Folks,

We've recently moved and I've finally got around to checking the flat's
energy consumption.

So I start this morning:

08:00 'day' meter reading 8159
09:00 'day' meter reading 8160
10:00 'day' meter reading 8161
11:00 'day' meter reading 8162 OK, one unit or so an hour
12:00 'day' meter reading 8166 What???
13:00 'day' meter reading 8167 Back to one unit an hour

What happened between 11:00 and 12:00? My wife put the fan oven on for
15 minutes, to heat up a pie. That's right - 15 minutes. Nothing else in
the flat changed during that time.

How can a fan oven consume 3 kw hours in fifteen minutes? It's a
run-of-the-mill single Bosch fan oven - that's a 3 or 4kw load rating?

To my understanding, the figures suggest the oven was running at 12 kw
for that quarter of an hour (some 48 amps) which doesn't seem plausible.

My first thought is that the meter is faulty, but I'd like to know of
other possibilities.

Can anyone offer enlightenment?




Many thanks,
Peter



P.S. This wasn't a fluke. Mid-afternoon, I ran the oven for another 15
minutes and whoosh, another four units gone over the hour (ie the base
load plus three).

Is the meter realy displaying kWh?


In article
,
Peter Kemp wrote:
Folks,

We've recently moved and I've finally got around to checking the flat's
energy consumption.

So I start this morning:

08:00 'day' meter reading 8159
09:00 'day' meter reading 8160
10:00 'day' meter reading 8161
11:00 'day' meter reading 8162 OK, one unit or so an hour
12:00 'day' meter reading 8166 What???
13:00 'day' meter reading 8167 Back to one unit an hour

What happened between 11:00 and 12:00? My wife put the fan oven on for
15 minutes, to heat up a pie. That's right - 15 minutes. Nothing else in
the flat changed during that time.

How can a fan oven consume 3 kw hours in fifteen minutes? It's a
run-of-the-mill single Bosch fan oven - that's a 3 or 4kw load rating?

To my understanding, the figures suggest the oven was running at 12 kw
for that quarter of an hour (some 48 amps) which doesn't seem plausible.

My first thought is that the meter is faulty, but I'd like to know of
other possibilities.

Can anyone offer enlightenment?




Many thanks,
Peter



P.S. This wasn't a fluke. Mid-afternoon, I ran the oven for another 15
minutes and whoosh, another four units gone over the hour (ie the base
load plus three).

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

On 28/02/2013 21:40, Peter Kemp wrote:
P.S. This wasn't a fluke. Mid-afternoon, I ran the oven for another 15
minutes and whoosh, another four units gone over the hour (ie the base
load plus three).

TBH a kW standing load seems a bit high too... have you tried turning
things off to see what it does? You ought to be able to get it to
negligible (clocks only) without too much trouble, then turn on a couple
of lights of known power...

Andy

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 21:40:29 +0000, Peter Kemp
wrote:

How can a fan oven consume 3 kw hours in fifteen minutes?

Simple, it can't.

It's a run-of-the-mill single Bosch fan oven - that's a 3 or 4kw load rating?

Possibly only a fraction of that, many Bosch single ovens are less
than 1kW.

In article ,
Peter Kemp writes:
Folks,

We've recently moved and I've finally got around to checking the flat's
energy consumption.

So I start this morning:

08:00 'day' meter reading 8159
09:00 'day' meter reading 8160
10:00 'day' meter reading 8161
11:00 'day' meter reading 8162 OK, one unit or so an hour
12:00 'day' meter reading 8166 What???
13:00 'day' meter reading 8167 Back to one unit an hour

What happened between 11:00 and 12:00? My wife put the fan oven on for
15 minutes, to heat up a pie. That's right - 15 minutes. Nothing else in
the flat changed during that time.

How can a fan oven consume 3 kw hours in fifteen minutes? It's a
run-of-the-mill single Bosch fan oven - that's a 3 or 4kw load rating?

I'm guessing the pie said heat for 15 minutes.
How long was the oven left on to warm up?
What sort of hob do you have? Electric rings can
use a lot if something was also heated on the hob.

