Electricity usage forensics

[Kim]

Heating went on at midnight and took about 3 hours to get up to temperature, I think. Had hit 9.48kWh by the time I got up at 8:30am.
2.5 kettles, some hob action, an hour of roasting potatoes, half an hour of shower, 10 mins of hoovering, 10-15 minutes of microwaving 2 loads of laundry, an assortment of battery and device charging ... and I'm up to 23.88kWh.

Averaging that much every day, including outside of Winter and outside of the country? Really?!

Reminds me of friends at the University of [REDACTED] who found themselves in a series of flats with all-inclusive rent and individual electricity meters.  Cue the inevitable who-can-use-the-most-electricity competition.

[Pickled Onion]

We didn't factor in my clock radio, but also I lied about how often I do the hoovering, so that probably evens out 

... 10 mins of hoovering...

Averaging that much every day...

You realise that's you're hoovering quota for the next 8 months if you want it to equal what your clock radio uses? 

[Pickled Onion]

Reminds me of friends at the University of [REDACTED] who found themselves in a series of flats with all-inclusive rent and individual electricity meters.  Cue the inevitable who-can-use-the-most-electricity competition.

Ah student days... someone had the bright idea of making the meter run backwards for a while, then some time later realised we'd gone past the previous reading and the meter reader was due. Everything in the flat went on full blast to avoid us getting a bill for whatever all the digits on the meter add up to.

[Quisling]

Inpired by Nikki’s predicament I’ve been logging some of my major appliances over the last couple of days, starting with a fairly small chest freezer which is 25 years old. It’s in an outbuilding so not exactly having to work too hard, and is using 2.4 kWh per day (ie ~ 100W constant load).  Our much newer upright freezer on the other hand (it’s about 5’ tall) is only using 0.85 kWh/day.
Now working hard to empty one freezer and switch the old one off. Reliable yes, economic no.

[Pickled Onion]

Me too.

I took an old, inherited, freezer to the dump a couple of weeks ago. The shallot asked "why are you getting rid of this it works fine?" The amount of electricity it was using was ridiculous.

[ian]

Reminds me of friends at the University of [REDACTED] who found themselves in a series of flats with all-inclusive rent and individual electricity meters.  Cue the inevitable who-can-use-the-most-electricity competition.

Ah student days... someone had the bright idea of making the meter run backwards for a while, then some time later realised we'd gone past the previous reading and the meter reader was due. Everything in the flat went on full blast to avoid us getting a bill for whatever all the digits on the meter add up to.

The box that held the 50 pence pieces 'fell off' our meter. This resulted in a lot of work for one 50p. This was our way of (a) not dying from hypothermia and (b) getting back at our shitty landlord for the never fixed leaky roof and numerous other problems.

[Jurek]

Word has it that a Canadian power company couldn't match the power usage to the meter reading of  student household which had a securely locked coin-box attached to the meter, with nothing in it (save for a bit of rust) and a high meter reading.

Extensive searches of the premises eventually led to the chest freezer in the garage.
In it was found a silicon rubber mold, churning out discs of ice, exactly the same size as a ~50c (whatever) coin.

[Kim]

Word has it that a Canadian power company couldn't match the power usage to the meter reading of  student household which had a securely locked coin-box attached to the meter, with nothing in it (save for a bit of rust) and a high meter reading.

Extensive searches of the premises eventually led to the chest freezer in the garage.
In it was found a silicon rubber mold, churning out discs of ice, exactly the same size as a ~50c (whatever) coin.

That's so good it has to be an urban legend, but I really hope it isn't.


When I was a PSO, I wrote a linear regression program (in the form of an IRC bot you'd feed meter readings to when you were hanging about in the kitchen) to warn us when the credit on the pre-payment meter was getting low.  All very practical, but nowhere near as cool.  At least the serial terminal was dumpster-dived from the Physics department.

[nikki]

You realise that's you're hoovering quota for the next 8 months if you want it to equal what your clock radio uses? 

 


Well, I've got the heater (2kW) logger working: 7.75, 8 and 6.5 hours of on time for the last three days (Fri, Sat, Sun).
Think we've mostly been in the 0-6C temperature range.

