Energy Monitor Location/Suitability

[ericmark]

Since the meter clipped onto the incoming tails measures all it is hard to isolated what items are drawing more than their fair share.

Fridge, Freezer, Dish washer, Washing machine do not draw a simple x amps but time is a major factor and one needs to monitor over a set time to identify which is taking over it's far share.

The freezer is a real problem air circulation, room temperature, insulation quality, efficiency of compressor, and de-frost cycle will all alter how much power it uses. Insulation quality is a major problem but you need something to compare it with. This is where I found the problem. Over 24 hours it uses X joules will actually shows kWh which seems an odd unit but still does not matter what the unit is you need to know if that is high or low.

Even the washing machine drum size, and wash method vary so with water jets as well as tumble it may clean with cooler and less water than simple tumble so kWh for a 10kg load will vary a lot but unless you can find a site which states how many kWh a 10kg load of jeans worn by men working in an office should require there are so many variables it is near impossible to compare your machine to new state of the art.

There is also things like spin speed. Finish off on the washing line and does not matter if 3 hours or 6 hours to dry but transfer to a tumble dryer and the washing machine spin speed can save you loads of money but not with how much washing machine uses but in how much tumble drier uses.

The tumble drier drawing air from outside and returning it to outside would be easy to compare with one drawing from inside and returning to inside but many draw from inside and vent outside so you need to factor cost to heat that air with central heating.

A simple vent bringing dry cold air into tumble drier intake can save loads of money.

But with all these examples step one is to measure individually what power they use. A meter measuring the lot is near useless in trying to work it all out.

Next is a degree in maths but simple measure two washing machines, two freezers etc is the way to work out what items need replacing and what are good enough not to worry about.

OK comparing an induction hob with a gas hob is a bit much but start simple.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Why would someone necessarily know that a halogen bulb consumes more electricity than a conventional one? It doesn't beggar belief at all.

Errr - halogen GU10 lamps are conventional ones.

How hard-of-thinking are you? Hard enough to beggar belief?

 

[phatboy]

Errr - halogen GU10 lamps are conventional ones.

How hard-of-thinking are you? Hard enough to beggar belief?

Please, PLEASE, just go away

 

[ban-all-sheds]

How about if I say I'll consider that if you can provide an intelligent, reasoned, knowledge-based explanation of why halogen lamps with GU10 bases are not "conventional" ones.

My assertion is that they are, so I'd like you to take the opportunity to advance a rational alternative explanation.

 

[ericmark]

Errr - halogen GU10 lamps are conventional ones.

Well you must work and live in some odd area of the UK as the conventional bulb today would be the CFL they are far more common than tungsten and even more common than the quartz halogen tungsten.

However the amount of power used for lighting is very low when compared with other items in the home. TV = 100W lights in same room 28W I am sure biggest user of electric power in my home is tumble drier and after that it becomes hard.

Time running is the big thing so kettle, washing machine, dish washer, cooker, fridge freezer, and fridge likely swap day to day as biggest user.

But to reduce use one has to change a life stile boil kettle and fill flask with water not used or boil less to begin with but this hardly needs a power meter to work it out.

So how can a power meter help?
Washing machine you can monitor the different cycles and produce a chart on how much power each cycle uses with different loads and what percentage of the cloths need re-cleaning after. However this does not take into account damage done to cloths so only approximate and in real terms no one is really going to go to these lengths.

Many of the other machines used in the home are similar so really measuring what is used in the main does not help.

There is one exception the fridge and freezer. When the insulation fails or starts to fail the motor runs longer and they use more power. Measuring power used over 24 hours every 6 months will show when insulation is starting to fail and it's time to change them.

However this is about the only house hold item where the power meter will help most other items only require a pair of glasses and read plate or manual to find how much they use.

After using one on most house hold items there was only one item which was a surprise. The sky box on stand-by. All other items were less than 1W but the sky box was more around 11W it dropped to 18W to start with on stand-by then dropped further to 11W. Seems it always powers the LNB unlike free to air boxes. However I like recording and playing programs when I want to watch so knowing it was a heavy user on stand-by made no difference the only thing was after seeing how little TV and DVD player used on stand-by I stopped switching them off.

So other than fridge and freezer and identifying faults early lets have a list of where the power meter can save the user money. We can all add up wattage of lamps and read data labels so why bother using a power meter? It does not need a meter to know if you turn off TV you save 100W so don't leave it on when your not in the room.

As to meter at the main incomer that tells you even less. Only thing it can do is calculate the next bill but only if you can program in all the rates.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Well you must work and live in some odd area of the UK as the conventional bulb today would be the CFL they are far more common than tungsten and even more common than the quartz halogen tungsten.

For GU10 base lamps, which is what I was talking about, it would be pretty perverse to argue that it was unreasonable to proceed on the basis that that meant a 230V lamp with an MR16 envelope. And yes, I do believe that most people would say that the conventional type of bulb like that was a halogen.

