I'll try to cover this as clearly as possible, answering as many of the
questions that where raised as I can. I spoke at length with 2 reps of
the REC this morning. They were both sympathetic and helpful.

1. They do not estimate. They don't even physically read anymore. Every
27 hours or so each meter sends its progress back to the REC computer
which records this information. At the end of the cycle this data is
turned into a bill.
2. The data from the individual meter reports is available to the
customer in what is called a 'turtle' report. This shows meter reading
and usage for each ~27 hour period. Turtle info: http://tinyurl.com/yo3lcm
3. The REC said they were also surprised that the overall usage didn't
go down more than it did with the outage and all. They could offer no
explanation other than 'it was colder'. They didn't have the actual
Heating Degree Days!! They said they had considered including it on the
bills, but hadn't yet. I found the heating degree days at
www.weather.gov . Click on the map for your location then select
climate/local from the menu on the left side of the screen.
Locally Dec 07 had only 4% more HDD than average, but 31% more than 2006
which was unusually warm. A comparison with last years bill could be
misleading.

4. As I had suspected for some time during this discussion, there was
more than 1 thing going on, which clouded the issue:
a) the colder than last years temperatures which would increase usage
across all customers,despite the outage and (drum roll please)
b) My 'turtle' report showed I had days of increased usage starting Nov
23 and ending about Dec 23. Every day in this period was higher than my
22kwh/day 6-year average and some were 2X that average (44,48,49)!!!
Before 11/23 and after 12/23 and continuing until today, my usage has
been normal average.
Recap:
Oct 25 - Nov 22. Normal usage: 13-22 kwh/day 408kwh/28days=14.6kwh/day
Nov 23 - Dec 11. Extreme usage: 28-49 kwh/day 574/19 =30.1
Dec 11 - Dec 17. No usage: power outage 0
Dec 18 - Dec 23. Extreme usage: 28-44 kwh/day 163/6 = 27.2
Dec 24 - Jan 21. Normal usage: 16-33 kwh/day 612/29 = 21.1

For some reason, which I'll probably never find out, we used an unusual
amount of electricity for nearly a month, interrupted, luckily, but the
power outage. Whatever the draw, it went away and as far as I know it
went on its own.

I plan to monitor my meter closely if not daily for a while.

Other answers:
The REC said they had many neutral lines down yet and they were
repairing them as the could, thus the 1 line vs. 2 line question.

Thanks for all the support and kind helpful input.
If I figure more out, I'll let you know.
If you have more comments/questions, fire away

Steve

--
"But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on.
We're waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on."

-Pete Seeger

On Jan 21, 4:34*pm, Steve IA wrote:
I'll try to cover this as clearly as possible, answering as many of the
questions that where raised as I can. I spoke at length with 2 reps of
the REC this morning. They were both sympathetic and helpful.

1. *They do not estimate. They don't even physically read anymore. Every
27 hours or so each meter sends its progress back to the REC computer
which records this information. At the end of the cycle this data is
turned into a bill.
2. *The data from the individual meter reports is available to the
customer in what is called a 'turtle' report. This shows meter reading
and usage for each ~27 hour period. Turtle info:http://tinyurl.com/yo3lcm
3. *The REC said they were also surprised that the overall usage didn't
go down more than it did with the outage and all. They could offer no
explanation other than 'it was colder'. They didn't have the actual
Heating Degree Days!! They said they had considered including it on the
bills, but hadn't yet. I found the heating degree days atwww.weather.gov*. Click on the map for your location then select
climate/local from the menu on the left side of the screen.
Locally Dec 07 had only 4% more HDD than average, but 31% more than 2006
which was unusually warm. A comparison with last years bill could be
misleading.

4. *As I had suspected for some time during this discussion, there was
more than 1 thing going on, which clouded the issue:
a) the colder than last years temperatures which would increase usage
across all customers,despite the outage and (drum roll please)
b) My 'turtle' report showed I had days of increased usage starting Nov
23 and ending about Dec 23. Every day in this period was higher than my
22kwh/day 6-year average and some were 2X that average (44,48,49)!!!
Before 11/23 and after 12/23 and continuing until today, my usage has
been normal average.
Recap:
Oct 25 - Nov 22. Normal usage: 13-22 kwh/day * 408kwh/28days=14.6kwh/day
Nov 23 - Dec 11. Extreme usage: 28-49 kwh/day *574/19 * * * =30.1
Dec 11 - Dec 17. No usage: power outage * * * * 0
Dec 18 - Dec 23. Extreme usage: 28-44 kwh/day *163/6 * * * * = 27.2
Dec 24 - Jan 21. Normal usage: *16-33 kwh/day *612/29 * * * = 21.1

For some reason, which I'll probably never find out, we used an unusual
amount of electricity for nearly a month, interrupted, luckily, but the
power outage. Whatever the draw, it went away and as far as I know it
went on its own.

I plan to monitor my meter closely if not daily for a while.

Other answers:
The REC said they had many neutral lines down yet and they were
repairing them as the could, thus the 1 line vs. 2 line question.

Thanks for all the support and kind helpful input.
If I figure more out, I'll let you know.
If you have more comments/questions, fire away

Steve

--
"But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on.
We're waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on."

* * * * * * * * * -Pete Seeger

And the shortest day of the year is Dec 20 and your lights were on
earlier costing you more. its not lost, you used it.

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:34:20 -0600, Steve IA wrote:

I'll try to cover this as clearly as possible, answering as many of the
questions that where raised as I can. I spoke at length with 2 reps of
the REC this morning. They were both sympathetic and helpful.

1. They do not estimate. They don't even physically read anymore. Every
27 hours or so each meter sends its progress back to the REC computer
which records this information. At the end of the cycle this data is
turned into a bill.

So you have a self-reading meter. That's nice. If you'd told us that in the first
place it would have saved all of us a lot of time and effort.

2. The data from the individual meter reports is available to the
customer in what is called a 'turtle' report. This shows meter reading
and usage for each ~27 hour period. Turtle info: http://tinyurl.com/yo3lcm

You're lucky. You have the good self-reader. This one uses a conventional
electromechanical meter with an add-on module that optically reads the wheel. Very
reliable and in the event the electronics get knocked out, the register is still
there for manual reading.

3. The REC said they were also surprised that the overall usage didn't
go down more than it did with the outage and all. They could offer no
explanation other than 'it was colder'. They didn't have the actual
Heating Degree Days!! They said they had considered including it on the
bills, but hadn't yet. I found the heating degree days at
www.weather.gov . Click on the map for your location then select
climate/local from the menu on the left side of the screen.
Locally Dec 07 had only 4% more HDD than average, but 31% more than 2006
which was unusually warm. A comparison with last years bill could be
misleading.

4. As I had suspected for some time during this discussion, there was
more than 1 thing going on, which clouded the issue:

You suspected? Geez, that's what several of us were trying to hammer into your hard
head!

a) the colder than last years temperatures which would increase usage
across all customers,despite the outage and (drum roll please)
b) My 'turtle' report showed I had days of increased usage starting Nov
23 and ending about Dec 23. Every day in this period was higher than my
22kwh/day 6-year average and some were 2X that average (44,48,49)!!!
Before 11/23 and after 12/23 and continuing until today, my usage has
been normal average.
Recap:
Oct 25 - Nov 22. Normal usage: 13-22 kwh/day 408kwh/28days=14.6kwh/day
Nov 23 - Dec 11. Extreme usage: 28-49 kwh/day 574/19 =30.1
Dec 11 - Dec 17. No usage: power outage 0
Dec 18 - Dec 23. Extreme usage: 28-44 kwh/day 163/6 = 27.2
Dec 24 - Jan 21. Normal usage: 16-33 kwh/day 612/29 = 21.1

For some reason, which I'll probably never find out, we used an unusual
amount of electricity for nearly a month, interrupted, luckily, but the
power outage. Whatever the draw, it went away and as far as I know it
went on its own.

