High Electricity bills

[Deleted User]

Hi,

so it seems R2 is your day rate and you have used 2 units since you read the meter this morning.

Benny2020

What are your laptops? I have Alienware laptops which can be power hungry and are you sure your immersion is off?

Ultrasonic

Just unplug the laptop to see what difference it makes.

(Edited as I should have looked at the photo  .)

MWT

iFunk said:

I'm still curious what is taking my electricity right now with nothing but my laptops plugged in. 

If you could the number of flashes over a know time period (say 60 seconds) it is possible to workout how much power is being used as your meter flashes 1000 times for each kWh.

Then we can see if that is reasonable for laptops to be drawing that amount...

victor2

iFunk said:

Hi, I've just had a look at the meter, and the 1000kWh is flashing, but nothing in the house is on but my workstation, exactly the same as this morning. Everything is still unplugged. Would this point to someone else using my electricity?

Is your fridge switched on? They cut in and out as required to keep things cool, so you'll see little surges in use as it cuts in - and you can possibly hear when it is running too.

QrizB

iFunk said:

Right I see I have them the wrong way round for some reason on the bill the lower figure is the Day one and the higher one the Night figure, I'm still curious what is taking my electricity right now with nothing but my laptops plugged in. 

You referred to your laptops earlier as:

... my workstation ...

Workstation to me means a relatively high-powered computer. Exactly what is running?

Benny2020

My 2 Alienwares come with a power adapter the size of a brick, 330w i believe.

Gerry1

iFunk said:

Also, for some reason R2 is now showing 48172, when it it was 48170 this morning at 10am. 

I can't work out what this means, R1 is the same as it was this morning, that has not ticked at all, it is still at 51617. 

Any thoughts?

As your meter only shows whole numbers, that could represent as little as a whisker above 1kWh, e.g. if it went from 48170.999 to 48172.000.  Background usage is often 150W - 300W unless you turn everything off, including the fridge and the freezer.  So that consumption seems absolutely right.

You probably have far more items using small amounts of energy than you realise.  Doorbell, cordless phones, PIR floodlights, CH programmer, microwave, washing machine, cooker, tumble dryer, wall warts for radios, router, TV aerial amplifier...

Some items are quite surprising (e.g. washing machine and tumble dryer) but newer ones tend not to switch off fully because they don't use simple mechanical switches, it's usually a request to an electronic device to start a procedure.

Did you do the full Meter Sanity Test?

iFunk

QrizB said:

iFunk said:

Right I see I have them the wrong way round for some reason on the bill the lower figure is the Day one and the higher one the Night figure, I'm still curious what is taking my electricity right now with nothing but my laptops plugged in. 

You referred to your laptops earlier as:

... my workstation ...

Workstation to me means a relatively high-powered computer. Exactly what is running?

Yes I'm a developer, so I have to new MacBook Pros and 3 monitors, I have them on all day, but usually unplug them from power and just run them on battery, as I get a full day's work out of the battery before needing to charge them, so I'd say it's Low.

Robin9

iFunk said:

............, I'm still curious what is taking my electricity right now with nothing but my laptops plugged in. 

Fridge, freezer, oven clock, microwave clock ................     48172 - 480170  is 2KWH n 5 hours -  did you boil a kettle or two -  again fridge, freezer etc.   Typical day time use can be