To my understanding, the figures suggest the oven was running at 12 kw
for that quarter of an hour (some 48 amps) which doesn't seem plausible.

My first thought is that the meter is faulty, but I'd like to know of
other possibilities.

Can anyone offer enlightenment?




Many thanks,
Peter



P.S. This wasn't a fluke. Mid-afternoon, I ran the oven for another 15
minutes and whoosh, another four units gone over the hour (ie the base
load plus three).

Your readings do sound rather high.

The heat from the oven and much of the heat from a hob all goes
into heating the house, so if you do generate 4kWh from these,
your heating system (if it has suitable controls) will demand
4kWh less than it would have done.

As Andy said, a base load of 1kW is quite high. Mine is around
500W, and that's with more always-on equipment than I would
expect most people to have, although it is averaged over whole
quarterly billing periods, not just the middle of the day.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Peter Kemp wrote:
Folks,

We've recently moved and I've finally got around to checking the flat's
energy consumption.

So I start this morning:

08:00 'day' meter reading 8159
09:00 'day' meter reading 8160
10:00 'day' meter reading 8161
11:00 'day' meter reading 8162 OK, one unit or so an hour
12:00 'day' meter reading 8166 What???
13:00 'day' meter reading 8167 Back to one unit an hour

What happened between 11:00 and 12:00? My wife put the fan oven on for
15 minutes, to heat up a pie. That's right - 15 minutes. Nothing else in
the flat changed during that time.

How can a fan oven consume 3 kw hours in fifteen minutes? It's a
run-of-the-mill single Bosch fan oven - that's a 3 or 4kw load rating?

To my understanding, the figures suggest the oven was running at 12 kw
for that quarter of an hour (some 48 amps) which doesn't seem plausible.

My first thought is that the meter is faulty, but I'd like to know of
other possibilities.

Can anyone offer enlightenment?




Many thanks,
Peter



P.S. This wasn't a fluke. Mid-afternoon, I ran the oven for another 15
minutes and whoosh, another four units gone over the hour (ie the base
load plus three).

If there was some manual dishwashing done at the same time, a boiler may
have kicked in, too.

On 28/02/2013 21:40, Peter Kemp wrote:
Folks,

We've recently moved and I've finally got around to checking the flat's
energy consumption.

So I start this morning:

08:00 'day' meter reading 8159
09:00 'day' meter reading 8160
10:00 'day' meter reading 8161
11:00 'day' meter reading 8162 OK, one unit or so an hour
12:00 'day' meter reading 8166 What???
13:00 'day' meter reading 8167 Back to one unit an hour

What happened between 11:00 and 12:00? My wife put the fan oven on for
15 minutes, to heat up a pie. That's right - 15 minutes. Nothing else in
the flat changed during that time.

How can a fan oven consume 3 kw hours in fifteen minutes? It's a
run-of-the-mill single Bosch fan oven - that's a 3 or 4kw load rating?

To my understanding, the figures suggest the oven was running at 12 kw
for that quarter of an hour (some 48 amps) which doesn't seem plausible.

My first thought is that the meter is faulty, but I'd like to know of
other possibilities.

Can anyone offer enlightenment?




Many thanks,
Peter



P.S. This wasn't a fluke. Mid-afternoon, I ran the oven for another 15
minutes and whoosh, another four units gone over the hour (ie the base
load plus three).


1 kWh ambient is a lot, especially if it doesn't include heating. That's
£1500 a year on its own. I'd look at your method of measurement first.

Rob

Thanks for the thoughts so far:

1 I agree a standing load of 1Kw is kinda high and needs investigating.
The issue with the cooker became my first priority.

2 When I quoted kilowatt hours, I was assuming that the meter's units
were kwH. Is that not the case?

3 The oven was on for fifteen minutes in total. It's a fan-assisted
oven, so it gets to working temperature pretty quickly. When turned off,
the fan continues to run for about five minutes, but I've assumed that's
trivial consumption.



We're going to shut down the house completely tomorrow (apart from the
fridge) before going out shopping for a couple of hours. I don't expect
the meter to budge.
When we get back, the oven goes on for fifteen minutes while I stand and
watch the meter. If another three units go up in smoke during that time,
I guess it's a phone call to EDF.