TV = 100W lights in same room 28W

Or 300-400-or-more-W if the room is lit with MR16 halogen lamps.

 

[ericmark]

Are you saying the convention with a new build would be to light with halogen lamps rather than any CFL or LED? I think not the convention today would be CFL or LED.

Historically as a rule of thumb it was the tungsten bulb shaped lamp, only very expensive up-market housing would have halogen lighting.

The convention is to use ceiling roses to suspend the lamp and to act as a junction box this method could not really be used to supply power supplies required for extra low voltage lamps.

Yes I know using the switch back box as a junction box it was possible to use power supplies and ELV but the convention was to build the house and sell it with conventional lamps and after purchase the conventional lamps would be swapped for lamps which the owner fancied.

So this

today is the conventional bulb horrid I know, but that is want convention has us fit as the original fitting.

As time goes on most homes will fit something like this

as to be frank the cutting of holes and wiring of arrays of lights is far more than the normal home owner is willing to do. If they do fit ELV lamps most will employ an electrician to fit them which is I suppose why we see so many the standard upgrade is a DIY job.

However the question is will the fitting of a monitor so power usage can be seen at a glance save the old couple money? And in real terms no it will not. Spending the cash on LED of CFL would save more money. And the general power usage will not really help identifying what can be altered to reduce costs. The standard plug in power monitor

would do far more in identifying items using excessive power.

The problem is lack of information to compare ones results with. If one could walk into a shop and look at a washing machine and see it uses 1.3kWh to wash a 10kg load and the old one uses 1.2kWh to wash a 6kg load the maths is easy enough to see what the saving will be.

However you measure your washing machine and go to the shop and it shows a series of arrows A++ to D and something like uses 155kWh per year which is no earthly use as we don't know what the yearly usage is which is used to arrive at this figure. It would seem we do 187 washes per year so why not say 0.83kWh per wash? But hang on my washer has 15 pre-set programs with many more option which one of those programs should I use to compare?

I am not saying one couldn't run the machine with each option and compare results clearly you could and even work out the varying costs with different washing aids required with the different temperatures but in real terms no one is going to spend the time and energy to note down all the results and decide which cycle to use as a norm.

Our normal wash cycle depends on where Oliver my grand son has decided to twiddle the knobs to last time he was here. Only when it takes a very long time do we realise he's done it again. Good job we don't have a gas cooker at least with our electric it does have child locks. As yet he has not worked out how to disable them. However neither has my wife.

This whole energy saving thing is really a nightmare. My mother had loft insulation fitted. The up-stairs rooms are not used temperature upstairs is around the 8°C mark set just to stop anything freezing and I really fail to see how loft insulation will really do much to fuel bills?

Father-in-law has gone silly triple glassing, cavity wall, loft and super tight fitting doors cooks on gas no kitchen extractor and wonders why there is a smell of mould? My house humidity around 50% his house 70% as to energy used he told me how his solar panels were saving energy heating all his hot water the electric bill had been much reduced. When the gas boiler failed I found reason electric bill was lower was water heated by gas and solar panel controller and pump switched off as the installers had used immersion heater feed to run it which he had switched off as he didn't need immersion heater.

He was an electrical engineer and was clearly conned so what chance to lesser trained OAP's have?

 

[SimonH2]

Why would someone necessarily know that a halogen bulb consumes more electricity than a conventional one? It doesn't beggar belief at all.

Why shouldn't anyone be capble of working out that (say) ten times 50W is a larger number than (say) one times 80W ? The clue is in the name, WATTs.

Mind you, I find people amazed that I can tell them that (say) their 10off 50W halogen downlighters in the kitchen will cost them around 6 to 7p/hour to run. But them perhaps I'm blessed with super maths powers being able to multiply 10x50 to get 500, and then divide 500/1000 to get 0.5 units/hour, and then multiply that by the price of a unit as printed on a bill to get a cost I think it says something about our educational standards that this should be "dark arts" to most people.


If you are interested in how much (say) the freezer is using, then I'd suggest a plug-in energy monitor would be better - that way you can accurately* measure what that single device is using. Anything else is useless for that since you won't be able to separate it out from other loads.
* Assuming you get one that's a) reasonably accurate, and b) does real power measurements.

 

[Vicario]

OK then, explain the maths behind the Monty Hall problem without looking on Google. It's dead simple, but very hard to get across. I think the flaw in your argument is the most people aren't prepared to do the calculations even if they could. In my case, I knew that halogens used more electricity but hadn't worked out quite how much.

 

[SimonH2]

OK then, explain the maths behind the Monty Hall problem without looking on Google.

Difficult since I had to use ${Search_Engine} to find out what the problem is that you refer to. But how is that relevant to this case ? I'm not suggesting any statistics are involved, just really basic, junior school level arithmetic.

I think the flaw in your argument is the most people aren't prepared to do the calculations even if they could. In my case, I knew that halogens used more electricity but hadn't worked out quite how much.

A sad indictment of current society I think.

