Electricity Running Costs Calculator

mikemoate

i don't know if this link has been posted before. I have seen several threads where people have queried the cost of running domestic appliances. This links to a handy electricity cost calculator which may be usefull for some people.

http://www.ukpower.co.uk/running-costs-elec.asp

Cardew

A useful tool as long as people enter their own figures and not rely on the sample figures given.

20 hours tumble dryers use = 4.8kWh I suggest you would use that in 2-3 hours.

mikemoate

Thanks Cardew, you are right of course. You need to enter into the grid the wattage of the appliance you are using. so for example for a typical Tumble drier you need to enter 4800 which will convert to 4.8kw. You also need to enter in your suppliers unit cost for electricity.

As long as you know the wattage/kw of your appliance you can use the grid to estimate the cost of any electrical appliance.

Cardew

mikemoate wrote:

Thanks Cardew, you are right of course. You need to enter into the grid the wattage of the appliance you are using. so for example for a typical Tumble drier you need to enter 4800 which will convert to 4.8kw. You also need to enter in your suppliers unit cost for electricity.

As long as you know the wattage/kw of your appliance you can use the grid to estimate the cost of any electrical appliance.

Mikemoate,

The problem with many machines that are heavy users of electricity is that it is very difficult to estimate their consumption.

For instance my cooker with 4 rings, grill and 2 ovens. In the unlikely event that I switched them all on together they would use 12 kW. However each of them are thermostatically controlled so it would be very difficult to estimate the consumption.

My cold fill washing machine has a 2.5kW heater(i.e. draws approx 10 amps) and, like many modern machines, has an extremely long cycle of approx 90 minutes. Taking the simplistic view 1.5 hours x 2.5kW = 3.75kWh. However the heater is only on for little time and the average cycle uses 0.6kWh.

Equally difficult to estimate consumption of dryer(with sensor) fridge, freezer, immersion heater and dishwasher etc. In fact anything that is thermostatically controlled.

The point I am making is that to even get close to an accurate estimate you need to have a reasonable knowledge of the consumption of electrical machines.

Rockingit

mikemoate wrote:

Thanks Cardew, you are right of course. You need to enter into the grid the wattage of the appliance you are using. so for example for a typical Tumble drier you need to enter 4800 which will convert to 4.8kw. You also need to enter in your suppliers unit cost for electricity.

As long as you know the wattage/kw of your appliance you can use the grid to estimate the cost of any electrical appliance.

I need to correct you that an average tumble dryer is nothing near 4.8kW... I'll spare you the full mathematics but basically just take your n kW, and multiply by 4.3 in the UK and that will get you the number of Amps in question. Any number higher than 13 quite simply won't work as we're limited to a 13A fuse in our 3 pin plugs. The only exception is for cookers and showers, but they use their own (normally 30A) fused supplies on a separate ring main in your house.

I've just found this thread whilst checking to see if it was worthwhile my time to write a little downloadable app for people to use as a calculator.

If I do, I could do it on an 'average appliance' basis rather than having to put in possibly misleading figures. One of the good things about the new energy efficiency ratings on things like dryers, etc is that it's relatively easy to find some average cycle statistics to use, instead of just bare numbers.

Anyone interested?

penrhyn

Rockingit wrote:

I need to correct you that an average tumble dryer is nothing near 4.8kW... I'll spare you the full mathematics but basically just take your n kW, and multiply by 4.3 in the UK and that will get you the number of Amps in question. Any number higher than 13 quite simply won't work as we're limited to a 13A fuse in our 3 pin plugs. The only exception is for cookers and showers, but they use their own (normally 30A) fused supplies on a separate ring main in your house.

I've just found this thread whilst checking to see if it was worthwhile my time to write a little downloadable app for people to use as a calculator.

If I do, I could do it on an 'average appliance' basis rather than having to put in possibly misleading figures. One of the good things about the new energy efficiency ratings on things like dryers, etc is that it's relatively easy to find some average cycle statistics to use, instead of just bare numbers.

Anyone interested?

Cardew was quite correct about the power consumption of the tumble drier.
He was talking about kilowatt hours. i.e A 2Kw appliance that runs for 2 hours will consume 4kw of energy.

Rockingit

Ahh!! Now we're mixing more units than an MFI kitchen fitter.....but hey, OK.

Shall we all go and put our anoraks on?

Cardew

Rockingit wrote:

I need to correct you that an average tumble dryer is nothing near 4.8kW...

Who said anything about a tumble dryer being rated 4.8kW?(albeit I have seen a 3 phase industrial dryer rated more than that!!)

I said 4.8kWh. I am sure you understand the difference

If you go to the initial link and select tumble dryer from the list of appliances it enters data in the boxes and gives the wattage as 240 watts!! It thus deduces 20 operations of a tumble drier would use only 4.8kWh. I wish!

P.S.
Do you think it might confuse if we suggested running an over-excited synchronous motor in the garage for the purposes of power factor correction?
Every home should have one!

Rockingit

...think it might have been a typo by Mikemoate which set all this going..... and, of course, guilty as charged for not paying FULL attention to all the rest of the thread.

SORRY!!! Can't be perfect all the time.......I'd settle for 20%........

As for the over-excited motor in the garage....would that be a Hillman Imp with 17" alloys fitted??....

....off to get my coat................