Expensive Electricity Bill
 

Without inspecting every inch of your wiring he cannot make such a
positive statement.
OK, thanks for that, he actually told us it was impossible for someone
to conect to our supply.

Simple enough to test for though, just unplug and
switch off every single bit of mains electrical stuff you have and
look at the meter disc (hopefully you have a meter with a disc).
We dont have one, what we have is a "Horstmann Radio Telemeter 2A",
type NU077-124 with a red flashing led.

It should not be moving at all.
If thats the case, then do you think it safe to assume that the led
should not flash with everything turned off ?.

There is an index mark on the edge, ring
that to the front with a small load (100W light will do) then switch
that off an make sure the disc doesn't move over the next few hours.

Its a digital display, so i can monitor this way.


Fridges and freezers won't mind being off for a couple of hours
provided you don't open them.

Theyre almost full, so would probably be OK for 24 hours.

Might be worth doing this excercise during the day and during the evening.

Were going to do it on a night, then pop outside and see if neighbours
lighting has gone off :).

The engineer said that he checked for this by his tests anyway, eg he
tested with his own kettle the load, and it was pulling the expected
load.

Expensive Electricity Bill
 

Just as an afterthought.

A few weeks ago the electricity kept "tripping out", i managed to
isolate the fuse responsible, and eventually called the landlord, he
sent someone out and managed to trace the fault to a nick in the mains
wire that leads to the garage. We only noticed it as it was dark. This
nick was maybe 6 inches above ground level so what he did was put
insulating tape round the faulty part, he reckons its not dangerous.
Any thoughts on that statement ?. It's still taped up.

During the initial search for the problem, i unplugged some items, and
asked my daughter to turn the power on again, she did, and got a shock.


She insists she did not touch anything, and had just got her fingers
close to the on/off switch.

We were told by the person who taped the wire later that it would have
just been static on her, and she would not actually have received a
shock. (He's not an electrician by the way).

Expensive Electricity Bill
 

On 1 Jan 2006 08:01:31 -0800, wrote:

look at the meter disc (hopefully you have a meter with a disc).

We dont have one, what we have is a "Horstmann Radio Telemeter 2A",
type NU077-124 with a red flashing led.

One of our meters is electronic. It has "1000imp/kWHr" next to the
flashing LED. That is it flashes once for every 1/1000 of a unit
consumed or 1 flash/hour at 1W, 1 flash/6mins for 10W, 1 flash/36secs
for 100W 1 flash every 3.6sec for 1kW. Not much good for spotting low
loads. Indeed I don't think our electronic meter can see the load
imposed by the alarm or occasional use of lights as the "day rate
count" doesn't increase for very long periods of time (months).

If thats the case, then do you think it safe to assume that the led
should not flash with everything turned off ?.

Yes but see above you may have to watch for a quite a period if the
"forgien" load is low. If a whole house is taking your power then the
base load, when people are in and it's dark outside is normally
somewhere between 500 and 1000W so the LED should flash every 3 to 6
seconds. They could be being sneaky though and just using your power
to charge their storage heaters in the wee small hours so you don't
notice the strobe effect on the LED...

Its a digital display, so i can monitor this way.

Whole units only, rather coarse, unless you switch off for a long
time, 12 hrs or so hardly convient.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

Expensive Electricity Bill
 

Expensive Electricity Bill
 

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 22:59:24 +0000 (UTC),
wrote:



a couple of bills back i got one for £800+ then the next one was for
£700+ so i rang them up and changed to a card meter on 6th december.
it ate £50 in 5 days. things started getting turned off.

i am now running
2 x comps as above
1 x 2kw convector heater thermostat controlled on number 3
1 x fridge freezer
1 x kettle
1 x cooker
light bulbs
the emersion heater is only being turned on over night

our current usage for the previous 24 hours is £6.37
units are
R1 (day time i assume) 43.31
R2 (night time i assume) 36.05

R1 price 8.36p per unit?
R2 price 3.61p per unit?

readings have been taken for over a week and i can't get the usage
down. Tonight i have borrowed a calor gas heater off a friend so we
will see what the readings tell me tomorrow, but where am i using all
this power? do i have a leak?