Wish me luck!


Regards
Peter

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 21:40:29 +0000, Peter Kemp wrote:

Folks,

We've recently moved and I've finally got around to checking the flat's
energy consumption.

So I start this morning:

08:00 'day' meter reading 8159
09:00 'day' meter reading 8160
10:00 'day' meter reading 8161
11:00 'day' meter reading 8162 OK, one unit or so an hour
12:00 'day' meter reading 8166 What???
13:00 'day' meter reading 8167 Back to one unit an hour

What happened between 11:00 and 12:00? My wife put the fan oven on for
15 minutes, to heat up a pie. That's right - 15 minutes. Nothing else in
the flat changed during that time.

Are you sure you aren't reading the 1/10ths of a unit digit?



--
Regards, Paul Herber, Sandrila Ltd.
http://www.sandrila.co.uk/ twitter: @sandrilaLtd

In article
,
Peter Kemp wrote:
Thanks for the thoughts so far:

1 I agree a standing load of 1Kw is kinda high and needs investigating.
The issue with the cooker became my first priority.

2 When I quoted kilowatt hours, I was assuming that the meter's units
were kwH. Is that not the case?

It might not be. Have a good look at the front plate. Mine is labled as a
"Watt Hour meter"


3 The oven was on for fifteen minutes in total. It's a fan-assisted
oven, so it gets to working temperature pretty quickly. When turned off,
the fan continues to run for about five minutes, but I've assumed that's
trivial consumption.



We're going to shut down the house completely tomorrow (apart from the
fridge) before going out shopping for a couple of hours. I don't expect
the meter to budge.
When we get back, the oven goes on for fifteen minutes while I stand and
watch the meter. If another three units go up in smoke during that time,
I guess it's a phone call to EDF.

Wish me luck!


Regards
Peter

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 21:40:29 +0000, Peter Kemp wrote:

We've recently moved and I've finally got around to checking the flat's
energy consumption.

So I start this morning:

08:00 'day' meter reading 8159
09:00 'day' meter reading 8160
10:00 'day' meter reading 8161
11:00 'day' meter reading 8162 OK, one unit or so an hour
12:00 'day' meter reading 8166 What???
13:00 'day' meter reading 8167 Back to one unit an hour

What happened between 11:00 and 12:00? My wife put the fan oven on for
15 minutes, to heat up a pie. That's right - 15 minutes. Nothing else
in the flat changed during that time.

No kettle full of water for a cuppa to go with your pie?

No more lights going on in the kitchen to see to do the oven/pie/kettle?

Lots of people saying 1kW base is high, but it's not far off for an
occupied place with people doing things. Taking the monthly/quarterly
amounts and dividing by the appropiate number of hours for the period
gives an hourly for the *whole* period. But over a given day the hourly
average base load will vary, night with most things off, will be much
lower than say the evening lights, TV, PC's etc all on... Our night time
base load is about 300W, evenings over 1000...

P.S. This wasn't a fluke. Mid-afternoon, I ran the oven for another 15
minutes and whoosh, another four units gone over the hour (ie the base
load plus three).

Hum... certainly appears that something odd is going on.

--
Cheers
Dave.

In article
,
Peter Kemp wrote:
What happened between 11:00 and 12:00? My wife put the fan oven on for
15 minutes, to heat up a pie. That's right - 15 minutes. Nothing else in
the flat changed during that time.

You can heat a pie in a conventional fan oven in 15 minutes from cold?

--
*We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"RJH" wrote in message
...
On 28/02/2013 21:40, Peter Kemp wrote:
Folks,

We've recently moved and I've finally got around to checking the flat's
energy consumption.

So I start this morning:

08:00 'day' meter reading 8159
09:00 'day' meter reading 8160
10:00 'day' meter reading 8161
11:00 'day' meter reading 8162 OK, one unit or so an hour
12:00 'day' meter reading 8166 What???
13:00 'day' meter reading 8167 Back to one unit an hour

What happened between 11:00 and 12:00? My wife put the fan oven on for
15 minutes, to heat up a pie. That's right - 15 minutes. Nothing else in
the flat changed during that time.

