How likely is it to have a faulty house electrical meter?

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#1357982 3-Aug-2015 16:46

trig42:
Spyware: If you leave just the fridge (250W) and your server (90W) on you'll find you'll reach your old usage of 312 kWh with just the addition of one 100W light bulb. I think you'll find that you owe the power provider a lot of money.

huh?

312 kWh over how long?

30 days.

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#1357991 3-Aug-2015 16:53

kiwikiwi: ... Now they claim that we're using 35.2KwH PER DAY - Now that seems a bit absurd for a normal house hold right? There is no way in heck that we're using 35.2KwH ....

Sounds like normal (Winter) usage to me.
In Winter we (two pensioners in an old house) use more than that - heating, lighting, cooking, appliances only - we use gas for hot water.
We have a smart meter and electricity costs us about $12-$15 per day.

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#1357994 3-Aug-2015 16:57

fortydayweekend:
Spyware: If you leave just the fridge (250W) and your server (90W) on you'll find you'll reach your old usage of 312 kWh with just the addition of one 100W light bulb. I think you'll find that you owe the power provider a lot of money.

Fridges don't use power all the time - it only draws the 250W in short bursts :)

Well apparently it used 2 kWh (over 8 hours). Sounds high to me too.

fortydayweekend

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#1357998 3-Aug-2015 17:00

kiwikiwi:

April was right but March, May, June and July have been dead wrong. That's the main concern.

Even worse March was an estimate and then April happens which was an actual reading. May was another estimate and June and July have been actual ones.

My main theory was that the meter was still ticking over night is out the window. I'm down to my other two theories which are yes the meter is way off when measuring load, or the tube lighting that we do have is drawing so much(but we only allow 2 sets of them on, one in the living room and one in my bedroom).

That wouldn't be unusual use if you were running a heater or two, June & July have been cold.

I guess you don't have a smart meter, or they wouldn't be doing estimates. Maybe you could ask to have a new meter installed, they're going to put a smart meter in at some point anyway.

Also, what rate are you on? If you've got $1700 outstanding on only about 3500 kWh used so far this year, you're being ripped off! :)

fortydayweekend

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#1358000 3-Aug-2015 17:04

Spyware:
fortydayweekend:
Spyware: If you leave just the fridge (250W) and your server (90W) on you'll find you'll reach your old usage of 312 kWh with just the addition of one 100W light bulb. I think you'll find that you owe the power provider a lot of money.

Fridges don't use power all the time - it only draws the 250W in short bursts :)

Well apparently it used 2 kWh (over 8 hours). Sounds high to me too.

The 2 kWh was the total overnight load, some of that would be the fridge but it'd also be all the other electronics on standby. My place does pretty much the same load when there's nobody home or nothing on.

surfisup1000

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#1358004 3-Aug-2015 17:09

kiwikiwi:
Story:
For the past 3 or 4 months our bill has been increasing by the hundreds for no apparent reason. At the moment we're at $1700 overdue. Now they claim that we're using 35.2KwH PER DAY.

Are you saying your total bill for the last 3 / 4 months is $1700? That would be around $400-$600 per month right?

That would be in line with what we pay (although closer to $400, we have gas too).

But, we run a lot of stuff too, heaters, PC's, servers, 5 people, etc .

kiwikiwi

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#1358052 3-Aug-2015 17:48

fortydayweekend:
kiwikiwi:

April was right but March, May, June and July have been dead wrong. That's the main concern.

Even worse March was an estimate and then April happens which was an actual reading. May was another estimate and June and July have been actual ones.

My main theory was that the meter was still ticking over night is out the window. I'm down to my other two theories which are yes the meter is way off when measuring load, or the tube lighting that we do have is drawing so much(but we only allow 2 sets of them on, one in the living room and one in my bedroom).

That wouldn't be unusual use if you were running a heater or two, June & July have been cold.

I guess you don't have a smart meter, or they wouldn't be doing estimates. Maybe you could ask to have a new meter installed, they're going to put a smart meter in at some point anyway.

Also, what rate are you on? If you've got $1700 outstanding on only about 3500 kWh used so far this year, you're being ripped off! :)

We only have a digital one which was issued in 2004. All it does it read out the digits doesn't give off any readings at all on whats being used. And we're on anytime with Contact. They're charging is 28 cents per KwH.

surfisup1000:
kiwikiwi:
Story:
For the past 3 or 4 months our bill has been increasing by the hundreds for no apparent reason. At the moment we're at $1700 overdue. Now they claim that we're using 35.2KwH PER DAY.

Are you saying your total bill for the last 3 / 4 months is $1700? That would be around $400-$600 per month right?

That would be in line with what we pay (although closer to $400, we have gas too).

But, we run a lot of stuff too, heaters, PC's, servers, 5 people, etc .

$400 is pretty dead on. And yeah that's over total wasn't even notified that it got past $500 when the previous bills had only been around the 200 mark

If I have a look at the bills and crunch some numbers.
From December to April we were doing $4.45 a day.
March onwards went past $10 with a seriously unreasonable amount of usage. I say it's unreasonable because me and my partner were the only one there at the time and we knew on what was on and what wasn't, the heaters weren't even turned on.

Now that June and July has passed and everyone (4 occupants) is home now the usage has yes dropped (apparently by estimates) but it's still ridiculous and unreasonable.

You can also follow me on twitter here @kiwifortw I do twitch streams every now and then at twitch.tv/kiwiforthewin :)

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Jase2985

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#1358064 3-Aug-2015 18:03

We are with contact as well. Last month we used 1235Kwh (which equals 39.8kwh per day), which is $388 before prompt payment and online discount which takes it down to about $303.

