House power/standby consumption

[Howard-]

Hi all,

I've recently acquired one of those British Gas energy meter things that you strap to an inlet on your electricity meter and it'll wirelessly transmit the power being used to a box that you situate in the house.

I've also bought one of the plug-in energy monitor things, so I can measure individual items, add up what each room in the house uses on standby, etc. Mostly out of interest really, and maybe to see how much money we're potentially wasting

Now, at night, the wireless British Gas meter reports that we're using around 0.75kw of power. That's a lot, considering there's no lights on, no heating, and I've worked out that the total standby consumption of all the bits of equipment in all the rooms that are left on is 430 watts, give or take. So that's around 320 watts that is unaccounted for, and we can't for the life of us think why!!

The only appliances really that we haven't ruled out are the boiler and the washing machine, is it possible that one of them is faulty and is drawing excess current 24/7? Seems highly unlikely to me. There's an immersion heater, but that's never used.



Anyone else got any bright ideas? And has anyone else become as obsessed as me and measured the standby usage of their house?


Cheers

[Lord Flathead]

Got it. Your British Gas Enenery Meter is pulling 300w..


bds

[Howard-]

I thought it was getting rather warm

What's an Enenery meter?


I wonder what the likelihood of it being dodgy wiring? The house was built in the 50s and the fusebox/distribution boards in the garage don't look a whole lot newer...

Edited by Howard- on Wednesday 21st October 19:38

[RDE]

Do you have a fridge/freezer? Won't that be on all the time?

[dozen]

I have one and it reads 95w when I go to bed or leave the house. I found that my microwave draws 40w on standby!

Dozen

[SS2.]

Howard- said:

The house was built in the 50s and the fusebox/distribution boards in the garage don't look a whole lot newer..

Not a simple case of flicking the trips until you find the offending circuit then ?

[Lord Flathead]

Howard- said:

I thought it was getting rather warm

What's an Enenery meter?

It's a more economical energy meter

Bugger I turned my spellchecker off to save some electricity

[Howard-]

We have a fridge and separate freezer, but they don't use any power when the compressors aren't on, rightly so.

Yes, that's a job for the weekend, pulling fuses and hopefully finding the culprit Just wondered if anyone had any ideas in the mean-time

Edited by Howard- on Wednesday 21st October 19:48

[robinhood21]

It'll be the light in the fridge.

[JimNoble]

Howard- said:

Hi all,
Anyone else got any bright ideas? And has anyone else become as obsessed as me and measured the standby usage of their house?

Doorbell? Smoke detectors? Microwave & oven (takes power to run the clocks - some older models take more power than you'd have thought likely)? Central heating controller will also take a smidge to run. PIR triggered lights?

If it's stuff you could turn off at night or when you're out, you could use something like this to help lower your idle power usage:

http://www.alertme.com/smart-energy/

Howard- said:

I wonder what the likelihood of it being dodgy wiring? The house was built in the 50s and the fusebox/distribution boards in the garage don't look a whole lot newer...

In theory you could be losing a bit of power due to a wiring fault. I'm not sure how significant a current draw this could cause though, at least not without something more dramatic happening...

However, if you've seriously got wiring that could be over 50 years old, you really should get someone in to examine it as soon as possible. It could be original rubber insulated stuff, which is downright dangerous - the rubber perishes and even the slightest movement of the cable could cause a short. If you also still have a fuse box (ie. no RCD or MCBs), it is entirely possible for a significant wiring fault to be present without a fuse blowing...

Jim

[Howard-]

JimNoble said:

Howard- said:

Hi all,
Anyone else got any bright ideas? And has anyone else become as obsessed as me and measured the standby usage of their house?

Doorbell? Smoke detectors? Microwave & oven (takes power to run the clocks - some older models take more power than you'd have thought likely)? Central heating controller will also take a smidge to run. PIR triggered lights?

If it's stuff you could turn off at night or when you're out, you could use something like this to help lower your idle power usage:

http://www.alertme.com/smart-energy/

Howard- said:

I wonder what the likelihood of it being dodgy wiring? The house was built in the 50s and the fusebox/distribution boards in the garage don't look a whole lot newer...

In theory you could be losing a bit of power due to a wiring fault. I'm not sure how significant a current draw this could cause though, at least not without something more dramatic happening...