How can a fan oven consume 3 kw hours in fifteen minutes? It's a
run-of-the-mill single Bosch fan oven - that's a 3 or 4kw load rating?

To my understanding, the figures suggest the oven was running at 12 kw
for that quarter of an hour (some 48 amps) which doesn't seem plausible.

My first thought is that the meter is faulty, but I'd like to know of
other possibilities.

Can anyone offer enlightenment?




Many thanks,
Peter



P.S. This wasn't a fluke. Mid-afternoon, I ran the oven for another 15
minutes and whoosh, another four units gone over the hour (ie the base
load plus three).


1 kWh ambient is a lot, especially if it doesn't include heating. That's
£1500 a year on its own. I'd look at your method of measurement first.

Rob


How do you arrive at that amount ?

Arfa

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article
,
Peter Kemp wrote:
What happened between 11:00 and 12:00? My wife put the fan oven on for
15 minutes, to heat up a pie. That's right - 15 minutes. Nothing else in
the flat changed during that time.

You can heat a pie in a conventional fan oven in 15 minutes from cold?

--
*We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.


Reading from the Pukka-Pies box that I just happened to have laying around
in the kitchen :

"After thawing overnight in a fridge (below 5 deg C) : heat in a fan
assisted / gas oven for 20 minutes at 170 deg C / gas mark 3"

Arfa

Peter Kemp wrote:
Folks,

We've recently moved and I've finally got around to checking the flat's
energy consumption.

So I start this morning:

08:00 'day' meter reading 8159
09:00 'day' meter reading 8160
10:00 'day' meter reading 8161
11:00 'day' meter reading 8162 OK, one unit or so an hour
12:00 'day' meter reading 8166 What???
13:00 'day' meter reading 8167 Back to one unit an hour

What happened between 11:00 and 12:00? My wife put the fan oven on for
15 minutes, to heat up a pie. That's right - 15 minutes. Nothing else in
the flat changed during that time.

How can a fan oven consume 3 kw hours in fifteen minutes? It's a
run-of-the-mill single Bosch fan oven - that's a 3 or 4kw load rating?

To my understanding, the figures suggest the oven was running at 12 kw
for that quarter of an hour (some 48 amps) which doesn't seem plausible.

My first thought is that the meter is faulty, but I'd like to know of
other possibilities.

Can anyone offer enlightenment?

P.S. This wasn't a fluke. Mid-afternoon, I ran the oven for another 15
minutes and whoosh, another four units gone over the hour (ie the base
load plus three).

Check whether your meter is showing a decimal point or not. If you
divide those readings by ten, inserting a decimal point between the last
two digits, they make perfect sense.

I have a similar problem with another, totally unrelated, type of meter
that transmits readings without inserting the decimal point, so they
show up as ten times their true value.


--
Tciao for Now!

John.

Yes, I agree the meter sounds like its not reading what you think it is,
its obviously working to a different unit than might be expected. I did ask
this question once and never did get an answer I could understand. Basically
they said the meter serial number tells us how to interpret the reading.
Which means, in my book if I could read it myself, which I can't, how the
heck could I calculate the usage if I did not know what its unit of
measurement was in the first place.

Brian

--
Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________


"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article
,
Peter Kemp writes:
Folks,

We've recently moved and I've finally got around to checking the flat's
energy consumption.

So I start this morning:

08:00 'day' meter reading 8159
09:00 'day' meter reading 8160
10:00 'day' meter reading 8161
11:00 'day' meter reading 8162 OK, one unit or so an hour
12:00 'day' meter reading 8166 What???
13:00 'day' meter reading 8167 Back to one unit an hour

What happened between 11:00 and 12:00? My wife put the fan oven on for
15 minutes, to heat up a pie. That's right - 15 minutes. Nothing else in
the flat changed during that time.

How can a fan oven consume 3 kw hours in fifteen minutes? It's a
run-of-the-mill single Bosch fan oven - that's a 3 or 4kw load rating?