In other words, the storm disrupted your normal activities, which is what I said in
my last post in this thread.


I plan to monitor my meter closely if not daily for a while.

I'm not sure that'll do much for you since you can call up your turtle report on the
web.

If you're THAT concerned then perhaps you should get one of the several available
instruments that connects to your service and displays on an inside display real-time
usage as well as cumulative stats for the month. Some even have alarms that can be
set to warn you when your rate-of-use exceeds a certain value. And some can send
data to your computer so you can trend data yourself.

John
--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com -- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
Nuke the Whales!

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:34:20 -0600, Steve IA
wrote:

I'll try to cover this as clearly as possible, answering as many of the
questions that where raised as I can. I spoke at length with 2 reps of
the REC this morning. They were both sympathetic and helpful.

1. They do not estimate. They don't even physically read anymore. Every

"The Turtle only transmits the information that the mechanical
functions of the meter are recording. In the rare cases where a Turtle
doesn’t report data in time for a monthly billing, an estimated
=========
reading will be used until the problem can be fixed. Where
discrepancies exist, the mechanical numbers on the meter can be used
to determine actual usage."


27 hours or so each meter sends its progress back to the REC computer
which records this information. At the end of the cycle this data is
turned into a bill.
2. The data from the individual meter reports is available to the
customer in what is called a 'turtle' report. This shows meter reading
and usage for each ~27 hour period. Turtle info: http://tinyurl.com/yo3lcm

Steve IA said (on or about) 01/21/2008 17:34:
I'll try to cover this as clearly as possible, answering as many of the
questions that where raised as I can. I spoke at length with 2 reps of
the REC this morning. They were both sympathetic and helpful.

1. They do not estimate. They don't even physically read anymore. Every
27 hours or so each meter sends its progress back to the REC computer
which records this information. At the end of the cycle this data is
turned into a bill.
2. The data from the individual meter reports is available to the
customer in what is called a 'turtle' report. This shows meter reading
and usage for each ~27 hour period. Turtle info: http://tinyurl.com/yo3lcm
3. The REC said they were also surprised that the overall usage didn't
go down more than it did with the outage and all. They could offer no
explanation other than 'it was colder'. They didn't have the actual
Heating Degree Days!! They said they had considered including it on the
bills, but hadn't yet. I found the heating degree days at
www.weather.gov . Click on the map for your location then select
climate/local from the menu on the left side of the screen.
Locally Dec 07 had only 4% more HDD than average, but 31% more than 2006
which was unusually warm. A comparison with last years bill could be
misleading.

4. As I had suspected for some time during this discussion, there was
more than 1 thing going on, which clouded the issue:
a) the colder than last years temperatures which would increase usage
across all customers,despite the outage and (drum roll please)
b) My 'turtle' report showed I had days of increased usage starting Nov
23 and ending about Dec 23. Every day in this period was higher than my
22kwh/day 6-year average and some were 2X that average (44,48,49)!!!
Before 11/23 and after 12/23 and continuing until today, my usage has
been normal average.
Recap:
Oct 25 - Nov 22. Normal usage: 13-22 kwh/day 408kwh/28days=14.6kwh/day
Nov 23 - Dec 11. Extreme usage: 28-49 kwh/day 574/19 =30.1
Dec 11 - Dec 17. No usage: power outage 0
Dec 18 - Dec 23. Extreme usage: 28-44 kwh/day 163/6 = 27.2
Dec 24 - Jan 21. Normal usage: 16-33 kwh/day 612/29 = 21.1

For some reason, which I'll probably never find out, we used an unusual
amount of electricity for nearly a month, interrupted, luckily, but the
power outage. Whatever the draw, it went away and as far as I know it
went on its own.

I plan to monitor my meter closely if not daily for a while.

Other answers:
The REC said they had many neutral lines down yet and they were
repairing them as the could, thus the 1 line vs. 2 line question.

Thanks for all the support and kind helpful input.
If I figure more out, I'll let you know.
If you have more comments/questions, fire away

Steve


Way Cool!

I was a participant in a pilot program in which the [deregulated]
electric company that I paid for my electrons put a demand-sensing
inductive loop around the main feed cable as it entered the panel.
The installed a power line networking gateway, a 4 port router (one
port connected to the gateway), and a special thermostat which was
also connected via the power line network and gateway to the Internet.

Their plan was to offer a special rate to customers who agreed to
allow the power company to shed load by raising the thermostat set
point by 2 degrees. That way they could avoid having to buy so much
expensive power during peak periods, pass a little of the savings on
to the customer, and profit from the rest. As a bonus, I could
manipulate my thermostat via the Internet and -- of more interest to
me -- see a demand curve on my house which showed the periods of
highest use and gave me a clue about what I could do to lower my usage
independently. Of course they went out of business.

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:34:20 -0600, Steve IA
wrote:

If you have more comments/questions, fire away

Steve

To add to what has been said, I would still be concerned about the
mysterious days when power spiked. There is a 90% chance that it is
explainable, but I'll relate what happened when we first moved into
our 1960s house in Florida.

The house had a 150 amp entrance. I didn't give a second thought
about that, since it had obviously worked for over twenty years. It
also had an seven year old heat pump, a pool pump, a sprinkler pump,
lots of incandescent and halogen lighting, an electric dryer,
dishwasher, and some other lesser loads.

During the first summer, I noticed that our electric bill was a lot.
I had no way of being sure why this was the case, so I began poking
around. When I went outside near the meter, I could smell something
hot, like hot electric wire insulation. I then felt the breakers,
which felt a little warm but fine, then moved on to the meter, and
discovered that the conduit leading from the meter box to the breakers
was too hot to touch.

I called in an electrician, and he was able to open things up. The
aluminum wire between the meter and the breaker box had been heated to
a point that it had begun to seriously corrode and add resistance of
its own, and had _almost_ burned away enough insulation between the
wires to create a direct short.

What had happened? The age and type of the wiring was, of course, a
factor, but the issue we had not considered was that during the summer
we might run all of the major power users at the same time. The pool
needed cleaning, it was hot in the house, the lawn was getting dry,
and because we were sweating and drinking lots of water, the laundry
and dishes were being done, all during the late afternoon. The
_cumulative_ draw was enough to damage the connection to the aluminum
wire and the added resistance was overheating both the connection and
wire.

Had I not been sniffing around, we would have had an electrical fire
at a spot where it would be impossible to shut off the current without
either the fire or power department breaking into the transformer box,
and we likely would have had severe damage to the house.

Once the wire was replaced and connections repaired, our power usage
went down by a significant amount.

The moral of the story? Don't let those high power usage days go
unchallenged.

wrote:
On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:34:20 -0600, Steve IA
wrote:

If you have more comments/questions, fire away

Steve

To add to what has been said, I would still be concerned about the
mysterious days when power spiked. There is a 90% chance that it is
explainable, but I'll relate what happened when we first moved into
our 1960s house in Florida.

snip



The moral of the story? Don't let those high power usage days go
unchallenged.

Thanks for the thoughts. I don't plan to but now that it's gone, it will
be hard to track down. I'll keep my nose to the ground.

Steve
southiowa

On Jan 22, 11:19*am, wrote:
On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:34:20 -0600, Steve IA
wrote:

If you have more comments/questions, fire away

Steve

To add to what has been said, I would still be concerned about the
mysterious days when power spiked. *There is a 90% chance that it is
explainable, but I'll relate what happened when we first moved into
our 1960s house in Florida.