Total kWh for the last 6 days:
11.56
11.28
2.59 (heaters off experiment)
26 (everything on experiment, ~15.5kWh heater)
20.35 (was out most of the day!, ~16kWh heater)
16.33 (was in all day, ~13kWh heater)
17.35 so far today


Still struggling to see how I'm supposed to have hit a 25kWh per day average for Aug-Dec last year. We're into needing two heaters properly on territory, aren't we? (The 2nd one just gets used if I'm working in the lounge for any length of time, or on a low/frost setting to try and even things out a bit and stop my things getting damp.) Haven't done any monitoring of that 2nd heater yet, will have to at some stage, It's been off for the duration of all the monitoring so far, so not included in anything yet.

[Pickled Onion]

a) very few of the visits by npower meter readers have resulted in an actual meter reading getting put in the system. (I've been aware of quite a high number of estimated bills, but without owning a ladder there wasn't a lot I could do about it.) Amended bills are coming through with some hefty amendments.

Apologies if you've answered this already, were the August and December readings actual or estimated? How does the December reading tally with the current reading? If "actual" is it possible that one or other of these readings were misreads (or made-up)?

[Canardly]

Nikki have you added up all the electrical appliances in the flat for a total possible demand?

This report on household consumption seems pretty comprehensive and could possibly be referred to in any conversation with supplier. See page 26.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/208097/10043_R66141HouseholdElectricitySurveyFinalReportissue4.pdf

[nikki]

An email today from npower seems to have unlocked the next level of stuff I can access online.

The meter readings they have for me:

27/03/2018    Smart read, Electricity    654
01/03/2018    npower read, Electricity    0
You had a new electric meter put in on 01/03/2018
28/02/2018    npower read, Electricity    81962
08/12/2017    Estimated read, Electricity    79812
30/08/2017    npower read, Electricity    77835
08/06/2017    Estimated read, Electricity    77394
01/03/2017    npower read, Electricity    76530
08/12/2016    Estimated read, Electricity    75003
09/09/2016    Estimated read, Electricity    73720
08/06/2016    Estimated read, Electricity    72868
21/03/2016    Customer read, Electricity    72057
08/12/2015    Estimated read, Electricity    70639
20/08/2015    npower read, Electricity    69530
08/06/2015    Estimated read, Electricity    68960

Taking out the estimates, reversing the order and adding in a few calculations:

Date	Meter reading	Days	kWh total	kWh per day
03/09/14	65258
20/08/15	69530	351	4272	12.17
21/03/16	72057	214	2527	11.81
01/03/17	76530	345	4473	12.97
30/08/17	77835	182	1305	7.17
28/02/18	81962	182	4127	22.68
01/03/18	0	1	0	0.00
27/03/18	654	26	654	25.15

The woman on the phone seemed to be missing some of those readings, but the above is basically in agreement with what she said.
The 30th of August reading is interesting, as I would already have been in Japan by that stage.

Apologies if you've answered this already, were the August and December readings actual or estimated? How does the December reading tally with the current reading? If "actual" is it possible that one or other of these readings were misreads (or made-up)?

Hopefully the above answers the first two of your questions, Pickled Onion. As for the third, who knows! The meter is high enough up that a misread is entirely possible, but you'd hope that the chap up there with a ladder would have read it properly before removing it.

Nikki have you added up all the electrical appliances in the flat for a total possible demand?

This report on household consumption seems pretty comprehensive and could possibly be referred to in any conversation with supplier. See page 26.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/208097/10043_R66141HouseholdElectricitySurveyFinalReportissue4.pdf

Thanks for the link Canardly; it does indeed look pretty comprehensive!

We did a guestimate of usage on the phone and got the 8 units a day, not including the heaters or lighting. I've made a few observed readings of power on the likely big hitters.
            

[hellymedic]

I suspect someone IS stealing your electrons!

We had our electricity bill today 3-bedroomed semi with gas water & central heating £192, previous quarter £193. We used just over 1000kWH for the three winter months (Jan-Mar) and presume much the same for Oct-Dec.. As we now have a Smart Meter, these are actual readings.