I'm guessing the pie said heat for 15 minutes.
How long was the oven left on to warm up?
What sort of hob do you have? Electric rings can
use a lot if something was also heated on the hob.

To my understanding, the figures suggest the oven was running at 12 kw
for that quarter of an hour (some 48 amps) which doesn't seem plausible.

My first thought is that the meter is faulty, but I'd like to know of
other possibilities.

Can anyone offer enlightenment?




Many thanks,
Peter



P.S. This wasn't a fluke. Mid-afternoon, I ran the oven for another 15
minutes and whoosh, another four units gone over the hour (ie the base
load plus three).

Your readings do sound rather high.

The heat from the oven and much of the heat from a hob all goes
into heating the house, so if you do generate 4kWh from these,
your heating system (if it has suitable controls) will demand
4kWh less than it would have done.

As Andy said, a base load of 1kW is quite high. Mine is around
500W, and that's with more always-on equipment than I would
expect most people to have, although it is averaged over whole
quarterly billing periods, not just the middle of the day.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On Fri, 1 Mar 2013 02:38:43 -0000, Arfa Daily wrote:

1 kWh ambient is a lot, especially if it doesn't include heating.
That's £1500 a year on its own. I'd look at your method of measurement
first.

How do you arrive at that amount ?

Doing the maths backwards 17p/unit. Which is perfectly possible to have
these days even with a "standard" tarrif. Our E7 day rate is 18.78 + 5%
VAT...

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Fri, 1 Mar 2013 02:44:05 -0000, Arfa Daily wrote:

You can heat a pie in a conventional fan oven in 15 minutes from cold?

Reading from the Pukka-Pies box that I just happened to have laying
around in the kitchen :

"After thawing overnight in a fridge (below 5 deg C) : heat in a fan
assisted / gas oven for 20 minutes at 170 deg C / gas mark 3"

Oven from cold with pie in or oven pre-heated then pie in? All the oven
based cooking instructions I can remember all have pre-heated in them.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 01/03/2013 08:17, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Fri, 1 Mar 2013 02:38:43 -0000, Arfa Daily wrote:

1 kWh ambient is a lot, especially if it doesn't include heating.
That's £1500 a year on its own. I'd look at your method of measurement
first.

How do you arrive at that amount ?

Doing the maths backwards 17p/unit. Which is perfectly possible to have
these days even with a "standard" tarrif. Our E7 day rate is 18.78 + 5%
VAT...


Yes - I used 18p, but the tariff system is confusing in the sense you're
never comparing like with like.

1KWh background (that is, at night say) - 2 old freezers and larder
fridge, one old PC 24/7, 3 or 4 20W standby appliances (phones, printer)?

With a bit of thought, some expense and very little loss in convenience
my 4 bed home idles at 80W - fridge, freezer, gas boiler electrics, and
LEDs for often on lamps.

Rob

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.co.uk...
On Fri, 1 Mar 2013 02:44:05 -0000, Arfa Daily wrote:

You can heat a pie in a conventional fan oven in 15 minutes from cold?

Reading from the Pukka-Pies box that I just happened to have laying
around in the kitchen :

"After thawing overnight in a fridge (below 5 deg C) : heat in a fan
assisted / gas oven for 20 minutes at 170 deg C / gas mark 3"

Oven from cold with pie in or oven pre-heated then pie in? All the oven
based cooking instructions I can remember all have pre-heated in them.

I just ignore that instruction, essentially because the oven
heats up so quickly it makes no practical difference.

On 01/03/2013 08:20, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Fri, 1 Mar 2013 02:44:05 -0000, Arfa Daily wrote:

You can heat a pie in a conventional fan oven in 15 minutes from cold?

Reading from the Pukka-Pies box that I just happened to have laying
around in the kitchen :

"After thawing overnight in a fridge (below 5 deg C) : heat in a fan
assisted / gas oven for 20 minutes at 170 deg C / gas mark 3"

Oven from cold with pie in or oven pre-heated then pie in? All the oven
based cooking instructions I can remember all have pre-heated in them.

When (many years ago now, I confess) I had a Bosch oven, the
instructions said something like "no need to pre-heat". And, with few
exceptions, it worked fine.

