Sudden leap in electricity use, seemingly after power cut

BooJewels

The numbers on the meter are increasing sequentially in line with earlier use, just at a much higher rate than it had been for the last few months.

I'll wait and see what the numbers are in a few days after we've now disengaged this pump that we're hoping is the culprit.

We think there was a power cut, as two different digital clocks had reset and it seemingly blew a fuse around the same time. But with visiting every few days, the various things didn't come to light at the same time - it was only retrospectively that we decided that there had been an interruption in supply at some time between a couple of dates.

I'm not thinking that it was anything catastrophic and I'm not really thinking the meter may be faulty. But I've ordered Dave's earlier recommended monitor and will look at it further next week. Of the issues causing a sudden (as yet unexplained) increase in consumption, a faulty meter is a few notches from the top of the list of possibilities. Your reset to zero would be more in line with sudden unexpected behaviour I might relate to a faulty meter, rather than just a steady increase in speed that ours is seemingly doing just now.

nick74

BooJewels wrote: »

The garden pump is the prime suspect - when they went outside to find it, there was what appeared to be smoke rising from it, but we now think it was water vapour, as the whole pump (which was blocked and not working) was very warm to the touch and the water around it was 'warm enough to bathe in' according to my husband. He found a flat stone inside the pump that was totally blocking it. He removed that, cleaned the parts and got it working, but there was some resistance in the outlet pipe, so he thinks that's gunked up too. But he got it working enough for us to try watching the meter with it off and on. It didn't make as big a difference as I was hoping, as it was now working and not blocked of course. We managed to trace how it was powered and have just unplugged it for now. The power consumption this week rose to 17.5 kWh per day, so a further increase.

I'd put money on that being the main culprit. You don't say exactly what type of pump it is, but for example looking at submersible water pumps on the Machine Mart website they range from anywhere between 400 watts to 1100 watts. One of those running for most of the day (whether blocked or not) could account for the excess usage. The fact that it was able to warm the surrounding water enough to 'bathe in', outdoors, at this time of year is proof enough of how much energy it was wasting!

BooJewels

nick74 wrote: »

I'd put money on that being the main culprit. You don't say exactly what type of pump it is, but for example looking at submersible water pumps on the Machine Mart website they range from anywhere between 400 watts to 1100 watts. One of those running for most of the day (whether blocked or not) could account for the excess usage. The fact that it was able to warm the surrounding water enough to 'bathe in', outdoors, at this time of year is proof enough of how much energy it was wasting!

I'd concur - I've always felt that anything that generates heat (or removes it) is likely to be sucking up a lot of wattage - heat where there shouldn't be any - even more so. It's been very wet lately and the pump was likely trying to work much of the time, so would have used more power anyway. It getting blocked (and we have no idea when that happened) was only going to make it a lot worse.

I think my father built the pump arrangement himself - it's in a submerged bin with some kind of float switch that fires it up when the water fills the vessel enough to trip it. My poor husband was on his knees in mud in pouring rain trying to get it going for us to test, so he wasn't looking for labels etc. So I don't know the rating of it - we'll maybe look next time if it's not such a filthy day.

I'm crossing my fingers quite hard that we've got to the bottom of it, but won't know until one of us next reads the meter.

I really don't mind an increase in usage if we're legitimately using it (and we're gradually decommissioning things that don't need to be used) - it was the sudden spike in usage and probably the coincidence of a minor power outage that got us all fired up.

nick74

BooJewels wrote: »

I'd concur - I've always felt that anything that generates heat (or removes it) is likely to be sucking up a lot of wattage - heat where there shouldn't be any - even more so. It's been very wet lately and the pump was likely trying to work much of the time, so would have used more power anyway. It getting blocked (and we have no idea when that happened) was only going to make it a lot worse.

Yes that fits perfectly. The recent heavy rain increased the water level, which tripped the float switch and started the pump. The pump was blocked so couldn't reduce the level, and therefore ran continously. 400 watts say, running all day would add 9.6 kWh to the bill every 24 hours.