The house had a 150 amp entrance. *I didn't give a second thought
about that, since it had obviously worked for over twenty years. *It
also had an seven year old heat pump, a pool pump, a sprinkler pump,
lots of incandescent and halogen lighting, an electric dryer,
dishwasher, and some other lesser loads.

During the first summer, I noticed that our electric bill was a lot.
I had no way of being sure why this was the case, so I began poking
around. *When I went outside near the meter, I could smell something
hot, like hot electric wire insulation. *I then felt the breakers,
which felt a little warm but fine, then moved on to the meter, and
discovered that the conduit leading from the meter box to the breakers
was too hot to touch.

I called in an electrician, and he was able to open things up. *The
aluminum wire between the meter and the breaker box had been heated to
a point that it had begun to seriously corrode and add resistance of
its own, and had _almost_ burned away enough insulation between the
wires to create a direct short.

What had happened? *The age and type of the wiring was, of course, a
factor, but the issue we had not considered was that during the summer
we might run all of the major power users at the same time. *The pool
needed cleaning, it was hot in the house, the lawn was getting dry,
and because we were sweating and drinking lots of water, the laundry
and dishes were being done, all during the late afternoon. *The
_cumulative_ draw was enough to damage the connection to the aluminum
wire and the added resistance was overheating both the connection and
wire.

Had I not been sniffing around, we would have had an electrical fire
at a spot where it would be impossible to shut off the current without
either the fire or power department breaking into the transformer box,
and we likely would have had severe damage to the house.

Once the wire was replaced and connections repaired, our power usage
went down by a significant amount.

The moral of the story? *Don't let those high power usage days go
unchallenged.

whew...scary story.

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:44:41 GMT, M Q wrote:


Neon John wrote:

...

If you're THAT concerned then perhaps you should get one of the several available
instruments that connects to your service and displays on an inside display real-time
usage as well as cumulative stats for the month. Some even have alarms that can be
set to warn you when your rate-of-use exceeds a certain value. And some can send
data to your computer so you can trend data yourself.

Sounds cool. Please give me a link to these devices.

Don't be lazy. You can google as well as I can. Or look in the archves. A couple
of brands have been discussed here on a number of occasions.

John
--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com -- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
Serenity: That feeling of knowing that your secretary will never tell either of your wives.

Neon John wrote:

So you have a self-reading meter. That's nice. If you'd told us that in the first
place it would have saved all of us a lot of time and effort.

If I would have known, I would said so. This wasn't an exercise in
deception on my part.

4. As I had suspected for some time during this discussion, there was
more than 1 thing going on, which clouded the issue:

You suspected? Geez, that's what several of us were trying to hammer into your hard
head!

Well, I've learned to take Usenet stuff with many grains of salt. The
catch-up loads of laundry theory you espoused early on (1/19 5:59pm)
pretty much shot YOUR street cred. How DOES that work? 5 loads every 5th
day uses more electricity than 1 load/day? It's still 5 loads in 5
days. 5=5.

I didn't suspect it at first, I was the victim of occam's razor and
several things happening at once was not the simplest solution. After
some discussion here my suspicions grew, but not until I saw the turtle
report and the HDDs did I become convinced. That's what data has over
opinion and speculation.


a) the colder than last years temperatures which would increase usage
across all customers,despite the outage and (drum roll please)
b) My 'turtle' report showed I had days of increased usage starting Nov
23 and ending about Dec 23. Every day in this period was higher than my
22kwh/day 6-year average and some were 2X that average (44,48,49)!!!
Before 11/23 and after 12/23 and continuing until today, my usage has
been normal average.
Recap:
Oct 25 - Nov 22. Normal usage: 13-22 kwh/day 408kwh/28days=14.6kwh/day
Nov 23 - Dec 11. Extreme usage: 28-49 kwh/day 574/19 =30.1
Dec 11 - Dec 17. No usage: power outage 0
Dec 18 - Dec 23. Extreme usage: 28-44 kwh/day 163/6 = 27.2
Dec 24 - Jan 21. Normal usage: 16-33 kwh/day 612/29 = 21.1

For some reason, which I'll probably never find out, we used an unusual
amount of electricity for nearly a month, interrupted, luckily, but the
power outage. Whatever the draw, it went away and as far as I know it
went on its own.

In other words, the storm disrupted your normal activities, which is what I said in
my last post in this thread.

Of course it did, I didn't use any electricity. So what? The storm
*didn't* disrupt my normal activities *before* the storm,and only
minimally afterward thanks to a gas generator and wood burning stove. In
fact,the avg.kwh/day *after* the storm was 10% LESS than before the
storm. So much for the catch-up theory. The usage before the storm was
150% of average. (see recap above)

Your last chance, John and I'll type slowly, so please try to keep up.
*My* unusual usage started days before the storm, and continued days
after the restoration of power. One can draw a line on the turtle report
the day it starts and the day it stops.
Can you say "coincidence"?

I plan to monitor my meter closely if not daily for a while.

I'm not sure that'll do much for you since you can call up your turtle report on the
web.

Not to 'Joe consumer'; not at this REC.


If you're THAT concerned then perhaps you should get one of the several available
instruments that connects to your service and displays on an inside display real-time
usage as well as cumulative stats for the month. Some even have alarms that can be
set to warn you when your rate-of-use exceeds a certain value. And some can send
data to your computer so you can trend data yourself.

On 1/19, at 4:50 pm Neon John said:
"One of the most useful things you can do is to read your meter every
day at the same time for some period and look for patterns. "


But feel free to change your mind.
Your input is stimulating if not always correct or consistent.

--
Steve
southiowa

weltschmerz
Pronunciation: 'velt-"shmerts
Function: noun

: mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state
of the world with an ideal state

In article ,
Steve IA wrote:

Your last chance, John and I'll type slowly, so please try to keep up.
*My* unusual usage started days before the storm, and continued days
after the restoration of power. One can draw a line on the turtle report
the day it starts and the day it stops.
Can you say "coincidence"?

Someone left a window cracked open and closed it when the power failed?

Free men own guns - www(dot)geocities(dot)com/CapitolHill/5357/

On Jan 22, 12:19�pm, wrote:
On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:34:20 -0600, Steve IA
wrote:

If you have more comments/questions, fire away

Steve

To add to what has been said, I would still be concerned about the
mysterious days when power spiked. �There is a 90% chance that it is
explainable, but I'll relate what happened when we first moved into
our 1960s house in Florida.

The house had a 150 amp entrance. �I didn't give a second thought
about that, since it had obviously worked for over twenty years. �It
also had an seven year old heat pump, a pool pump, a sprinkler pump,
lots of incandescent and halogen lighting, an electric dryer,
dishwasher, and some other lesser loads.

During the first summer, I noticed that our electric bill was a lot.
I had no way of being sure why this was the case, so I began poking
around. �When I went outside near the meter, I could smell something
hot, like hot electric wire insulation. �I then felt the breakers,
which felt a little warm but fine, then moved on to the meter, and
discovered that the conduit leading from the meter box to the breakers
was too hot to touch.

I called in an electrician, and he was able to open things up. �The
aluminum wire between the meter and the breaker box had been heated to
a point that it had begun to seriously corrode and add resistance of
its own, and had _almost_ burned away enough insulation between the
wires to create a direct short.

What had happened? �The age and type of the wiring was, of course, a
factor, but the issue we had not considered was that during the summer
we might run all of the major power users at the same time. �The pool
needed cleaning, it was hot in the house, the lawn was getting dry,
and because we were sweating and drinking lots of water, the laundry
and dishes were being done, all during the late afternoon. �The
_cumulative_ draw was enough to damage the connection to the aluminum
wire and the added resistance was overheating both the connection and
wire.

Had I not been sniffing around, we would have had an electrical fire
at a spot where it would be impossible to shut off the current without
either the fire or power department breaking into the transformer box,
and we likely would have had severe damage to the house.

