just keep unpluggin' an' meterin'.

Originally Posted by outback

..... You've got me hooked....

When he finds the problem, you are going to have to buy the answer on eBay.