OP (or person actually heating pie) might simply have had the oven on
for 15 minutes but left pie in for longer. It is often perfectly
effective to switch at least the over heating off before food is
finished heating through.

--
Rod

Peter Kemp wrote:
Thanks for the thoughts so far:

1 I agree a standing load of 1Kw is kinda high and needs investigating.
The issue with the cooker became my first priority.

2 When I quoted kilowatt hours, I was assuming that the meter's units
were kwH. Is that not the case?

3 The oven was on for fifteen minutes in total. It's a fan-assisted
oven, so it gets to working temperature pretty quickly. When turned off,
the fan continues to run for about five minutes, but I've assumed that's
trivial consumption.



We're going to shut down the house completely tomorrow (apart from the
fridge) before going out shopping for a couple of hours. I don't expect
the meter to budge.
When we get back, the oven goes on for fifteen minutes while I stand and
watch the meter. If another three units go up in smoke during that time,
I guess it's a phone call to EDF.


Phone EDF? Brave man.


--
AC

On Friday 01 March 2013 08:56 Rod Speed wrote in uk.d-i-y:



"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.co.uk...
On Fri, 1 Mar 2013 02:44:05 -0000, Arfa Daily wrote:

You can heat a pie in a conventional fan oven in 15 minutes from cold?

Reading from the Pukka-Pies box that I just happened to have laying
around in the kitchen :

"After thawing overnight in a fridge (below 5 deg C) : heat in a fan
assisted / gas oven for 20 minutes at 170 deg C / gas mark 3"

Oven from cold with pie in or oven pre-heated then pie in? All the oven
based cooking instructions I can remember all have pre-heated in them.

I just ignore that instruction, essentially because the oven
heats up so quickly it makes no practical difference.

I disagree. Mine has a "fast heatup mode" but even that takes 5-10 minutes
to signal it is ready (target temps between 160C and 250C).

If you are going to put it all in from cold, I usually add 5 mins - even if
the full heatup takes 10 minutes, the food has had 5 minutes extra drawing
some heat so you can knock a bit off the full temperature time.

--
Tim Watts Personal Blog: http://squiddy.blog.dionic.net/

http://www.sensorly.com/ Crowd mapping of 2G/3G/4G mobile signal coverage

Reading this on the web? See:
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?title=Usenet

On Fri, 01 Mar 2013 08:38:47 +0000, RJH wrote:

1 kWh ambient is a lot, especially if it doesn't include heating.
That's £1500 a year on its own. I'd look at your method of
measurement first.

How do you arrive at that amount ?

Doing the maths backwards 17p/unit. Which is perfectly possible to
have these days even with a "standard" tarrif. Our E7 day rate is
18.78 + 5% VAT...

Yes - I used 18p, but the tariff system is confusing in the sense
you're never comparing like with like.

Tariffs are confusing but the various comparison sites tidy that up a bit
but you still need to look at the actual unit prices and you actual
useage rather than take their "savings" figures.

18p is expensive though, our other supply (that gets most use) is
9.04p/unit.

1KWh background (that is, at night say) - 2 old freezers and larder
fridge, one old PC 24/7, 3 or 4 20W standby appliances (phones,
printer)?

1kW at night with everyone asleep would be high but is reasonable for
when people are up and about. The times the OP mentioned and produced the
1kW/hr base load were when he and his missues where up and about...

I must investigate our 300W night load as it's pretty steady for hours. I
don't see 50 - 100W steps that I would expect from fridges/freezers
cutting in and out. They are all A class though so perhaps they don't
actualy come on all that often in the wee small hours.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Friday 01 March 2013 09:07 AC wrote in uk.d-i-y:


Phone EDF? Brave man.



UK Power round here now...

Phoning them is a waste of time for a full village outage:

1) It's the main substation and that is monitored to buggery - it has
auxillary pole transformers for its own power on *both* sets of 33/66kV
incomers (I know not the exact voltage) and it has a sat dish or two. Unless
that's so the bloke can watch Sky while boiling a brew, I'm pretty sure it
signifies a high level of automation

2) Even when 1 applies, the phone staff are never upto date. They'll write
it down, but is a waste of time as the van usually arrives in a few minutes
anyway and you have to follow the script: "Have your checked your CU? Is
anyone else without power...?"