Once the wire was replaced and connections repaired, our power usage
went down by a significant amount.

The moral of the story? �Don't let those high power usage days go
unchallenged.

I asked a buddy with a electrical engineering degree, at one time he
designed transformers for power companies.

he claims a overheated line will not majorily change power
consumption. very minor if any difference

wrote:
On Jan 22, 12:19�pm, wrote:
....

....

...the added resistance was overheating both the connection and
wire.
....
I asked a buddy with a electrical engineering degree, at one time he
designed transformers for power companies.

he claims a overheated line will not majorily change power
consumption. very minor if any difference

Right answer, wrong question, or at least situation...

In the above instance it was as if another resistive load were
introduced into the line--think adding your electric dryer's heating
element (or more nearly the stove eye) -- that wouldn't add usage? That
heat has to come from somewhere.

--

Sure. Ask him why they fill the transformer with oil and circulate it
then.

Aluminum conductors evaporate because their resistance increases
exponentially, Copper is not as bad.


wrote in message
...
On Jan 22, 12:19?pm, wrote:
I asked a buddy with a electrical engineering degree, at one time he
designed transformers for power companies.

he claims a overheated line will not majorily change power
consumption. very minor if any difference

On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 07:54:04 -0800 (PST), " wrote:

The moral of the story? ?Don't let those high power usage days go
unchallenged.

I asked a buddy with a electrical engineering degree, at one time he
designed transformers for power companies.

he claims a overheated line will not majorily change power
consumption. very minor if any difference

Not to pick on your buddy, because this is obviously one of those "idiot in the
middle" problems, but... Guess again.

If a length of conduit is "too hot to touch" as the OP described it then it is
radiating significant power.

Let's do a little math to find out how much. We'll be using Stefan-boltzmann to
compute radiated power from a length of conduit. Let's say that there is 6 ft of 2"
conduit with a thermal emissivity of 0.85. A temperature too hot to touch might be
80 deg C and ambient might be 20.

There's a slick little Stefan-boltzmann calculator he

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...stefan.html#c3

surface area is pi*d*l. 3.1415*6*0.17 = 3.14 sq ft

Plugging that into the SB model we get 115 watts. If it radiates constantly for the
whole month, that's 7*24*30.25 = 546 hours. Times 115 watts is 63kWh. At 10 cents a
kWh, that works out to $6.30.

If ambient were freezing, 0 deg C and the conduit were 80 deg then the pipe radiates
140 watts, 76kWh and $7.60 cents worth of energy.

If the conduit is weathered and dirty then the emissivity might be closer to 0.95 and
the radiated power would be 157 watts. 86kWh and $8.60.

If that length of outside conduit is radiating power then so is the inside conduit,
the breaker terminals, the meter terminals and the conduit containing the drop from
the weatherhead. We can confidently say that the whole mess would use $10/month.

If his usual bill around $100/month then a 10% change in either direction would
certainly be noticed.

John
--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com -- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms should be a convenience store, not a government agency.

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:19:32 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:34:20 -0600, Steve IA
wrote:

If you have more comments/questions, fire away

Steve

To add to what has been said, I would still be concerned about the
mysterious days when power spiked. There is a 90% chance that it is
explainable, but I'll relate what happened when we first moved into
our 1960s house in Florida.

The house had a 150 amp entrance. I didn't give a second thought
about that, since it had obviously worked for over twenty years. It
also had an seven year old heat pump, a pool pump, a sprinkler pump,
lots of incandescent and halogen lighting, an electric dryer,
dishwasher, and some other lesser loads.

During the first summer, I noticed that our electric bill was a lot.
I had no way of being sure why this was the case, so I began poking
around. When I went outside near the meter, I could smell something
hot, like hot electric wire insulation. I then felt the breakers,
which felt a little warm but fine, then moved on to the meter, and
discovered that the conduit leading from the meter box to the breakers
was too hot to touch.

I called in an electrician, and he was able to open things up. The
aluminum wire between the meter and the breaker box had been heated to
a point that it had begun to seriously corrode and add resistance of
its own, and had _almost_ burned away enough insulation between the
wires to create a direct short.

What had happened? The age and type of the wiring was, of course, a
factor, but the issue we had not considered was that during the summer
we might run all of the major power users at the same time. The pool
needed cleaning, it was hot in the house, the lawn was getting dry,
and because we were sweating and drinking lots of water, the laundry
and dishes were being done, all during the late afternoon. The
_cumulative_ draw was enough to damage the connection to the aluminum
wire and the added resistance was overheating both the connection and
wire.

Had I not been sniffing around, we would have had an electrical fire
at a spot where it would be impossible to shut off the current without
either the fire or power department breaking into the transformer box,
and we likely would have had severe damage to the house.

Once the wire was replaced and connections repaired, our power usage
went down by a significant amount.

The moral of the story? Don't let those high power usage days go
unchallenged.

No, the moral is, you just wrote a load of total bull****.

If you have a high resistance joint anywhere in your supply then total
power consumption will always fall. Hot joints in extension leads
are just the same, you'll loose 3/5 of 5/8 of bugger all in a normal
joint and if its resistance rises you'll loose more but the volts are
dropped across that high resistance joint and therefore the downstream
loads will always use less. If downstream devices use switch mode
supplies (such as computers or tv's) then the consumption of those
devices will stay almost the same

You could have a joint in your supply line that glowed bright red in
daylight and if anything it would reduce the consumption of your
washing machine, dishwasher and fridge, and accordingly reduce the
reading on your electricity meter. If the high resistance joint was
on your side of the meter then, with the exception of switch mode
supplied devices you'd consume the same overall amount of metered
electricity but the high resistance joint would usually waste that
heat.






--

On Jan 23, 10:48*am, nick hull wrote:
In article ,
*Steve IA wrote:

Your last chance, John and I'll type slowly, so please try to keep up.
*My* unusual usage started days before the storm, and continued days
after the restoration of power. One can draw a line on the turtle report
the day it starts and the day it stops.
Can you say "coincidence"?

Someone left a window cracked open and closed it when the power failed?

That is a very simple, but plausible suggestion

Mike wrote:
On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:19:32 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:34:20 -0600, Steve IA
wrote:

If you have more comments/questions, fire away

Steve
To add to what has been said, I would still be concerned about the
mysterious days when power spiked. There is a 90% chance that it is
explainable, but I'll relate what happened when we first moved into
our 1960s house in Florida.

The house had a 150 amp entrance. I didn't give a second thought
about that, since it had obviously worked for over twenty years. It
also had an seven year old heat pump, a pool pump, a sprinkler pump,
lots of incandescent and halogen lighting, an electric dryer,
dishwasher, and some other lesser loads.

During the first summer, I noticed that our electric bill was a lot.
I had no way of being sure why this was the case, so I began poking
around. When I went outside near the meter, I could smell something
hot, like hot electric wire insulation. I then felt the breakers,
which felt a little warm but fine, then moved on to the meter, and
discovered that the conduit leading from the meter box to the breakers
was too hot to touch.

I called in an electrician, and he was able to open things up. The
aluminum wire between the meter and the breaker box had been heated to
a point that it had begun to seriously corrode and add resistance of
its own, and had _almost_ burned away enough insulation between the
wires to create a direct short.

What had happened? The age and type of the wiring was, of course, a
factor, but the issue we had not considered was that during the summer
we might run all of the major power users at the same time. The pool
needed cleaning, it was hot in the house, the lawn was getting dry,
and because we were sweating and drinking lots of water, the laundry
and dishes were being done, all during the late afternoon. The
_cumulative_ draw was enough to damage the connection to the aluminum
wire and the added resistance was overheating both the connection and
wire.