On the other hand, a lot of people who "don't do maffs" will quite hapilly solve more complicated problems like "I have X in my pocket, a pint of <favourite brew> costs Y, and a pint of <less favourite but cheaper brew> costs Z. How many pints can I afford tonight ?"
Or they can instantly work out the take-home winnings if their bet comes off.

 

[Vicario]

Maths was introduced above so I got into the swing! It's relevant because the Monty Hall problem is a case of something being obvious but it isn't at all. There have been thousands of articles on the Internet about it and until recently some mathematicians argued that both remaining doors had equal probability of hiding a car. In fact, you're twice as likely to get the car by switching your door after the first goat has been revealed. 66% as opposed to 33%.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhlc7peGlGg

 

[ericmark]

The warped logic is good as so often with energy saving there is warped logic. The main problem is manufacturers take the item in isolation not in the environment it's intended to be used in.

The second problem is cost and efficiency get swapped around.

With the latter take a wood burning stove as an example. 98% of wood burning stoves have an exhaust gas at 150°C or higher to stop condensation inside the flue so are less efficient than any other form of heating by more than 10% so strictly speaking it is illegal to swap to a wood burner from any other form of heating.

With the first example take the tungsten light bulb because it emits radiated heat using tungsten allows one to reduce air temperature by 2°C for the same comfort and so using tungsten can save energy as part of an integrated system.

Be it a tumble drier sending air heated by central heating outside or the open flue causing drafts the whole problem with energy saving is taking each item in isolation not as part of an integrated system.

Also take a super efficient induction electric hob and compare to a gas hob and not only does the gas hob run less efficient but also one needs to use an extractor to remove the moisture released burning the gas which puts central heated air out side and causes drafts. Yet because the gas is so much cheaper than electric the net cost could still show gas as cheaper.

Be it a TV, PC, Light bulb or any other domestic item energy turned to heat is only wasted if that heat is not required so using in summer and winter or inside or outside will greatly change in real terms it's efficiency as it depends if we want the heat or not. Move locations to where air conditioning is required and the correction required for environment used in changes again.

So the tungsten light bulb in Scotland may be super efficient but same item in Turkey is very inefficient hence why they adopted CFL well before us.

However the politicians seem unable to grasp this idea and want to impose same rules in Brighton as Edinburgh which simply does not work. Be it a bus v car or tungsten v CFL one has to consider the environment it is used in an empty bus or one with just one passenger can never be environmental friendly.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

For GU10 base lamps, which is what I was talking about, it would be pretty perverse to argue that it was unreasonable to proceed on the basis that that meant a 230V lamp with an MR16 envelope. And yes, I do believe that most people would say that the conventional type of bulb like that was a halogen.

<A post involving lamps which are not GU10s>

 

[ericmark]

<A post involving lamps which are not GU10s>

Where I can't find any reference that I have made to a GU10 in this post other than quotes from others. This quote is true.

Why would someone necessarily know that a halogen bulb consumes more electricity than a conventional one? It doesn't beggar belief at all.

The quartz halogen lamp is claimed to save energy when compared to conventional tungsten lamps.

This web page http://www.uklightbulbs.co.uk/capsule-g9-halogen-bulbs.html refers to energy saving and these

quartz bulbs and as a result I can understand how people may not realise the difference in the energy per lumin of light used by the array of bulbs now on sale. Information given on sites like this one http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Electricity/Lighting/Lighting-products has become rather dated and when one looks at the lumin to watts table as shown here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy the problem is LED is about 4 to 13% efficient and Incandescent 0.7 to 5% efficient and CFL 8 to 11.5% efficient so there is quite some overlap added to this we see where the lumin output is reduced when changing from CFL to LED yet the room is clearly brighter so there is clearly a problem in rating lamps.

As an electrician I was surprised how changing from 10 x 8W CFL to 8 x 3W + 2 x 1.6W LED lamps made the room appear twice as bright. But reading the lumin output on box I had reduced it by 1/3.

LED lamps are expensive and forking out £45 for LED lamps to try them is quite a leap of faith especially when according to the lumin output they should be dimmer.

Already caught out with CFL with life of bulb within 2 years half had failed but according to box should have lasted 10 years with my usage. Up to now only the ELV 50mm spot light LED's have failed and these were rather cheap extremely low wattage 0.58W but have lost 3 of 5 in 6 months so does not look good.

What it does not say on the box is there any stroboscopic effect from LED bulbs it would depend on how the LED's are controlled so could vary lamp to lamp but light may be a series of flashes one every 0.01 seconds and camera can be set to expose at 0.0005 of a second so one could find pictures taken with LED lighting have odd lighting effects.

In the main in doors I would use 0.016 of a second exposure and with digital one can try again but even then colour temperature settings are a problem.

So I can understand why people are slow to swap to lower power lighting when we know so little about it.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Where I can't find any reference that I have made to a GU10 in this post other than quotes from others. This quote is true.

No, you haven't mentioned them, but you've been disputing my assertion that halogens GU10s are conventional.