If it was just a road or two out, then I'd ring them (because everybody else
assumes somebody *else* did it).

What I do wish they had was a web page + twitter feed that said "yes we
know, Robertsbridge has flipped its lid again, van's on the way"...


--
Tim Watts Personal Blog: http://squiddy.blog.dionic.net/

http://www.sensorly.com/ Crowd mapping of 2G/3G/4G mobile signal coverage

Reading this on the web? See:
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?title=Usenet

Arfa Daily wrote:

"RJH" wrote:

1 kWh ambient is a lotespecially if it doesn't include heating.

It does seem a high average power consumption.

That's £1500 a year on its own.

How do you arrive at that amount ?

I think* each wattyear costs me 93p, with £86/year standing charge, so
£1.50 per wattyear seems high too.


*Of course, none of the prices per unit or standing charge per day on my
bill, with or without discounts, with or without VAT, seem to correspond
to those quoted last time I changed tariff - they always seem cheaper
than quoted.

Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Fri, 1 Mar 2013 02:38:43 -0000, Arfa Daily wrote:

1 kWh ambient is a lot, especially if it doesn't include heating.
That's £1500 a year on its own. I'd look at your method of measurement
first.

How do you arrive at that amount ?

Doing the maths backwards 17p/unit.

11.26p/unit here, less approx 10% discount, plus 5% VAT = 10.6p/unit

Which is perfectly possible to have these days even with a "standard"
tarrif. Our E7 day rate is 18.78 + 5% VAT...

RJH wrote:

1KWh background (that is, at night say)

1kwh/h, or, more easily 1kW.

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.co.uk...
On Fri, 01 Mar 2013 08:38:47 +0000, RJH wrote:

1 kWh ambient is a lot, especially if it doesn't include heating.
That's £1500 a year on its own. I'd look at your method of
measurement first.

How do you arrive at that amount ?

Doing the maths backwards 17p/unit. Which is perfectly possible to
have these days even with a "standard" tarrif. Our E7 day rate is
18.78 + 5% VAT...

Yes - I used 18p, but the tariff system is confusing in the sense
you're never comparing like with like.

Tariffs are confusing but the various comparison sites tidy that up a bit
but you still need to look at the actual unit prices and you actual
useage rather than take their "savings" figures.

18p is expensive though, our other supply (that gets most use) is
9.04p/unit.


Ah, OK. That was the sort of cost per unit that I had worked it back to, and
I thought "bloody hell ! I know electrickery is expensive now, but ... "
Hence the reason I asked.

Arfa



1KWh background (that is, at night say) - 2 old freezers and larder
fridge, one old PC 24/7, 3 or 4 20W standby appliances (phones,
printer)?

1kW at night with everyone asleep would be high but is reasonable for
when people are up and about. The times the OP mentioned and produced the
1kW/hr base load were when he and his missues where up and about...

I must investigate our 300W night load as it's pretty steady for hours. I
don't see 50 - 100W steps that I would expect from fridges/freezers
cutting in and out. They are all A class though so perhaps they don't
actualy come on all that often in the wee small hours.

--
Cheers
Dave.

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.co.uk...
On Fri, 1 Mar 2013 02:44:05 -0000, Arfa Daily wrote:

You can heat a pie in a conventional fan oven in 15 minutes from cold?

Reading from the Pukka-Pies box that I just happened to have laying
around in the kitchen :

"After thawing overnight in a fridge (below 5 deg C) : heat in a fan
assisted / gas oven for 20 minutes at 170 deg C / gas mark 3"

Oven from cold with pie in or oven pre-heated then pie in? All the oven
based cooking instructions I can remember all have pre-heated in them.

--
Cheers
Dave.


Yes, you're right on that, but this box specifically doesn't mention any
pre-heat. Actually, though, the small oven in my range-size main cooker
*does* get up to temp very quickly. The big one is, as you would expect,
rather slower ...