Had I not been sniffing around, we would have had an electrical fire
at a spot where it would be impossible to shut off the current without
either the fire or power department breaking into the transformer box,
and we likely would have had severe damage to the house.

Once the wire was replaced and connections repaired, our power usage
went down by a significant amount.

The moral of the story? Don't let those high power usage days go
unchallenged.

No, the moral is, you just wrote a load of total bull****.

If you have a high resistance joint anywhere in your supply then total
power consumption will always fall. Hot joints in extension leads
are just the same, you'll loose 3/5 of 5/8 of bugger all in a normal
joint and if its resistance rises you'll loose more but the volts are
dropped across that high resistance joint and therefore the downstream
loads will always use less. If downstream devices use switch mode
supplies (such as computers or tv's) then the consumption of those
devices will stay almost the same

You could have a joint in your supply line that glowed bright red in
daylight and if anything it would reduce the consumption of your
washing machine, dishwasher and fridge, and accordingly reduce the
reading on your electricity meter. If the high resistance joint was
on your side of the meter then, with the exception of switch mode
supplied devices you'd consume the same overall amount of metered
electricity but the high resistance joint would usually waste that
heat.


Induction motors want to run at a constant speed. If the voltage goes
down the current goes up. The speed may drop slightly. If the required
HP goes down rapidly with RPM, like a fan, current could go up or down.
Even if the RPM drop lowered the current, some equipment like a
refrigerator, heat pump or water pump would have to run longer. Series
resistance would usually increase total power consumed by an induction
motor.

--
bud--

Solar Flare wrote:
Sure. Ask him why they fill the transformer with oil and circulate it
then.

Transformers are filled with oil for aluminum, or copper, conductors to
transfer heat to the case, then to the air. High current through
conductors creates a lot of I squared R heat. With conductors tightly
packed together in a transformer winding the heat is difficult to dissipate.


Aluminum conductors evaporate because their resistance increases
exponentially, Copper is not as bad.

Last I heard, at reasonable temperatures the resistance of aluminum,
like that of copper, doesn't significantly change.

Kindly provide a link with information on aluminum conductors evaporating.



wrote in message
...
On Jan 22, 12:19?pm, wrote:
I asked a buddy with a electrical engineering degree, at one time he
designed transformers for power companies.

he claims a overheated line will not majorily change power
consumption. very minor if any difference


I agree with dpb's answer to hallerb - wrong question.

--
bud--

"Terry" wrote in message
...
On Jan 23, 10:48 am, nick hull wrote:
In article ,
Steve IA wrote:

Your last chance, John and I'll type slowly, so please try to keep up.
*My* unusual usage started days before the storm, and continued days
after the restoration of power. One can draw a line on the turtle report
the day it starts and the day it stops.
Can you say "coincidence"?

Someone left a window cracked open and closed it when the power failed?


That is a very simple, but plausible suggestion

Or someone in the house was using a portable heater.

Stormin Mormon wrote:
He's not talking resistance -- he's talking about a short circuit.

I don't think so.

"I called in an electrician, and he was able to open things up. The
aluminum wire between the meter and the breaker box had been heated to
a point that it had begun to seriously corrode and add resistance of
its own, and had _almost_ burned away enough insulation between the
wires to create a direct short."


Please be
sure of your terms before you call someone else names, and insult them.

I've known of houses with broken down insulation in the lead in wire,
creating a high energy bill. So, it's a real condition.



--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form .

"bud--" wrote in message
.. .
Mike wrote:
On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:19:32 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:34:20 -0600, Steve IA
wrote:

If you have more comments/questions, fire away

Steve
To add to what has been said, I would still be concerned about the
mysterious days when power spiked. There is a 90% chance that it is
explainable, but I'll relate what happened when we first moved into
our 1960s house in Florida.

The house had a 150 amp entrance. I didn't give a second thought
about that, since it had obviously worked for over twenty years. It
also had an seven year old heat pump, a pool pump, a sprinkler pump,
lots of incandescent and halogen lighting, an electric dryer,
dishwasher, and some other lesser loads.

During the first summer, I noticed that our electric bill was a lot.
I had no way of being sure why this was the case, so I began poking
around. When I went outside near the meter, I could smell something
hot, like hot electric wire insulation. I then felt the breakers,
which felt a little warm but fine, then moved on to the meter, and
discovered that the conduit leading from the meter box to the breakers
was too hot to touch.

I called in an electrician, and he was able to open things up. The
aluminum wire between the meter and the breaker box had been heated to
a point that it had begun to seriously corrode and add resistance of
its own, and had _almost_ burned away enough insulation between the
wires to create a direct short.

What had happened? The age and type of the wiring was, of course, a
factor, but the issue we had not considered was that during the summer
we might run all of the major power users at the same time. The pool
needed cleaning, it was hot in the house, the lawn was getting dry,
and because we were sweating and drinking lots of water, the laundry
and dishes were being done, all during the late afternoon. The
_cumulative_ draw was enough to damage the connection to the aluminum
wire and the added resistance was overheating both the connection and
wire.

Had I not been sniffing around, we would have had an electrical fire
at a spot where it would be impossible to shut off the current without
either the fire or power department breaking into the transformer box,
and we likely would have had severe damage to the house.

Once the wire was replaced and connections repaired, our power usage
went down by a significant amount.

The moral of the story? Don't let those high power usage days go
unchallenged.

No, the moral is, you just wrote a load of total bull****.

If you have a high resistance joint anywhere in your supply then total
power consumption will always fall. Hot joints in extension leads
are just the same, you'll loose 3/5 of 5/8 of bugger all in a normal
joint and if its resistance rises you'll loose more but the volts are
dropped across that high resistance joint and therefore the downstream
loads will always use less. If downstream devices use switch mode
supplies (such as computers or tv's) then the consumption of those
devices will stay almost the same You could have a joint in your supply line
that glowed bright red in
daylight and if anything it would reduce the consumption of your
washing machine, dishwasher and fridge, and accordingly reduce the
reading on your electricity meter. If the high resistance joint was
on your side of the meter then, with the exception of switch mode
supplied devices you'd consume the same overall amount of metered
electricity but the high resistance joint would usually waste that
heat.

Induction motors want to run at a constant speed. If the voltage goes down the
current goes up. The speed may drop slightly. If the required HP goes down
rapidly with RPM, like a fan, current could go up or down. Even if the RPM
drop lowered the current, some equipment like a refrigerator, heat pump or
water pump would have to run longer. Series resistance would usually increase
total power consumed by an induction motor.

And electrical heaters would heat less, so they would run longer, increasing
total usage.

Bob F

"Stormin Mormon" wrote:
He's not talking resistance -- he's talking about a short circuit. Please be
sure of your terms before you call someone else names, and insult them.

I've known of houses with broken down insulation in the lead in wire,
creating a high energy bill. So, it's a real condition.

More total bull****. That would burn the house down
long before you got the bill. As Mike said, if the
connection where so hot it was shining brightly in the
daylight... and indeed that is what it would take to
create a high energy bill, and it *would* set fire to
something.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

Bob F wrote:
....

And electrical heaters would heat less, so they would run longer, increasing
total usage.

Proportionately longer time at lower voltage is still same power...

--

On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:19:01 -0900, (Floyd L. Davidson) wrote:

"Stormin Mormon" wrote:
He's not talking resistance -- he's talking about a short circuit. Please be
sure of your terms before you call someone else names, and insult them.

I've known of houses with broken down insulation in the lead in wire,
creating a high energy bill. So, it's a real condition.

More total bull****. That would burn the house down
long before you got the bill. As Mike said, if the
connection where so hot it was shining brightly in the
daylight... and indeed that is what it would take to
create a high energy bill, and it *would* set fire to
something.

