Electricity Usage

Jaws677 said:
Power leak? Can this be fixed with insulation tape or is it better to get an Electrician to replace wires
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Power does not just leak, it trips the upstream breaker. Ok granted a loose connection will cause wires to get hot, causing higher resistances and a voltage drop downstream but electricity is not analogous to water, although this analogy is frequently used to explain ohms, current and voltage. Buy an earth leakage tester and test your earth leakage and you will see this (which by the way is a good thing to do every blue moon)

Granted I am not a residential electrician but an industrial one. Yes I do agree some leakage current can stem from certain equipment like ballast ( which is why your earth leakage is set at 30mA and not 1mA otherwise you'd be running up and down the whole day )

Something to take note of is a thing called phantom current. That entertainment system that you just turned of with the remote is OFF right? No, some devices can have standby current as high as 60% of full load current, especially the cheaper ones riddled with shoddy design.
 
No you misunderstand what I meant by a leak.

One must determine that there are no other connections that you may be unaware of. In other words power being used by someone else.
The next thing is a damaged cable underground will also cause currents to flow that you will not know about.
Both these have happened to me. I had an illegal feed running off my meter to a building in my neighbours yard.
I also had a main cable that was damaged some where underground that caused a current flow that was unaccounted for. It is only after eliminating the cable with a complete new one that the electrician then discovered the illegal feed to a neighbour .

And IF you have a board where not all the power is flowing through an el unit , you could have a situation where current is flowing that will not trip the el unit.
So that is why I said start off by confirming that when the main cb is off that the council meter stops.
 
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Geoff.D said:
No you misunderstand what I meant by a leak.

One must determine that there are no other connections that you may be unaware of. In other words power being used by someone else.
The next thing is a damaged cable underground will also cause currents to flow that you will not know about.
Both these have happened to me. I had an illegal feed running off my meter to a building in my neighbours yard.
I also had a main cable that was damaged some where underground that caused a current flow that was unaccounted for. It is only after eliminating the cable with a complete new one that the electrician then discovered the illegal feed to a neighbour .

And IF you have a board where not all the power is flowing through an el unit , you could have a situation where current is flowing that will not trip the el unit.
So that is why I said start off by confirming that when the main cb is off that the council meter stops.
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Strange things happen in residential it seems. If a cable gets damaged in my line it normally does not last long before it goes KAPOW. Granted I view 18.5kW motors as small (with anything smaller affectionately referred to as a pool pump) and 30MW as nice and big.

If I had been the electrician discovering that illegal feed I would be so kind as to swap his neutral out for another phase giving him more power he ever though he needed (380V instead of 220)
 
Hi Dolby. In October I used 290 kWh.

Today I bought another 330 kWh for R400 through internet banking. That should suffice me for November.

I bought 50 kWh for R48,70 at 97c per kWh. And I bought 280 kWh for R351,30 at R1,25 per kWh. In total 330 kWh for R400 at an average of R1,21 per kWh. Vat included.

Today I had to buy R100 and R300 to get to R400. Two separate EFT transactions. Hu? I cannot understand why I’m not allowed to buy 350 kWh for R424,93. I think the illogical EFT restrictions are silly. I thought banks had computers in 2017.

Should I use more than 350 kWh a month, then the cost is R1,76 per kWh. I stay well clear of that. I average about 300 kWh a month costing me less than R400.
 
I am using 630kwh a month doing everything by book being as prudent as I can.

I think it's size of house, pool pump and outside lights (10W X 12) eating me out.

When house is unoccupied during day, the utilisation is about 330w per hour by default (fridge, routers, alarm, fence, etc ) when pump turns on, 1.2kw of power is used.


5c7dbfff8208a9691348fb562cc33535.jpg


:( Would love to get to 500kwh if possible.
 
beesboertjie said:
Hi Dolby. In October I used 290 kWh.

Today I bought another 330 kWh for R400 through internet banking. That should suffice me for November.

I bought 50 kWh for R48,70 at 97c per kWh. And I bought 280 kWh for R351,30 at R1,25 per kWh. In total 330 kWh for R400 at an average of R1,21 per kWh. Vat included.

Today I had to buy R100 and R300 to get to R400. Two separate EFT transactions. Hu? I cannot understand why I’m not allowed to buy 350 kWh for R424,93. I think the illogical EFT restrictions are silly. I thought banks had computers in 2017.

Should I use more than 350 kWh a month, then the cost is R1,76 per kWh. I stay well clear of that. I average about 300 kWh a month costing me less than R400.
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Think I need to move to Graskop. Damn we pay R2 per kWh regardless.
 
isie said:
why the 10 lights? can't you have less lights (even if higher wattage) but have them higher to cover a larger area?
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I changed it from higher wattage and about 16 lights to 10w . Strangely much brighter now. They on the boundary walls (outside and inside).

My pool pump uses about 240kwh a month. Sadly can't do much about that.
 
What app is that screenshot from?

How do I work out how much my pump uses?
 
Have an electrician friend who specialises in COCs. He has seen it all - wires under carpets, in bathrooms, uninsulated joins. One thing that crops up now and then is a reel of spare cable coiled up in a roof void. The eddy currents induced in such a coil warm up the cable and can easily consume 300 - 400 watts. Multiply this by several months and it is an expensive waste
 
rodga said:
What app is that screenshot from?

How do I work out how much my pump uses?
Click to expand...
I have an efergy wireless electricity monitor unit which is connected to my main feed inside the DB, so I can see how much is being used anywhere anytime. I bought it from loot

Since I now know how my house runs , I've managed to guestimate how much the pool pump eats.
 
Between 800 and 1200kWh. Big energy drains are the geyser and stove. Will insulate the geyser and piping later when I replace taps, mixers, shower heads and other small bits.
 
beesboertjie said:
Hi Dolby. In October I used 290 kWh.

Today I bought another 330 kWh for R400 through internet banking. That should suffice me for November.

I bought 50 kWh for R48,70 at 97c per kWh. And I bought 280 kWh for R351,30 at R1,25 per kWh. In total 330 kWh for R400 at an average of R1,21 per kWh. Vat included.

Today I had to buy R100 and R300 to get to R400. Two separate EFT transactions. Hu? I cannot understand why I’m not allowed to buy 350 kWh for R424,93. I think the illogical EFT restrictions are silly. I thought banks had computers in 2017.

Should I use more than 350 kWh a month, then the cost is R1,76 per kWh. I stay well clear of that. I average about 300 kWh a month costing me less than R400.
Click to expand...

Heh? What are these weird denominations and on what crappy internet banking is this?

I simply have to put in how many rands I want to spend and put it pops the number of Kw for that amount.
 
75 units in the last 3 months. I win the thread. :D

Wasn't home entire time though...so more like 100-200 units a month.

Seriously though...readings in this thread are scary high.
 
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