Background Energy Consumption

smartn

I know there are some very knowledgeable people in this forum so was hoping for a little help. I have a home energy monitor (Wattson) which is proving useful. The one thing I can't get my head around is that even at night my energy consumption runs at around the 250W level. Some of this will be down to 3 sky boxes which I beleive consume around 20w each even in standby! and my fridge and freezer but even if I turn all these devices off I still consume around 100W. I've even gone as far as turning all my sockets and lights off at the fuse board and I'm still consuming 100W ish.

The only thing I can think of that would still be consuming energy at this point would be my domestic alarm system. It's quite an old system (15 years or so I suspect), would it be possible this is consuming this amount of energy around the clock, it seems very high to me.

I've installed solar panels and am trying to get greener (will be reducing the number of sky boxes to 1 and replacing with freesat boxes that only consume 1W in standby), have replaced almost all my bulbs with low energy etc, bought an LED TV rather than plasma etc but am frustrated by this constant energy usage that I can't explain. Any suggestions would be greatfully accepted.

fred7777

Go to the fuse box and pull the fuses or switch of the breakers for each ring main one at a time and see how the energy consumption varies, it may help to track down what is using the energy.

However if as you say you have switched everything off at the fuse box and your monitor says are you consuming power then I would assume either the fusebox and electrical system is wired wrong or more likely the monitor is giving the wrong reading. Can you try the monitor at a friend or neighbour's?

zeupater

Hi

I use an OWL to monitor consumption and my baseline consumption varies between 0W and around the 250W you mention, the difference being the fridge & freezer cutting in/out within their normal cycle.

My energy monitor doesn't display any consumption below 50W so I checked my baseload by simply counting the revolutions of the wheel on the meter (I know, that's sad, but it's accurate !) and then checked what was still powered by hardwired connections in order to understand the makeup of the baseload through pulling fuses & using fused spur isolation switches.

Gas boiler, electric hob & cooker have control circuits which draw power when not in use as do the fridge & freezer, CH timer & room thermostat, alarm, bathroom extractor fans (humidity/timer) etc are likely candidates but 100W constant draw is very high for these. I did find that our microwave, which is quite new, uses a rediculous amount of electricity just to display the time .... it's now turned off when not in use.

Thinking about the alarm system, if it's drawing anywhere near 50W-100W it will be converting the power to heat so a quick test would be to see if the control panel is hot.

Best advice would be to consider whether you checked all of the hard-wired items when you were looking at the baseload.

HTH
Z

smartn

fred7777 wrote: »

Go to the fuse box and pull the fuses or switch of the breakers for each ring main one at a time and see how the energy consumption varies, it may help to track down what is using the energy.

However if as you say you have switched everything off at the fuse box and your monitor says are you consuming power then I would assume either the fusebox and electrical system is wired wrong or more likely the monitor is giving the wrong reading. Can you try the monitor at a friend or neighbour's?

Have tried two different monitors with similar results (initially an EON monitor). My initial thought was it must be the monitor but when I bought the Wattson to measure my solar generation I ended up with similar results so I'm guessing it must be something else. I have switched off all the breakers at the same time at the fuse box and it still read around 100w. I was wondering with an alarm system if it was wired differently ie not through the main fuse box and this could be the cause.

smartn

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

I use an OWL to monitor consumption and my baseline consumption varies between 0W and around the 250W you mention, the difference being the fridge & freezer cutting in/out within their normal cycle.

My energy monitor doesn't display any consumption below 50W so I checked my baseload by simply counting the revolutions of the wheel on the meter (I know, that's sad, but it's accurate !) and then checked what was still powered by hardwired connections in order to understand the makeup of the baseload through pulling fuses & using fused spur isolation switches.

Gas boiler, electric hob & cooker have control circuits which draw power when not in use as do the fridge & freezer, CH timer & room thermostat, alarm, bathroom extractor fans (humidity/timer) etc are likely candidates but 100W constant draw is very high for these. I did find that our microwave, which is quite new, uses a rediculous amount of electricity just to display the time .... it's now turned off when not in use.

Thinking about the alarm system, if it's drawing anywhere near 50W-100W it will be converting the power to heat so a quick test would be to see if the control panel is hot.

Best advice would be to consider whether you checked all of the hard-wired items when you were looking at the baseload.

HTH
Z

Interestingly one of the things I did find through the Wattson was that my less than a year old panasonic microwave drew an awful lot of electric for the display. As you, I now turn it off at the mains when not in use but it often gets forgotten. Shame on Panasonic for designing such a product.

Guess the Gas boiler could be consuming some but its fairly new and would only draw anything significant when actually in use I would think. I think I'll try the test of turning all off at the fuse box again tonight and leave it for a while to see what it settles at.

Cardew

All these monitors are a bit 'iffy' at very low power consumption.

zeupater

smartn wrote: »

Interestingly one of the things I did find through the Wattson was that my less than a year old panasonic microwave drew an awful lot of electric for the display. As you, I now turn it off at the mains when not in use but it often gets forgotten. Shame on Panasonic for designing such a product.

Guess the Gas boiler could be consuming some but its fairly new and would only draw anything significant when actually in use I would think. I think I'll try the test of turning all off at the fuse box again tonight and leave it for a while to see what it settles at.

Hi

Well, at least that confirms that my microwave's not faulty .... it's a Panasonic too ....

Z

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

All these monitors are a bit 'iffy' at very low power consumption.

Hi

Agree .... that's probably why mine doesn't register anything below 50W by design.

Z

smartn

Have taken a further look at our electric set up. There appears to be a box (Friedland 752 transformer?)for a Friedland doorbell directly wired in to the electric next to the fuse box, however we have no doorbell other than a battery one, is it possible this transformer is still drawing power?

SavingNow

Hi all,
New poster, but been a reader here for a while.

Had similar experiences when we have been looking at reducing our electricity consumption.

Checked for the following ?
Dishwasher / washer on standby
Oven clock
Heating controls
Radio alarm clocks
Electric shower on standby (no dual pole switch)

Out of interest, does anybody know...
These new digital electricity meters installed by our suppliers... do they consume our leccy ?... also, what is that meter thingy using to monitor the power consumption ?

Just suggestions

zeupater

smartn wrote: »

Have taken a further look at our electric set up. There appears to be a box (Friedland 752 transformer?)for a Friedland doorbell directly wired in to the electric next to the fuse box, however we have no doorbell other than a battery one, is it possible this transformer is still drawing power?

Hi

I have one of those too .... are you sure you're not me from another dimension or something ?? .... ..... anyway, yes it does draw power, that's if the transformer still works !!

HTH
Z