Really? Then according to your expert theory, my restaurant ought to have burned
down long ago.

http://www.neon-john.com/images/Wiring_overload.jpg

That photo is of what is left of the original 40s vintage 3 phase indoor meter box.
Long since bypassed as a meter base, it still passed up to 300 amps at times. That's
either #4 or #2 cloth covered, rubber insulated wire in the service entrance. #4, I
think. It's obviously been hot enough to slag the rubber insulation but somehow it
just keeps on truckin'. Of course, the wire is in rigid conduit and despite your
declaration to the contrary, steel still doesn't burn very well.

That conduit has been too hot to touch on occasion. I monitored it closely in the
summer time. I'd have loved to have replaced it but the city says that I can't do my
own electrical work and I'm not about to pay someone else to do it so... It's been
there since the 40s and it'll probably be there until the building is torn down.

Perhaps you ought to look at the other post I made in this thread about how to
compute irradiative losses from a hot object. The concept is simple enough for
someone even of your caliber to understand.

Maybe you ought to get your code book out too. At various places it discusses the
losses involved in various wire and cable temperature rises.

John

--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com -- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. -Marie Curie

Neon John wrote:
On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:19:01 -0900, (Floyd L. Davidson) wrote:

"Stormin Mormon" wrote:
He's not talking resistance -- he's talking about a short circuit. Please be
sure of your terms before you call someone else names, and insult them.

I've known of houses with broken down insulation in the lead in wire,
creating a high energy bill. So, it's a real condition.

More total bull****. That would burn the house down
long before you got the bill. As Mike said, if the
connection where so hot it was shining brightly in the
daylight... and indeed that is what it would take to
create a high energy bill, and it *would* set fire to
something.

Really? Then according to your expert theory, my restaurant ought to have burned
down long ago.



http://www.neon-john.com/images/Wiring_overload.jpg

Sure sonny. Now tell us just how much electricity that
mess actually used. Nothing there used up enough power
to cost more than 20 cents a month!

Perhaps you ought to look at the other post I made in this thread about how to
compute irradiative losses from a hot object. The concept is simple enough for
someone even of your caliber to understand.

But not so simple that you quite understand it, eh?

Maybe you ought to get your code book out too. At various places it discusses the
losses involved in various wire and cable temperature rises.

Another item you don't seem to quite understand yet.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:54:22 -0900, (Floyd L. Davidson) wrote:

Neon John wrote:

Really? Then according to your expert theory, my restaurant ought to have burned
down long ago.

http://www.neon-john.com/images/Wiring_overload.jpg

Sure sonny. Now tell us just how much electricity that
mess actually used. Nothing there used up enough power
to cost more than 20 cents a month!

My, such charm and wit.

OK, well "Pop", let's go back to that Stefan-Boltzmann calculator and do a little
math.

The conduit between the meter base and that box is about 40 ft of 2" rigid conduit.
It runs exposed so we don't need to worry about conduction losses, only radiative and
convective.

Forty feet of 2" conduit is 21 sq ft. Let's use 80 deg C for the conduit because
that is just about "too hot to touch" and 20 deg ambient. We'll use 0.95 emissivity
since the conduit is old and dirty and pretty close to a black body. That comes out
to 858 watts. In that temperature range, convective losses will be about twice those
of radiative losses so we'll figure 1716 watts there for a total of 2,574 watts.

My restaurant was open about 70 hours a week and the load remained fairly constant
throughout the day so 2,574watts * 70hours * 4weeks = 721kWh. At $0.09 per kWh,
that's $64.89 per month. A bit more than 20 cents a month, wouldn't you say? Chop
the calculated amount in half or even by 10 if you like. Doesn't matter, you're still
wrong by an order of magnitude.

And I didn't even try to account for the cost of air conditioning that heat to the
outside, a necessary task since all but a couple of feet of the conduit runs in air
conditioned spaces.

Sanity check: Using the 0.000292 ohms per foot from
http://www.epanorama.net/documents/w...esistance.html for #4 wire and 120
feet of wire (three phase) and 300 amps, that works out to 3,154 watts. At 250 amps,
2,190 watts. That brackets my calculated values nicely. Sanity check passes.

Feel free to plug your own numbers and see what you get. It'll be 20 cents.

You remind me of that old saying: "Those who ignore the math are doomed to look like
idiots."

John

--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com -- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
Unable to locate Coffee -- Operator Halted!

"dpb" wrote in message ...
Bob F wrote:
...

And electrical heaters would heat less, so they would run longer, increasing
total usage.

Proportionately longer time at lower voltage is still same power...


Except for the losses where the problem is. Which don't heat the house if
they're outside. Sorry.

I guess you can't get a high bill from a 3000 watt heater locked on
24/7 then?

After all a 3000 watt heater doesn't glow so it can't produce the

3kW x 24hr. x 30days x $0.10/kWh = $216 extra on your bill.

I guess he meant a $5000 electric bill before you can have a fire.


"Neon John" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:54:22 -0900, (Floyd L.
Davidson) wrote:

Neon John wrote:

Really? Then according to your expert theory, my restaurant ought
to have burned
down long ago.

http://www.neon-john.com/images/Wiring_overload.jpg

Sure sonny. Now tell us just how much electricity that
mess actually used. Nothing there used up enough power
to cost more than 20 cents a month!

My, such charm and wit.

OK, well "Pop", let's go back to that Stefan-Boltzmann calculator
and do a little
math.

The conduit between the meter base and that box is about 40 ft of 2"
rigid conduit.
It runs exposed so we don't need to worry about conduction losses,
only radiative and
convective.

Forty feet of 2" conduit is 21 sq ft. Let's use 80 deg C for the
conduit because
that is just about "too hot to touch" and 20 deg ambient. We'll use
0.95 emissivity
since the conduit is old and dirty and pretty close to a black body.
That comes out
to 858 watts. In that temperature range, convective losses will be
about twice those
of radiative losses so we'll figure 1716 watts there for a total of
2,574 watts.

My restaurant was open about 70 hours a week and the load remained
fairly constant
throughout the day so 2,574watts * 70hours * 4weeks = 721kWh. At
$0.09 per kWh,
that's $64.89 per month. A bit more than 20 cents a month, wouldn't
you say? Chop
the calculated amount in half or even by 10 if you like. Doesn't
matter, you're still
wrong by an order of magnitude.

And I didn't even try to account for the cost of air conditioning
that heat to the
outside, a necessary task since all but a couple of feet of the
conduit runs in air
conditioned spaces.

Sanity check: Using the 0.000292 ohms per foot from
http://www.epanorama.net/documents/w...esistance.html for
#4 wire and 120
feet of wire (three phase) and 300 amps, that works out to 3,154
watts. At 250 amps,
2,190 watts. That brackets my calculated values nicely. Sanity
check passes.

Feel free to plug your own numbers and see what you get. It'll be
20 cents.

You remind me of that old saying: "Those who ignore the math are
doomed to look like
idiots."

John

--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com -- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
Unable to locate Coffee -- Operator Halted!

Bob F wrote:
"dpb" wrote in message ...
Bob F wrote:
...

And electrical heaters would heat less, so they would run longer, increasing
total usage.
Proportionately longer time at lower voltage is still same power...


Except for the losses where the problem is. Which don't heat the house if
they're outside. Sorry.

But that loss is independent of downstream load...

--

dpb wrote:
Bob F wrote:
"dpb" wrote in message ...
Bob F wrote:
...

And electrical heaters would heat less, so they would run longer,
increasing total usage.

Proportionately longer time at lower voltage is still same power...


Except for the losses where the problem is. Which don't heat the house
if they're outside. Sorry.

But that loss is independent of downstream load...


???
Loss at a series connection resistance ("problem") depends on the
downstream load.

The original statement (Mike) was "If you have a high resistance joint
anywhere in your supply then total power consumption will always fall."