However, if you've seriously got wiring that could be over 50 years old, you really should get someone in to examine it as soon as possible. It could be original rubber insulated stuff, which is downright dangerous - the rubber perishes and even the slightest movement of the cable could cause a short. If you also still have a fuse box (ie. no RCD or MCBs), it is entirely possible for a significant wiring fault to be present without a fuse blowing...

Jim

Thanks Jim!

We don't have mains powered smoke detectors or a doorbell, no Microwave (yes, I know ), oven made no real difference to the current draw when we turned it off and no PIR triggered lights. Only things we didn't try are the boiler and washing machine. And other random things like fan heaters in the bathroom, etc. We're not that fussed about things being on standby overnight that we know about - electricity costs what it costs, it's just the 300-350 odd watts of mysterious power usage/wastage we're baffled about.


Our wiring is old, yes (we've fitted a couple of new feeds for equipment upstairs so we're not using lighting circuits though!) and it's an old fuse box as opposed to an RCD or MCBs. The attitude of "if it works, don't fix it" has been the case though, up until now! Like you said, you'd expect more drastic symptoms if there was a wiring fault large enough to draw 3-400 watts!

Oh well, something to think about I suppose. For a start I guess I'll just pull the fuses one by one until the power usage drops to nothing.

[John MacK]

Is there someone living in your attic?

[Howard-]

If there is, it's being very quiet!

[Tuna]

Central heating pump?

[pkitchen]

JimNoble said:

Howard- said:

Hi all,
Anyone else got any bright ideas? And has anyone else become as obsessed as me and measured the standby usage of their house?

Doorbell? Smoke detectors? Microwave & oven (takes power to run the clocks - some older models take more power than you'd have thought likely)? Central heating controller will also take a smidge to run. PIR triggered lights?

If it's stuff you could turn off at night or when you're out, you could use something like this to help lower your idle power usage:

http://www.alertme.com/smart-energy/

Howard- said:

I wonder what the likelihood of it being dodgy wiring? The house was built in the 50s and the fusebox/distribution boards in the garage don't look a whole lot newer...

In theory you could be losing a bit of power due to a wiring fault. I'm not sure how significant a current draw this could cause though, at least not without something more dramatic happening...

However, if you've seriously got wiring that could be over 50 years old, you really should get someone in to examine it as soon as possible. It could be original rubber insulated stuff, which is downright dangerous - the rubber perishes and even the slightest movement of the cable could cause a short. If you also still have a fuse box (ie. no RCD or MCBs), it is entirely possible for a significant wiring fault to be present without a fuse blowing...

Jim

Sorry to jump in on this one, but I have an old fuse box. How much would it cost to update it with a new one? Cheers

[jjhanley]

Pikey next door neighbours stealing your leccy ?

[F i F]

Would it be worth doing a cross check with the meter?

If the BG wireless thingy says you are drawing 0.75kw fairly steadily when nothing is switched on.

Take meter reading when going out, take reading when back at the end of the day, then do some sums.

[eliot]

My house draws a constant 270w background power:
Sky box,ADSL Router, Fridges,watercooler,clock radios,Small UPS for computer,Computer (24x7), 2 x telly on standby, 3 x cordless phones and a couple of other little bits bobs. Switching computer & UPS off saves about 120w

So yes you are pulling quite a bit if everthing is off. You need to go round unplugging things to identify the load. Presumably if you kill your main power switch, it drops to zero?

Washing machine pulls 10w just being left on at the end of a wash - which we calculated to cost £28 a year!

[HiRich]

I'm not sure what's causing it, but I'd certainly want to know. 1W running 24/7/365 is costing you about £1.50 a year at current 'leccy costs. If you're getting no benefit from that 300 phantom watts, that's a lot of money.

I'd agree with the idea of working through the fuses (do it at the weekend, daytime). You might also try throwing the master switch just to see everything off.
Not knowing these smart meters, are you sure they are accurate? How much power do they draw? Do you still have a rotating disc to compare to?
Pulling the fuses should give you ideas of where to look. Most modern devices are far more efficient in standby (xW) but older devices can be much worse (xxW). Some like fridges can vary significantly.

If you still find no source, and/or "all fuses out" still shows an excessive draw, you might want to contact your supplier, both to check wiring and verify the accuracy of the smart meter.

[Howard-]

I will see if I can cross-reference it with out meter reading/rotating disk. The British Gas meter does seem accurate enough when I watch it as I turn things on and off - 100w light bulb and it goes up/down by 0.1kw, etc.

Oh well, I shall investigate at the weekend