If your 2kw heater is heating a whole house in the current weather
then its probably on permanently - thats 48 units. I wouldnt use this
heater at all during the expensive units time of day and use the calor
gas instead.

Is the immersion cylinder lagged? If its not, and its on say 7 hours -
thats 21 units (at worst case). Lagging this cylinder (if its not
lagged), reducing the immersions thermostat temperature to 60 degrees
and putting it on a timer so that its on just a couple of hours before
the electricity gets into the expensive time could get the 21 down to
maybe 5 off peak units.

Are you in a uninsulated drafty old house? Storage heaters are even
more hopeless than usual in drafty houses.

I have a feeling that card meters charge more than other meters plus
you pay up front.

You have some leverage over the landlord to get improvements or
discounts as he would know he would strugle to let an unheated house
this time of year. Obviously dont let him know you know this.

My last Q bill was £65 and have all the same things as you except I
use gas for all heating.

Maybe you should move:(

Expensive Electricity Bill
 

one of our meters is electronic. It has "1000imp/kWHr" next to the
flashing LED. That is it flashes once for every 1/1000 of a unit
consumed or 1 flash/hour at 1W, 1 flash/6mins for 10W, 1 flash/36secs
for 100W 1 flash every 3.6sec for 1kW. Not much good for spotting low
loads. Indeed I don't think our electronic meter can see the load
imposed by the alarm or occasional use of lights as the "day rate
count" doesn't increase for very long periods of time (months).

Ive checked and mine has the same (1000imp/kWHr) as yours.

At the moment (21:30 ish) the led is flashing every 3 secs or so.
Daughter is in the living room watching the TV, wife is on laptop in
the kitchen, and im in my room on the pc, weve all got lights on, and i
guess using your calculations were using close to 1KW.

Does this sound about right to you ?.

Expensive Electricity Bill
 

In message .com,
writes
one of our meters is electronic. It has "1000imp/kWHr" next to the
flashing LED. That is it flashes once for every 1/1000 of a unit
consumed or 1 flash/hour at 1W, 1 flash/6mins for 10W, 1 flash/36secs
for 100W 1 flash every 3.6sec for 1kW. Not much good for spotting low
loads. Indeed I don't think our electronic meter can see the load
imposed by the alarm or occasional use of lights as the "day rate
count" doesn't increase for very long periods of time (months).

Ive checked and mine has the same (1000imp/kWHr) as yours.

At the moment (21:30 ish) the led is flashing every 3 secs or so.
Daughter is in the living room watching the TV, wife is on laptop in
the kitchen, and im in my room on the pc, weve all got lights on, and i
guess using your calculations were using close to 1KW.

Well, it's about what I'm getting - I checked last night for tugmistress

- normal house with a couple of TVs and the usual electrics on.

--
geoff

Expensive Electricity Bill
 

On 1 Jan 2006 13:31:10 -0800, wrote:

At the moment (21:30 ish) the led is flashing every 3 secs or so.
Daughter is in the living room watching the TV, wife is on laptop in
the kitchen, and im in my room on the pc, weve all got lights on,
and i guess using your calculations were using close to 1KW.

Does this sound about right to you ?.

About right, the CH pump could also have been running and/or
compressors in any fridge/freezers.

Our disc meter is trundling round at about 10s/rev ATM. 250 revs/kWHr
so 2500s/kWHr or roughly 1.5kWHr per hour. TV (150W), DVD recorder
DSAT box (together say 50W), 3 PCs, 2 monitors, ISDN PABX, TAM (700VA
UPS at 75% capacity approx 500W), ordinary lights (approx 300W), other
things such as 3 lots of tree lights.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail