Typical household electricity baseload

larkim

Using the MSE 40% off offer (the day before the email about the free montitors, doh!) I bought an Owl CM119 which arrived yesterday.

After struggling to get it clipped onto the right cable (not much space in my meter cupboard, will have to modify the clip at the weekend with tape / velcro) I've got it up and running.

After doing the usual fun of turning everything on / off to see the changes, eventually went to bed with the monitor at my side :eek:

Before switching off the last lights, the base load was reading 27w without us making any changes to what we would normally do. So that appears to be a fridge freezer, a separate freezer, gas combi boiler, mains wired thermostat, Wii on standby, PVR on standby (3view), router, NAS, all-in-one printer / scanner etc, DECT phone (plus 3 base stations), two powerline adaptors, a couple of bed-side electric clocks, mains wired smoke alarms, and a couple of AV pieces of equipment with transformers plugged in (though the devices apparently "off").

I would have thought that range of kit would require more than 27w (even assuming the fridge and freezer were both in a mode where they were drawing minimal power).

Should I presume I've got the cable clipped in incorrectly?

What is a "typical" base load for a house overnight? I know I can be puritanical, but most of the things I've quoted above either must be on (e.g. smoke alarms) or work best when left on (e.g. PVR) or are massively inconvenient to turn off, and if the combined lot are only drawing 27w then I'm relaxed about the overall cost / eco impact.

Matt

tiggerpud

We use approx 500Wh at night....

larkim

So assuming 8 hours of kip (as if...) I'd be estimating somewhere around 240Wh at night based on that reading. I'll have to take a note tonight of the cumulative at 11pm and read again in the morning to see what actual consumption happens.

If my figures are correct, my night time essentials cost about £25 in electricity for the year; I think I can just about justify the trade off between that cost and the convenience factor of leaving things on (even assuming I could save half of the overnight consumption).

Matt

tiggerpud

Sorry, I mean't 500w per hour....... not total for the whole night... so 27w seems pretty low!

larkim

OK, interesting - I'll re-check the clamp etc and compare to the meter too.

Looking at my history of consumption, we average about 12kWh per day usage. Obviously daytime usage is a lot more than night time; washing machines, dishwasher, kettle, TV, computer, etc etc. But I doubt that we only use 0.25kWh at night and 11.75kWh during the day, so perhaps I've either not got it clamped "correctly" or I've chosen the wrong cable (entirely possible as the cable I know I certainly have connected to was not do-able last night as the clips on the clamp couldn't fit between the live and neutral.

500w for your base load does sound quite high though, don't you think?

Matt

KevinG

larkim wrote: »

Before switching off the last lights, the base load was reading 27w without us making any changes to what we would normally do. So that appears to be a fridge freezer, a separate freezer, gas combi boiler, mains wired thermostat, Wii on standby, PVR on standby (3view), router, NAS, all-in-one printer / scanner etc, DECT phone (plus 3 base stations), two powerline adaptors, a couple of bed-side electric clocks, mains wired smoke alarms, and a couple of AV pieces of equipment with transformers plugged in (though the devices apparently "off").

I would have thought that range of kit would require more than 27w (even assuming the fridge and freezer were both in a mode where they were drawing minimal power).

Yes, I'd say 27W is too low for that lot. What happens when you switch on a known load like a light or a kettle?

Incidentally, the lowest possible reading on my Owl appears to be 64W so it never gets that low, but it's probably an older model.

Geoff_W

27W for your 'background' consumption is probably about right. Most recent AV kit on standby should consume less than 1W. Dect phone wallwarts use 2-3W each, as would things like your printer/modem/powerlines/clocks etc. Smoke detectors I would expect to be negligible. You would soon notice the difference if one of the freezers was running; my 'A'-rated freezer has an initial 'spike' of several hundred Watts and then settles down to 60W when running. It can be useful to measure the consumption of individual pieces of plugged-in electrical items. I have a Maplin Mains Power & Energy Monitor (product no. L61AQ £19.99) which is very good and can also measure consumption over a long time period if necessary.

larkim

OK, interesting - I am slightly sceptical that 27w is a little on the low side, but I do know that low wattage devices aren't particularly well reflected in the readings in devices like the Owl. Makes even more pertinent the question to tiggerpud that there must be a lot of potential energy saving to be done in that household!!

I've got a plug in power meter from Maplin (got mine when they were on offer at £4.99 a few years ago!) so I have checked a few items out in the past.

I did do the usual "turn on the kettle" thing and that seemed to be spiking with numbers that made sense last night, but this morning the kettle only appeared to add 300w to the active usage, so I'll be investigating further tonight.

I'm rather surprised on this forum that there isn't a static thread with "what's your electricity baseload" as I would have thought that greenies or fanatical money savers would wear with pride badges showing low consumption!

Matt

tiggerpud

Oooh I'm gonna have to do some serious investigating now!

Thinking aloud....During the day, we seem to chug along at about 850w - at night, we have one TV on standby, 2 sky boxes on standby, a Wii on standby, fridge, freezer, small chest freezer, phones, nightlight (in daughters room), another fridge (used for my business), 4 plug timers (again for my business), 3 printers, electric fencing (round horse paddock), .... I suppose on reflection, we would use more than average due to my business & paddock.... will be on a mission tonight to reduce my 550wH though!

Geoff_W

You are right about low wattage devices not reflecting accurately on the Owl. I had a clip-on device on my meter (not an Owl) which over several weeks diverged considerably from the meter reading. I did a test using a 500W resistive load (tungsten lamps) and the meter reading and monitor were accurate. But as soon as you switch on a complex load, the Power Factor (PF) comes into play and the monitor becomes much less accurate.

larkim

tiggerpud wrote: »

Oooh I'm gonna have to do some serious investigating now!

Thinking aloud....During the day, we seem to chug along at about 850w - at night, we have one TV on standby, 2 sky boxes on standby, a Wii on standby, fridge, freezer, small chest freezer, phones, nightlight (in daughters room), another fridge (used for my business), 4 plug timers (again for my business), 3 printers, electric fencing (round horse paddock), .... I suppose on reflection, we would use more than average due to my business & paddock.... will be on a mission tonight to reduce my 550wH though!

Still, 500w steady draw seems high. TV, Wii and Sky boxes - max 50w in total even if they are really inefficient. Electric fence will be negligible unless it is permanently being touched. Various fridges / freezers - depends how old they are I suppose; if they are not very efficient either in operation or in terms of insulation then that could account for quite a lot.

A few years ago we discovered that our old washing machine drew current even when completely switched off (it was so old it didn't have an LCD display, or anything fancy at all). I've read elsewhere that some microwaves consume 10w just to power the clock (that seemed to be related to a specific make / model), perhaps there are some "stealth" users of power in your houshold! If you can shave 500W to 400W then you might save 0.8kWh per night, about 300kWh per year - that would be about £40 back in your pocket if you were on the same tariff as I am on (Eon).

Matt