Losing excessive electricity

Lager · Jul 3, 2015

Anyone noticing a serious drop in their meter units for no apparent reason?

Last night I had about 190 units. This morning just under a 100. Now on 42 (14:40).

Waiting for an electrician to come later. Municipality said I mus pay R1000. If they find a problem I get the money back, if they don't find a problem with the meter I lose the 1000 bucks.
The electrician reckons there might be a faulty thermostat somewhere...whatever
Posting on facebook we allready have about 70 replies of others sitting with the same problem. Everyone have faulty meters / thermostats?

I smell a rat....

Someone said they'll contact the DA to get answers

mmacleod · Jul 3, 2015

Is it a prepaid meter, if so check the model number, there should be a code you can put in it to get your usage put that in and see how high your usage is it should give you an idea of if there is something drawing excessive amounts of current etc.

Lager · Jul 3, 2015

Don't know about that, it's an old Taurus meter....been here for about 15 yrs

Ryan Innes · Jul 3, 2015

I've been bitching to the COCT about the Conlog prepaid meters they use, I'm sure they are not measuring usage properly.

I've got a solar geyser and I have just installed a gas hob and my bill hasn't dropped in fact it went up but R100 a week. Spending about R800-R1000 pm

mmacleod · Jul 3, 2015

Ryan Innes said:
I've been bitching to the COCT about the Conlog prepaid meters they use, I'm sure they are not measuring usage properly.

I've got a solar geyser and I have just installed a gas hob and my bill hasn't dropped in fact it went up but R100 a week. Spending about R800-R1000 pm

You don't have heaters using more power than you normally do? You've factored in the recent electricity price hikes?

Compare the actual units, not price, to what you were using this time last year, not a few months ago. That should give a more accurate picture.

If it still looks suspicious it should be easy enough to verify with a little testing - this doesn't seem the sort of thing that you can just make accusations about based on wild conjecture.

mmacleod · Jul 3, 2015

*deleted*

fruitbat · Jul 5, 2015

Lager said:
Anyone noticing a serious drop in their meter units for no apparent reason?

Last night I had about 190 units. This morning just under a 100. Now on 42 (14:40).

Waiting for an electrician to come later. Municipality said I mus pay R1000. If they find a problem I get the money back, if they don't find a problem with the meter I lose the 1000 bucks.
The electrician reckons there might be a faulty thermostat somewhere...whatever
Posting on facebook we allready have about 70 replies of others sitting with the same problem. Everyone have faulty meters / thermostats?

I smell a rat....

Someone said they'll contact the DA to get answers

See if you can get a current usage on your meter.
Mine is a Conlog and I can put in
#1#

That code gives me the current usage, and seems pretty accurate. (For me)

Good luck.

Turbo_Aspiration · Jul 6, 2015

I'd suggest investing in something like this:

http://www.sustainable.co.za/efergy-engage-hub-kit-single-phase-electricity-monitors.html

It gives you access to actual electricity usage over time.

thehuman · Jul 6, 2015

Turbo_Aspiration said:
I'd suggest investing in something like this:

http://www.sustainable.co.za/efergy-engage-hub-kit-single-phase-electricity-monitors.html

It gives you access to actual electricity usage over time.

Available at most builders stores
Exelent product need permanent internet tho

badtrev · Jul 6, 2015

I also noticed this last week. The units were just being chewed up, but from Friday it's been back to normal.

Sinbad · Jul 6, 2015

thehuman said:
Available at most builders stores
Exelent product need permanent internet tho

I got an efergy that doesn't need net access.
http://www.sustainable.co.za/efergy...onitor-single-phase-electricity-monitors.html

Definitely worth the money.

Compton_effect · Jul 6, 2015

Check your Geyser. My inlaws had the same happen. The culprit was the Geyser element.

creeper · Jul 6, 2015

Compton_effect said:
Check your Geyser. My inlaws had the same happen. The culprit was the Geyser element.

Also check the fridge. Inlaws old fridge started eating up electricity.

genicide · Jul 9, 2015

I Found that after loadshedding the volts drop in certain areas and that means that you current amps for the same usage will go up to compensate and that means that you will also use more kwh's

savage · Jul 9, 2015

genicide said:
I Found that after loadshedding the volts drop in certain areas and that means that you current amps for the same usage will go up to compensate and that means that you will also use more kwh's

A watt, is a watt, is a watt...

10V x 100A = 1000W
100V x 10A = 1000W

If the voltage drops, the amps will increase so that you get the same amount of watts. When the voltage increase, the amps decrease, so you still get the same amount of watts. You do not use more kWh because you have a slightly low voltage.

BTW - they intentionally drop the voltage after load shedding, and gradually bring it up - there's very valid reasons for doing that.

mmacleod · Jul 9, 2015

genicide said:
I Found that after loadshedding the volts drop in certain areas and that means that you current amps for the same usage will go up to compensate and that means that you will also use more kwh's

Huh, if volts drops and amps rise then watts will still remain constant, the meters measure watts so the kWh should still remain constant. Or are you suggesting the meters measure only amps and not watts?

Ryan Innes · Jul 9, 2015

mmacleod said:
You don't have heaters using more power than you normally do? You've factored in the recent electricity price hikes?

Compare the actual units, not price, to what you were using this time last year, not a few months ago. That should give a more accurate picture.

If it still looks suspicious it should be easy enough to verify with a little testing - this doesn't seem the sort of thing that you can just make accusations about based on wild conjecture.

Nope using gas heaters, the reason I say that the Conlog meter isn't working properly is because I have an Eddie unit that displays the amount of electricity being used at any given time.

For example if a bath has been run the Eddie unit shows the geyser unit using about 3400 watts heating the water up again where the Conlog prepaid meter shows no activity what so ever, the same happens in reverse where the Eddie unit will show about 240 watts being used and the prepaid meter will show 2-3 bars.

I'm currently going through +\- 30 prepaid units a day which seems quite heavy.

genicide · Jul 9, 2015

No I am not suggesting that only I didn't want to go into the boring stuff but I will try and explain a bit, P( watt) = V x A x power factor, so devide that by the time and get kwh, so when the volts goes down Amps goes up, the transformer outside's impedance and losses change because you are loading the transformer and, Then power factor change, in klerksdorp and potch I have seen the. Powerfactor change by as much as 21%, and that changes the equation a bit,also if power factor goes down apliences draw more energy to compensate and the cycle continues. btw its bad for appliances to drop the volts by more than 15% and it happen after loadshedding

mmacleod · Jul 9, 2015

You are seeing readings of around 200V after loadshedding? Thats pretty crazy, for how long?

savage · Jul 10, 2015

mmacleod said:
You are seeing readings of around 200V after loadshedding? Thats pretty crazy, for how long?

We go as low as 190V/195V... Maybe for 10 or 15 minutes

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