We have 3 adults and 1 3 year old in the house, electric hot water and electric cooking. 1 PC/file server thats on 24/7 and a laptop thats always on. There is one bath run every second day. We have a DVS running 24/7 with 2 temper vents on 12 hours a day. We also used the heatpump a bit that month as it was cold and i was on uni holidays.

Normally the usage is between 800 and 1000Kwh (25-32Kwh per day).

Bung

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#1358105 3-Aug-2015 18:52

kiwikiwi: are you letting the account become overdue? That could be adding quite a bit to the total as you lose the prompt payment discount. Also are you basing any of your usage figures on their estimates? AFAIK if you get an estimate you can give them the actual reading and get a revised account. it is not always convenient to overpay one month and get credit the next.

kiwikiwi

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#1358111 3-Aug-2015 19:09

Bung: kiwikiwi: are you letting the account become overdue? That could be adding quite a bit to the total as you lose the prompt payment discount. Also are you basing any of your usage figures on their estimates? AFAIK if you get an estimate you can give them the actual reading and get a revised account. it is not always convenient to overpay one month and get credit the next.

We aren't trying to at all. No way.

And no we have actual readings which is what I've done my calculations on. The actual readings aren't that high at all and are expected around this time of year.

edit more info :)

You can also follow me on twitter here @kiwifortw I do twitch streams every now and then at twitch.tv/kiwiforthewin :)

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andrewNZ

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#1358120 3-Aug-2015 19:24

Your first bills (Dec, Jan, Feb) are wrong. There is no way you used under 200 units in a month.

You say you used 2 units over night, that's a base load of @250W, and a monthly usage of 180 units.
My base load is @300W and I consider it low. My winter power bills are around $100/month and that's 2 adults with all energy saver lighting, no heating and no hot water and only base usage during the day. We cook most nights.

You are averaging somewhere around 1 unit (kW) an hour now which is not a lot. Less the base load, it's 750W an hour.

What type of heating do you use?
What is its rated power?
How long is it on?

kiwikiwi

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#1358124 3-Aug-2015 19:27

andrewNZ: Your first bills (Dec, Jan, Feb) are wrong. There is no way you used under 200 units in a month.

You say you used 2 units over night, that's a base load of @250W, and a monthly usage of 180 units.
My base load is @300W and I consider it low. My winter power bills are around $100/month and that's 2 adults with all energy saver lighting, no heating and no hot water and only base usage during the day. We cook most nights.

You are averaging somewhere around 1 unit (kW) an hour now which is not a lot. Less the base load, it's 750W an hour.

What type of heating do you use?
What is its rated power?
How long is it on?

What type of heating do you use? Electrical fan powered ones
What is its rated power? one is 1800 the other is 2400
How long is it on? 30-1 hour minutes no longer

And yeah Dec,Jan,Feb look really low cause it was just me and my partner inside the house with our computers running basically 24/7 at that time with the file server also running 24/7.

It's pretty concerning when you see a massive jump.

You can also follow me on twitter here @kiwifortw I do twitch streams every now and then at twitch.tv/kiwiforthewin :)

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surfisup1000

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#1358126 3-Aug-2015 19:28

Part of it is that the power companies have been increasing prices way over inflation rates over the last few years too.

The whole competition model has resulted in massively escalating prices in my view.

Although, hard to judge if the rises are fair... taxpayers used to pay for generation build etc, so comparing apples with oranges.

My aussie friends cannot believe what we pay for power here though.

andrewNZ

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#1358139 3-Aug-2015 19:45

Your first bills suggest you had no lights on, and didn't cook and all.

Heaters are a massive portion of a power bill and I'd suggest yours are on more than you think. Dryers are a huge user too. Lights contribute quite a bit, especially if there are a lot of them and aren't energy savers.

Time to seriously look at what is on and for how long.

On the off chance you don't know, 1 unit = 1kWh = 1kW for 1 hour (or say, 200W for 5 hours).
So a 1800W heater on for 1 hour is 1.8 kWh, if it's on for 30mins it's 0.9 kWh.

Both heaters on for 30 mins every day = 63 units a month
1x100W light bulb on for 8 hours a day = 24 units a month

kiwikiwi

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#1358146 3-Aug-2015 19:52

andrewNZ: Your first bills suggest you had no lights on, and didn't cook and all.

Heaters are a massive portion of a power bill and I'd suggest yours are on more than you think. Dryers are a huge user too. Lights contribute quite a bit, especially if there are a lot of them and aren't energy savers.

Time to seriously look at what is on and for how long.

On the off chance you don't know, 1 unit = 1kWh = 1kW for 1 hour (or say, 200W for 5 hours).
So a 1800W heater on for 1 hour is 1.8 kWh, if it's on for 30mins it's 0.9 kWh.

Both heaters on for 30 mins every day = 63 units a month
1x100W light bulb on for 8 hours a day = 24 units a month

Nope had lights on and did cook. That's why I'm concerned. Don't even have a dryer either.

I don't get it because before we moved into our new place and we were back at Maungatapere. I knew what the bills were then it was only on average 250 and there was much much more power usage and it was more constant.

I'm not saying you're wrong it could just be our usage and that is something we've looked at but I'm not quite sure this is right.

Of course moving from one house to another house has no meaning at all. Different house. Different requirements.

You can also follow me on twitter here @kiwifortw I do twitch streams every now and then at twitch.tv/kiwiforthewin :)

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