Lee wrote:
Alan wrote:
After a high electricity bill I've been trying to find out why. I've been
checking my meter readings each day and so far (after 3 days) the usage is
around 23kwh / day peak rate and 8kwh / day low rate (Economy 7). This seems
very high to me.

There are 3 computers running 24/7, when I last checked the power used by
these was about 60w each - will re-check. Will reduce this to 2 computers
soon.
Other stuff on 24/7 is a fish tank, again when I last checked total wattage
was pretty low, and the heater doesn't come on much due to being in a warm
room etc. Lights on for about 6 hours/day (fluroescents and Metal Halides).
Will fit watt meter here after it's stint in the garage.

I'd recheck the PCs, unless they are old/low powered models, my guess
would be that they are using a lot more than 60W each
My desktop uses between 150 and 300W depending on what it's doing.
Whereas the laptop I use mostly now, is between 40 and 90W depending on
whether I'm playing 3d games or not.

This may be inaccurate.
How are you measuring the 150-300W?
My PC also read 150W+ on a plug-in power meter, but a proper power
reading (using a scope) revealed that the plug-in power meter was
overreading by a factor of 2.

300W is very, very unlikely, unless you have a multiprocessor PC
with terabytes of storage, or you use a projector for your monitor.