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#1
Posted to alt.energy.homepower,misc.rural,alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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 |
#2
Posted to alt.energy.homepower, misc.rural, alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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. |
#3
Posted to alt.energy.homepower,misc.rural,alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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! |
#4
Posted to alt.energy.homepower,misc.rural,alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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 |
#5
Posted to alt.energy.homepower,misc.rural,alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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. |
#6
Posted to alt.energy.homepower,misc.rural,alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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. |
#7
Posted to alt.energy.homepower,misc.rural,alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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#8
Posted to alt.energy.homepower, misc.rural, alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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. |
#9
Posted to alt.energy.homepower,misc.rural,alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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. |
#10
Posted to alt.energy.homepower,misc.rural,alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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 |
#11
Posted to alt.energy.homepower,misc.rural,alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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/ |
#12
Posted to alt.energy.homepower, misc.rural, alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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 |
#13
Posted to alt.energy.homepower,misc.rural,alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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#14
Posted to alt.energy.homepower,misc.rural,alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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 |
#15
Posted to alt.energy.homepower,misc.rural,alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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. |
#16
Posted to alt.energy.homepower,misc.rural,alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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#17
Posted to alt.energy.homepower, misc.rural, alt.home.repair
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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 |
#19
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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-- |
#20
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
"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. |
#21
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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 . |
#22
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
"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 |
#23
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
"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) |
#24
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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... -- |
#25
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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 |
#26
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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) |
#27
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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! |
#28
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
"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. |
#29
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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! |
#30
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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... -- |
#31
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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-- |
#32
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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... -- |
#33
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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. |
#34
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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) |
#35
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
"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) |
#36
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
"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) |
#37
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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! |
#38
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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! |
#39
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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. |
#40
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What REC said: was "lost electricity"
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? |
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