A thermostatically controlled resistance heater will use the same power
at the heater. I agree with Bob that the power consumption will go up
because the power loss at the "problem" adds to the power used at the
heater.

--
bud--

bud-- wrote:
dpb wrote:
Bob F wrote:
"dpb" wrote in message ...
Bob F wrote:
...

And electrical heaters would heat less, so they would run longer,
increasing total usage.

Proportionately longer time at lower voltage is still same power...


Except for the losses where the problem is. Which don't heat the
house if they're outside. Sorry.

But that loss is independent of downstream load...


???
Loss at a series connection resistance ("problem") depends on the
downstream load.
....

That's true--I knew this was going to come back when I sent it--just
_after_ "Send".

If that really was the claim rather than a resistance heater was going
to use more power at the lower voltage simply by running longer at the
lower input to output the same heating...

--

On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 02:09:10 +0000, Mike wrote:

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:19:32 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:34:20 -0600, Steve IA
wrote:

If you have more comments/questions, fire away

Steve

To add to what has been said, I would still be concerned about the
mysterious days when power spiked. There is a 90% chance that it is
explainable, but I'll relate what happened when we first moved into
our 1960s house in Florida.

The house had a 150 amp entrance. I didn't give a second thought
about that, since it had obviously worked for over twenty years. It
also had an seven year old heat pump, a pool pump, a sprinkler pump,
lots of incandescent and halogen lighting, an electric dryer,
dishwasher, and some other lesser loads.

During the first summer, I noticed that our electric bill was a lot.
I had no way of being sure why this was the case, so I began poking
around. When I went outside near the meter, I could smell something
hot, like hot electric wire insulation. I then felt the breakers,
which felt a little warm but fine, then moved on to the meter, and
discovered that the conduit leading from the meter box to the breakers
was too hot to touch.

I called in an electrician, and he was able to open things up. The
aluminum wire between the meter and the breaker box had been heated to
a point that it had begun to seriously corrode and add resistance of
its own, and had _almost_ burned away enough insulation between the
wires to create a direct short.

What had happened? The age and type of the wiring was, of course, a
factor, but the issue we had not considered was that during the summer
we might run all of the major power users at the same time. The pool
needed cleaning, it was hot in the house, the lawn was getting dry,
and because we were sweating and drinking lots of water, the laundry
and dishes were being done, all during the late afternoon. The
_cumulative_ draw was enough to damage the connection to the aluminum
wire and the added resistance was overheating both the connection and
wire.

Had I not been sniffing around, we would have had an electrical fire
at a spot where it would be impossible to shut off the current without
either the fire or power department breaking into the transformer box,
and we likely would have had severe damage to the house.

Once the wire was replaced and connections repaired, our power usage
went down by a significant amount.

The moral of the story? Don't let those high power usage days go
unchallenged.

No, the moral is, you just wrote a load of total bull****.

If you have a high resistance joint anywhere in your supply then total
power consumption will always fall. Hot joints in extension leads
are just the same, you'll loose 3/5 of 5/8 of bugger all in a normal
joint and if its resistance rises you'll loose more but the volts are
dropped across that high resistance joint and therefore the downstream
loads will always use less. If downstream devices use switch mode
supplies (such as computers or tv's) then the consumption of those
devices will stay almost the same

You could have a joint in your supply line that glowed bright red in
daylight and if anything it would reduce the consumption of your
washing machine, dishwasher and fridge, and accordingly reduce the
reading on your electricity meter. If the high resistance joint was
on your side of the meter then, with the exception of switch mode
supplied devices you'd consume the same overall amount of metered
electricity but the high resistance joint would usually waste that
heat.


Well, I have another moral, this time in relationship to your idiotic
ASSumptions. Read the post again carefully for comprehension.

I stated:

During the first summer, I noticed that our electric bill was a lot.
I had no way of being sure why this was the case, so I began poking
around. When I went outside near the meter, I could smell something
hot, like hot electric wire insulation. I then felt the breakers,
which felt a little warm but fine, then moved on to the meter, and
discovered that the conduit leading from the meter box to the breakers
was too hot to touch.

I was investigating possible causes of my high power bill, and
happened to come across a dangerous situation that required an
immediate remedy. FWIW, I did NOT say that this was the cause of the
increased bill, although it was a contributory factor, as I'll explain
below. I stated that the increased draw from running all the
appliances at the same time was enough to heat the corroded
connections and create the situation where there was danger, and it
was a good thing that I was investigating, since having my house burn
down was a BAD thing.

I suppose that if I had said I found a dead squirrel holding a Kit Kat
bar in the breaker box you would ASSume that I thought it was the
cause for increased power consumption and detail for us how squirrels
don't consume power and don't have the money to buy Kit Kat bars.

Now, to examine your intended point. What you are basically stating
is that the total resistance remains the same when wiring gets hot,
and that the same amount of power is consumed per unit of time. To
put it into layman terms; the theory is that when you connect a 100
watt incandescent light bulb, it doesn't matter if you connect it
directly to meter, or in series with a 5,000 watt heater and then to
the meter, the power coming into the circuit is constant. The light
bulb will still light and the total power used will remain the same.
The light bulb is the limiting device, and it might glow a little less
brightly, and the heater get a little warm, but a meter will record
the same rate of usage.

What you are totally missing is why we buy power in the first place.
We buy it to do work. If my AC is getting less power, it has to work
longer to cool the same space. Since air conditioning is about 1/2 to
3/4 of the total power consumed in the summer, that becomes a
significant issue. If a light burns a little less, or the pool pump
runs a little slower, I might not notice it or bother to compensate
for it. However, the thermostat on the AC compensates automatically,
and the AC runs longer without my doing anything. Therefore, the
power wasted in heating the wiring has to be made up by using an
equivalent amount of power to allow the AC to do its work.

In your bully rush to claim bull**** and plant your flag as a
know-it-all, you managed to fall into your own heaping pile of it.
**** happens all the time when the ego outruns considered thought.
Think of it as a lesson to slow down your hot responses and mind your
manners.

Neon John wrote:
On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:54:22 -0900, (Floyd L. Davidson) wrote:

Neon John wrote:

Really? Then according to your expert theory, my restaurant ought to have burned
down long ago.

http://www.neon-john.com/images/Wiring_overload.jpg

Sure sonny. Now tell us just how much electricity that
mess actually used. Nothing there used up enough power
to cost more than 20 cents a month!

My, such charm and wit.

OK, well "Pop", let's go back to that Stefan-Boltzmann calculator and do a little
math.

The conduit between the meter base and that box is about 40 ft of 2" rigid conduit.

Learn to read and respond to the topic of discussion.

You are talking about a 40 foot run of cable. Nobody
else is.

The discussion was about what happens with a single
connection inside that junciton box. If it is a high
resistance sufficient to cause even a slight reduction
in the power available to other loads on the circuit, it
is going to get hot and either burn through and become
an open, or start a fire.

You've compared grapefruit and oranges, but we were
talking about apples.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

"Stormin Mormon" wrote:
Thank you for a (second) real life proof.

So where is the connection that got hot in his example????


--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

"Neon John" wrote in message
news
Really? Then according to your expert theory, my restaurant ought to have
burned
down long ago.

http://www.neon-john.com/images/Wiring_overload.jpg

That photo is of what is left of the original 40s vintage 3 phase indoor
meter box.
Long since bypassed as a meter base, it still passed up to 300 amps at
times. That's
either #4 or #2 cloth covered, rubber insulated wire in the service
entrance. #4, I
think. It's obviously been hot enough to slag the rubber insulation but
somehow it
just keeps on truckin'. Of course, the wire is in rigid conduit and despite
your
declaration to the contrary, steel still doesn't burn very well.