Arfa

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 22:19:17 +0000, RJH wrote:


1 kWh ambient is a lot, especially if it doesn't include heating. That's
£1500 a year on its own. I'd look at your method of measurement first.

I did once have an energy monitor that developed a fault, finally confirmed by throwing the main switch and
watch it read variable amounts between 200 and 600W.

I suggest the OP throws the main switch and ensure the monitor reads zero.

If that is satisfactory, turn the power on and then turn off every electrical item in the flat. If that reads zero, turn
on say a 40 of 60W light and check the reading. Add another 100 - 200W, check reading. Switch on kettle, check
reading increase matches the rating of the kettle.

This will calibrate the monitor up to ~3kW.

Then he can go hunting where the power's going.


--
Terry Fields

Terry Fields wrote:

I did once have an energy monitor that developed a fault, finally confirmed by throwing the main switch and
watch it read variable amounts between 200 and 600W.

I suggest the OP throws the main switch and ensure the monitor reads zero.

I got the impression the readings were from the meter, not an energy
monitor.

In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:
You can heat a pie in a conventional fan oven in 15 minutes from cold?

Reading from the Pukka-Pies box that I just happened to have laying
around in the kitchen :

"After thawing overnight in a fridge (below 5 deg C) : heat in a fan
assisted / gas oven for 20 minutes at 170 deg C / gas mark 3"

That sounds about right. I have a Neff double oven - both fan assisted -
and the smaller one I'd use for this would take about 10 minutes to heat
up.

--
*Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Arfa Daily wrote:

"After thawing overnight in a fridge (below 5 deg C) : heat in a fan
assisted / gas oven for 20 minutes at 170 deg C / gas mark 3"

That sounds about right. I have a Neff double oven - both fan assisted -
and the smaller one I'd use for this would take about 10 minutes to heat
up.

My Neff single fan oven claims no (or was it less?) need to pre-heat.

In article ,
Andy Burns wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Arfa Daily wrote:

"After thawing overnight in a fridge (below 5 deg C) : heat in a fan
assisted / gas oven for 20 minutes at 170 deg C / gas mark 3"

That sounds about right. I have a Neff double oven - both fan assisted
- and the smaller one I'd use for this would take about 10 minutes to
heat up.

My Neff single fan oven claims no (or was it less?) need to pre-heat.

Heating instructions sometime give two figures - one for fan assisted
ovens, one for not.

When heating food I'd rather it was properly heated, rather than worry
about the cost of the electricity. Heating the entire thing through to
above a certain temperature kills of bacteria.

--
*Microsoft broke Volkswagen's record: They only made 21.4 million bugs.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Fri, 01 Mar 2013 10:23:02 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:

Terry Fields wrote:

I did once have an energy monitor that developed a fault, finally
confirmed by throwing the main switch and watch it read variable
amounts between 200 and 600W.

I suggest the OP throws the main switch and ensure the monitor reads
zero.

I got the impression the readings were from the meter, not an energy
monitor.

Doh!

You're quite right - well worth having stab at a calibration, though


--
Terry Fields

On 28/02/2013 21:59, Andy Champ wrote:

TBH a kW standing load seems a bit high too... have you tried turning
things off to see what it does? You ought to be able to get it to
negligible (clocks only) without too much trouble, then turn on a couple
of lights of known power...

Andy

1kW standing load here too, it's surprising how quickly multiple small
loads add up. I did the usual of turning everything off to check and
then just turned them back on for convenience. If prices go up further
than they are going to stay off for longer....

On 01/03/2013 09:38, Dave Liquorice wrote:


18p is expensive though, our other supply (that gets most use) is
9.04p/unit.


I did change mine recently, and as a low user 18p-ish was the best I
could do. Who is your supplier?

Thanks, Rob

On 28/02/2013 21:48, charles wrote:
Is the meter realy displaying kWh?


Our Siemens one says "KWh" on it, no decimal point either just a
flashing led.

On 01/03/2013 09:48, Andy Burns wrote:


11.26p/unit here, less approx 10% discount, plus 5% VAT = 10.6p/unit


12.07p/unit here + £15 s/charge, despite "competition" it does still
vary by area, it seems.