On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 18:01:34 GMT, the inscrutable Gunner spake:
Taking clamp-on ammeter readings of all units while watching the meter while they run might be informative. Do you leave all circuits turned on all the time, or just power up sections while you're there? Maybe there's a buried mine you're lighting up when you turn on the circuit to the welders. ;)
---------------------------------------------------- Thesaurus: Ancient reptile with excellent vocabulary
Ohhhh! Might they be doing "estimated" billings to skip employing a meter reader? Might be interesting to go thru old electric bills until you find one with an actual meter reading on it, compare that to present reading, and see if that jibes with what the actual meter says now. They may owe you a bunch of money. Based on what you've said about your habits and usage, I'd bet that they owe you a nice bit of cash either due to erroneous estimated billings or due to a a faulty meter.
Elsewhere you said maybe 6 hours a month. Let's see: a small welder might be 15 Amps at 120VAC, or about 2 kW. 6 hours * 2 kW = 12 kWH. Each kWH is between 10 and 30 cents (depends on location and what deal you have with the electric company), so that means that the welders add between $1.20 and $3.60 a month.
Now maybe you've got some really beefy welder, 30 Amps at 208VAC 3 phase, that would make my estimate above be a factor of 6 too low, but it's still less than $20 a month even at some outlandish kwH rate.
We had a residential Time Off Use meter in PG&E land as early as about
14 years ago. PG&E sends out reams of crap telling people about TOU accounts, phantom loads, assistance with audits etc. If Gunner had read that stuff instead of right-wing blogs, we might have seen a post like this - "Thank you Gray Davis for helping me save a bunch of money". LOL
For anyone wanting to lower their bill, here's an excellent article on how to do a proper analysis of energy consumption
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Gunner - take a look at the daily averages (even *before* they were optimized) on the sample sheet. Notice that the numbers generally represent use similar to what you've talked about, yet are 4 times lower than your "normal" month's consumption.
Unfortunetly, peak demand billing and metering is VERY common for residential service in about half the homes in Ohio. And it is done with an old mechanical meter with a separate 30 minute averaged needle indicator which records the maximum peak. Once a month, when the meter is read, this indicator is manually reset and the reset 'sealed' with a tamper proof seal. I've been living with/fighting this for 25 years.
Whomever talked the Ohio PUC into allowing this into the residential rate structure was a genius. We have to be extremely careful not to run major appliances at the same time or it will eat use alive--the cost increase per 1/2 peak KWH increase is mind boggling--at least to me.
I didn't. I use heating #2 a.k.a. off-road diesel for my 25kw genset and my backhoe. Either way your actual cost per KWH utilized will be pretty close to the $0.215 of the utility. Unless you are doing production work with 100% arc time and have a perfectly matched genset you will be burning many KWH worth of #2 while you are setting up for each weld and that has to be factored in.
When we had time of use billing in CA beginning about 14 years ago, a digital meter was supplied. It simply recorded kWhrs per time period. IIRC, the peak/off-peak readings alternated on the display. At first the savings were really dramatic. All we had to do was keep the AC off during weekday afternoons in summer. The premium charged for peak use in winter was much less, so no change of habits was required in heating season. Over the years PG&E kept tweaking the rates so the savings lessened considerably, but they were always well worth the little effort required to earn them.
Here's a link to one of their current TOU rate schedules.
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It appears to be available to anyone, and still offers substantial savings. Alas, the one-time installation charge appears designed to discourage subscribers from taking advantage of the plan. My guess is that the high fee was required because some folks would sign up for the plan, fail to change their habits, squawk about their bill being higher, and then demand a return to a normal meter (I knew someone who did exactly that). Too bad they couldn't have a big hit for only those folks, instead of spreading the cost of the extra service calls and administration among everybody who signs up. Better yet, *everybody* should pay a substantial premium during those summer afternoon hours.
If the rate structure that was posted back a bit is correct, he is on a semi-peak metered type of billing (perhaps all of CA). They list a rate for 0-100% of a mysterious "baseline" and then higher rates for above that baseline.
Even so, the top rate is about $0.215 /KWH so the welding should still not add $150, and the "baseline" should not be anywhere near $150.
Check the loads, check the meter, etc. If what you read with an amp probe doesn't match what the meter is logging then have them replace the meter, they do go bad on occasion.
