Electricity Usage

Dolby

Dolby

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Out of interest, what is everyone elses?

Someone told me mine was high (but he's super frugal, showers at gym etc).

Single person, don't cook and no pool / pond

power.jpg
 
We average 400kWh per month, me and my wife. No pool, no aircon, cook everyday, shower at home. June was closer to 700kWh because of heaters.
 
Slightly off topic, but we use a management service for our power (one of those complex-living "perks"), and I would love to have a meter installed that will give me this kind of information. How easy/difficult is it to do, and do I need a sparkie to do it for me?
 
Seems a bit high.

<- Guy, lives alone with two dogs. Cooks and showers at home. 1 x PC permanently switched on. No pool / ponds. No heaters. 368 kWh last month. Admittedly a bit lower than usual, most month closer to 420 kWh.
 
I average 582 per month over the year with winter being a bit higher and summer lower obviously. Family of 4 and we almost never eat fast food. Cook at home mostly. The wife also occasionally bakes shortbread to sell.
 
Heh.

THanks guys.

I wonder why?

I can't see that I'm using excessive :/ I'll go around tonight and check

What are the odds that this thing is picking up a neighbours usage, and is it possible to get somehow?

I'm in a complex
 
I would start by getting an energy meter like an OWL unit and getting an independent reading and confirming that your OWL agrees with your meter. If it does not it could be that your meter's are incorrectly labelled and you are being billed for someone else. Easy to check. Just get the complex to cut your power at the complex switch and see if it cuts you or someone else.

Could also be a faulty meter. We have had both those scenarios in my complex. One unit figured it out when they where away for a month and still got a full elec bill but the neighbour got an almost zero bill.

Anyways, the above two are possible but rare, more likely you have stuff in your unit using a lot of background power. By that I mean you are expending electricity in appliances or devices that you are not using. Easiest way to find that is with the owl meter. Install it on your main live wire into the main breaker and walk around with the wireless display turning stuff on and off to see what is using the power.

When I first did this what I did was turn of everything as if we where about to go to bed and checked what was still being pulled. Found a few things that drew surprising amounts of power unless you actually turned it off or put it in sleep mode. For instance even a fairly low power laptop can use 60 to 100 watts an hour. If you use it 3 hours a day but don't have it in standby or off for the rest of the time that is 100 x 21 x 30 = 63 KWH. That adds up month over month. With my investigation into my bill I found it was not one big item that was making my early bills high, it was lots of little R20 or R30 per month items that just added up. Once I got more disciplined about turning stuff off when not in use I saved 20 to 30% of my power bill. Also realised that a lot of my bill was heating in winter. After installing insulation in my roof my bill dropped substantially as we just turned heaters (or fans in summer) on a whole lot less.

Generally the biggest drawers of electricity are:
Geyser is almost always the no 1. Depending on usage is often between 30 and 50% of a house's energy draw
Heating/aircon
Cooking
Computers etc
Lighting

These days low energy light bulbs are dirt cheap to run. A 14 watt bulb left on 10 hours a night (like a security light in the garden) for the whole month uses about 4KWH of power total, so about R5 for the whole month. 14 watts is nothing. On the other hand if you have old lighting technology that pulls more power lighting can actually draw a bit.
 
I have a pre-paid electricity meter.
My long-term (over more than 2 years) average electricity usage is usually between 14 - 15 kWh per day. That includes a smallish swimming pool, with a pump which I run every 2 to 3 days for about 1 hour only. ... In summer, a bit longer each day.
Several years ago I dumped our electric cooker hob and replaced it with a gas hob

I have replaced most incandescent bulbs with LEDs.
 
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I average 1.1MWh per month, wife two kids, pool, two geysers.

I'd be curious to compare tariffs, I was recentrly switched to a prepaid smart meter (TUMS, not voluntarily) with a 4 Tier system, i.e. first 100kWh @R1.48/kWh, next 350kWh at R1.76/kWh, next 250kWh @ R1.84/kWh and all kWh after that @R2.04/kWh. I hit Tier 4 around the middle of month. So averaging around R1.84/kWh. Meaning I pay around R2500 per month. This is Tshwane, Centurion. Anyone comparable?
 
Mine is around 300-360 every month. However, last month my mother came to visit, and it went up to 439. :cry:
 
Cius said:
I average 582 per month over the year with winter being a bit higher and summer lower obviously. Family of 4 and we almost never eat fast food. Cook at home mostly. The wife also occasionally bakes shortbread to sell.
Click to expand...

Almost exactly the same here. We don't sell the baking though, is mostly cookies and bread I make for home.
 
So, as example, a 60w lamp burning 24 hrs a day is simply :

60w x 24hr = 1,440w
1,440w x 30 days = 43,200w
43,200w is 43.2kwh?
 
Ok cool ... thanks!

Last thing : when a CPU (ie a computer) says 350w ... that's the max draw? On idle and use are actually different?
 
Dolby said:
Ok cool ... thanks!

Last thing : when a CPU (ie a computer) says 350w ... that's the max draw? On idle and use are actually different?
Click to expand...

Correct
My PC probably idles at about 100w (because of the water pump) but will max out at 350w
 
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