BooJewels

nick74 wrote: »

Yes that fits perfectly. The recent heavy rain increased the water level, which tripped the float switch and started the pump. The pump was blocked so couldn't reduce the level, and therefore ran continously. 400 watts say, running all day would add 9.6 kWh to the bill every 24 hours.

I did the same calculation just after I posted - and even if not continuous, 12 hours a day at 500 watts would account for much of the difference we've experienced.

I was just talking to my aunt who apparently has the same pump arrangement that my Dad installed for her at the same time and hers has broken now, but when working, it would have made a tangible difference to her power usage. In her case, it cleared a massive puddle between her back door and garage door, so the power bill was worth it to save her wearing wellies to get to her car.

I can't wait to get a new meter reading, hoping that it has reduced the consumption by as much as I hope. I'll be doing a happy dance in the muddy garden if it has (largely because it would distress the nosy neighbour who seemingly disapproves of how we're doing absolutely everything - so bonus!) :dance:

nick74

It does actually sound like quite an ingenious solution that your dad came up with! Perhaps if you want to continue to use it then the answer might be to run the pump via a plug-in timer? Set it to come on for maybe half an hour, twice a day. Enough time to allow the pump to run and clear the worst of the water when necessary, but not allow it to run continuously and overheat in the case of a blockage?

BooJewels

nick74 wrote: »

It does actually sound like quite an ingenious solution that your dad came up with! Perhaps if you want to continue to use it then the answer might be to run the pump via a plug-in timer? Set it to come on for maybe half an hour, twice a day. Enough time to allow the pump to run and clear the worst of the water when necessary, but not allow it to run continuously and overheat in the case of a blockage?

That sounds like a good idea - we'll look at it next time we visit and see if the pump is functioning well enough to clear the standing water. My husband cleared the blockage, but it still wasn't working well and he felt the outlet pipe was gunked up too. So it'll need some looking at anyway.

Thanks for the assistance, it's appreciated.

markin

nick74 wrote: »

Yes that fits perfectly. The recent heavy rain increased the water level, which tripped the float switch and started the pump. The pump was blocked so couldn't reduce the level, and therefore ran continously. 400 watts say, running all day would add 9.6 kWh to the bill every 24 hours.

Im on my 5th pump, Every one of them has got stuck ON as the water went down slowly in the right way, Sometimes they can go for days before someone spots it and sometimes they just burn out and need replacing.


Mines in a cellar, I wouldn't dream of putting one in the garden, 400W on and off all day every time it rains is a bit mad.

BooJewels

markin wrote: »

[...]Mines in a cellar, I wouldn't dream of putting one in the garden, 400W on and off all day every time it rains is a bit mad.

I think you perhaps misunderstand the arrangement. The pump sits inside a sunken sump in the garden, the edges of which are raised slightly above surface level and it has a loosely fitting lid on. Once there is enough standing water to run into the sump vessel, it fills it until it sets off a float switch which fires up the pump.

So it only runs when those conditions are met - and there has to be quite a lot of accumulated water before it does so. It doesn't just set off every time it rains. I don't think it has run all summer, despite being pretty wet, until the end of September/early October when we had a couple of serious deluges - my own garden was flooded more than once, which only happens with extreme downpours.

At some point it has become blocked with this almost perfectly fitting stone and I am hoping that is where the problem is - causing it to run continuously because the float switch never moved as no water was being removed from the sump. On Monday, the sump was full of water, but the level outside it had fallen - the ground was squelchy, but not standing in water. Without the blockage, it wouldn't have been running, despite it pouring down at the time.

As I mentioned in my OP, the house was averaging 3.1 kWh/day of electricity usage from May until the end of September, then it spiked significantly - so I don't think the pump had run during that time - or maybe only occasionally.

Green_hopeful

This might not help you but we had a suspicious rise in energy usage and it was a low energy light bulb where there was a fault in the starter motor and it was drawing lots. It was on a timer in a room we don’t use much but we saw the usage on the energy monitor. We switched the circuits off in turn and worked it out.