I've heard of a couple cases where electric bills have dropped precipitously for a few months followed by a fire that originated from the area of - go figure - the electric meter. The meters seem to mysteriously vanish somewhere during the fire cleanup.
Read the rate structure that was posted earlier in this thread. It appears that they are not peak metering, but rather charging a higher rate for the amount over a mysterious "baseline". I can only imagine that this baseline is either a running average, or worse yet a baseline for a theoretical "average" house.
Ive got one of those mechanical meters with the edgewise disk that spins.
As far as I can tell, the bill ending 3/07/05 showed 1,222 kwh with a base line of 235 kwh., thats one month. Supposedly with the rate sched, if Im over 300%-500% of the baseline, its at .27 per kwh. Thats what my wife read to me tonight off an old bill of $200. Ill check it out for myself in the morning (when I can find my reading glasses and Im not road stunned from driving up from Santa Ana to Taft.
I did have house guests that month...sigh..for nearly the last 8 months. Gone now...Yippeee!!
$54 in gas (gas drier and stove)
235 kwh is a base line for a family of 2 adults in a normal house?
Gunner
"Considering the events of recent years, the world has a long way to go to regain its credibility and reputation with the US." unknown
Other things to consider -- refrigerator, dehumidifier, sump pump. Refrig and dehum are fairly high draw appliances. I know about the dehum, I ran one for a couple days after I shampoo'd the carpets. Wow, spiked current useage. Next time, it's gonna be a box fan.
On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 14:40:05 +1000, the inscrutable Terry Collins spake:
I replaced mine on Friday, before it could do that. I figured that it was cheaper to replace it than to lose my wood and too many tools. The heater is in my shop. (U.S. Craftmaster Smart Tank, USA made, 0.93 efficiency rating so I expect to see lower electric bills, $308.04 with me installing it.)
There was no build date, but it referred to meeting all the 1980 regulations. And it's so filled with sand and rust that it weighs over 200 lbs after draining. My hot water doesn't smell or taste bad any more for some reason. I installed a whole-house water filter when I moved in but the hot water was always smelly. Now I know why. =:-0
---------------------------------------------------- Thesaurus: Ancient reptile with excellent vocabulary
A clamp meter is great for some larger loads, but useless for the small ones. First accept this fact - one weeks *idle* consumption of a TIVO, Replay etc. is equivalent to about 2 hours of the usual home welding. Which ought to make it plain how the little things add up. Now think about this - it's easy to read a 1 Amp variation when wiggling an Amp clamp. So what's the point of using that on 1/4 Amp loads? Then there's the time factor... how do you measure say, a dishwasher with an Amprobe? You'd have to hover over the thing with a stopwatch taking notes as it cycles through pumping, heating etc. Even on a fridge, are you going to take a sloppy reading with a clamp meter, and then clock the run time over 24 hours?
You need an *energy* meter, not a power meter. Which is why people who live off-grid (where one can't afford to be wasteful) use devices like the Kill a Watt, Wattsup, Brand meter, etc. as the primary tool for nailing down consumption numbers. Besides, at $30 delivered for the Kill a Watt, the time savings alone over a clamp meter make it a no-brainer. Plug it in, come back in a day (or whatever is appropriate for the load), and you have an accurate number. If you can't muster the 30, then take a box of donuts over to the shop guys at the power company, and see if they might donate or loan an old house meter. It'd be crude compared to the Kill a Watt, but you'd have a way to get direct readings on both 120 and 240V loads.
235 kWh sounds about right. There are 2 adults and one child in this house - oil heat and hot water, no air conditioning, well pump, septic lift pump - in northern New England. Our electric bill shows monthly use for the previous year, and ours ranged from a low of 240 kWh in August to 480 kWh in January. The only time I've seen the bill go over $60 was when the float switch on the septic pump failed and the 1/2HP motor ran continuously for 6 weeks.
The office/shop consumption is perhaps 2/3 of the house and shows a similar pattern, with a bit more irregularity depending on whether I'm spending more time at my desk or in the shop where the lighting load is relatively high. Both my wife and I work full time in this 1000 sf building. I've never been able to detect any difference for months where the machines or the welder get a lot of use.
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