That conduit has been too hot to touch on occasion. I monitored it closely
in the
summer time. I'd have loved to have replaced it but the city says that I
can't do my
own electrical work and I'm not about to pay someone else to do it so...
It's been
there since the 40s and it'll probably be there until the building is torn
down.

Perhaps you ought to look at the other post I made in this thread about how
to
compute irradiative losses from a hot object. The concept is simple enough
for
someone even of your caliber to understand.

Maybe you ought to get your code book out too. At various places it
discusses the
losses involved in various wire and cable temperature rises.

John

--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.comhttp://www.johndearmond.com -- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. -Marie Curie

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

"Stormin Mormon" wrote:
The one time I saw this, the electrician pulled the lead in wire, that had
been from the meter to the panel box. He set the wire on the ground, and
used his Simpson VOM to read from hot to hot -- there was less than
infinity resistance. I didn't see on his meter how many tens or hundreds of
K-ohms, but there would have been current flow, with 220 VAC applied.

That may be, but you haven't specified anything
significant. How much resistance makes all the
difference in the world.

But the original point was that a single *connection*
that is corroded and offers a high resistance is a fire
hazard, but will *not* cause a higher power bill.
That's how it works.

For a given run of wire, as you are describing, if there
is enough power lost to leakage between the conductors
to raise the power bill significantly, the insulation is
going to suffer serious damage and soon result in a
direct short. But, until there is a short, it will not
reduce the power available to other loads.

Another issue, which obnoxious John wants to discuss, is
a high resistance cable loop. That's a whole different
beastie, and is a very common problem. It *will*
increase the power bill, and might cause damage to
electric motors that require high torque for starting
(motors driving compressors in refrigeration units are
good example).

These are all significantly distinct problems and should
not be confused with each other. The OP's is correct in
saying that his investigation of high power usage lead
him to discover potentially dangerous problems. His
description did not make it clear enough that he knew
the discovered problems were not the cause of the high
power usage, and that lead to some ornery comments by
Mike, who was technically correct but had misread what
the OP meant.


--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

"Floyd L. Davidson" wrote in message
...
"Stormin Mormon" wrote:
He's not talking resistance -- he's talking about a short circuit. Please
be
sure of your terms before you call someone else names, and insult them.

I've known of houses with broken down insulation in the lead in wire,
creating a high energy bill. So, it's a real condition.

More total bull****. That would burn the house down
long before you got the bill. As Mike said, if the
connection where so hot it was shining brightly in the
daylight... and indeed that is what it would take to
create a high energy bill, and it *would* set fire to
something.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:35:40 -0900, (Floyd L. Davidson) wrote:

Neon John wrote:

The conduit between the meter base and that box is about 40 ft of 2" rigid conduit.

Learn to read and respond to the topic of discussion.

You are talking about a 40 foot run of cable. Nobody
else is.

Actually YOU were, when you asked me how much electricity "that mess actually used".
That mess was the end of that 40 ft run of conduit. Whatever, I can do calculations
on most anything.


The discussion was about what happens with a single
connection inside that junciton box. If it is a high
resistance sufficient to cause even a slight reduction
in the power available to other loads on the circuit, it
is going to get hot and either burn through and become
an open, or start a fire.

Sorry, Pop, you lose again. Actually the thread started out about a hot conduit and
morphed into your "hot contact flambe'" theory. Whatever, let's do a contact.

How 'bout this one?

http://www.neon-john.com/images/Burned_contact.jpg

That contact is about 1.5" tall average, and about an inch wide. The surface area of
one side is therefore 1.5 sq inches. For both sides, 3 sq inches. Let's add another
square inch to account for the mating blade that isn't visible in the photo, for a
total of 4 sq inches or 0.333 sq ft.

I've measured that blade tip at over 600 deg with a infrared pyrometer. Since the
heating is uneven, especially along the blade, let's use 450 deg as an average
temperature. And since the box gets hot, let's use 30 deg as the ambient. This is
conservative since when I made the measurements I had to have the door open and that
exposed most of the contact to 20 deg ambient. We'll stay conservative. The
emissivity of oxidized copper is 0.98 according to my table. We now have enough to
compute the radiated energy.

Remember this page?

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...stefan.html#c3

Plugging all that in, the result is 96.5 watts. Again assuming twice the convective
losses or 193 watts, the total comes out to 289 watts.

That seems reasonable, as in the heat of summer I've had to open the box and place a
fan on it to keep conducted heat from blowing the fuse. It also seems reasonable for
how hot a metal box that size would get with a 300 watt heater inside.

Cost

Let's use the same assumptions from my last post. 80 hours a week, 4 weeks in the
month or 320 hours in the month. 0.289kW * 320 hours is 93kWh. At 9 cents a kWh,
that's $8.34 for the month. Which is, last time I looked, 20 cents a month.

So. Again, feel free to plug in any numbers that you like; I've held your hand and
led you through the methodology. While you're cogitating, keep in mind that I took
no credit for losses through the bulk of the blade, the hinge or the fuse and holder.
Since enough heat conducts down the blade to contribute to the fuse's melting below
its amp rating, that amount of heat is non-trivial.

Regardless of any assumptions you might choose, this one hot connection certainly
used more than your "20 cents a month" claim. Strike 2.

Nor does your claim withstand scrutiny that a hot connection that is dissipating
significant power will burn up. Strike 3. You're outta here.

Such a hot joint IS a risk but not of fire at this power level. The only real risk
is of an outage if the thing finally oxidizes sufficiently that it doesn't make
contact anymore or that it arcs and melts. No fire possible inside that metal
switchgear.

The risk of outage and in larger gear, fire or explosion AND the operating cost of
the joint is why companies hire people like me to do energy audits and thermal scans.
The main driving force with every client I've ever had was cost - cost of an outage
and cost of operating that hot joint.


You've compared grapefruit and oranges, but we were
talking about apples.

So now we talk about apples, only for you to demonstrate that you don't know them
either. Every time you open your yap you dig your ignorance hole a bit deeper. Why
don't you give it a rest before you bury yourself (deeper) in stupidity.

John
--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com -- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
Okay, okay, I'll take it back ... UN**** you!

On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:31:36 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

Thank you for a (second) real life proof.


You're welcome. Looks like Floyd the cyberstalker is still nippin' at your heals
though. Sad and funny at the same time.

John
--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com -- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
Okay, okay, I'll take it back ... UN**** you!

On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:30:41 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

The one time I saw this, the electrician pulled the lead in wire, that had
been from the meter to the panel box. He set the wire on the ground, and
used his Simpson VOM to read from hot to hot -- there was less than
infinity resistance. I didn't see on his meter how many tens or hundreds of
K-ohms, but there would have been current flow, with 220 VAC applied.

That wouldn't be unusual if the wire were wet, for example. PVC insulated wire that
has overheated breaks down and one of the breakdown products is hygroscopic. Thus,
moisture in the conduit would not be unusual.

That resistance wouldn't be dissipating any significant power, however. Consider
10kohms and 240 volts. (10kohms would be a very low resistance for such a
circumstance so consider it an extreme example) P = Vsquared/R or about 6 watts. The
bulk of the heating was simple I^2R losses from the current passing through the
conductors and perhaps some conducted heat from the hot joint.

John
--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com -- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
If stupidity hurt then they'd be putting morphine in the water supply.

They were talking about the primary neutrals. Yes, the primary side CAN run with
just the ground. The current is relatively low and the voltage high.

John

On Sat, 26 Jan 2008 01:20:54 -0600, wrote:


On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:34:20 -0600, Steve IA
wrote:

Other answers:
The REC said they had many neutral lines down yet and they were
repairing them as the could, thus the 1 line vs. 2 line question.

How can you have power without a neutral?
Impossible !!!!!
You cant just rely on the ground rods.

That alone could make the electronics in your meter go whacky.
--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com -- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?