Browse Forums Eco Living 1 Nov 22, 2018 8:45 pm Hi, Firstly, I must admit that I never paid much attention to the energy bill or the energy consumption. Whilst researching solar panels for our house in Melbourne, I noticed that our electricity consumption is very high compared to the average in the suburb. We are consuming 61kWh per day, which according to the citipower data available online is about three to four times the suburb average (!) Of course, the average is not a particularly useful number but I would say that our house is relatively average for the suburb: 4 bedrooms, living/dining/kitchen, lounge, double garage. The house is 9 years old, has a ducted heating cooling unit. Hot water is instant gas. Almost all lights are LED. 2 Fridges, 1 freezer, washing machine and dryer. We are a family of 4 (kids are 9 and 12) I am not sure why the bar for May is smaller than the others. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I'm puzzled whether this sort of electricity consumption is normal and if not, what I can do to investigate it further... Any advice is much appreciated. Regards, Christian Re: Very high electricity consumption 2Nov 23, 2018 3:02 pm the main culprit in an unusually high bill is a faulty fridge or freezer jaycar sell some plug in power meters which show how much each appliance uses i found the big culprit was a large tropical fish aquarium also do use use the tumble dryer much Re: Very high electricity consumption 3Nov 23, 2018 3:16 pm Another check is assuming you have a smart meter you should be able to log on to your suppliers website and check on your use over 24 hours. High usage between midnight and 6.00am is an indication that it could be an appliance issue. The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: Very high electricity consumption 4Nov 29, 2018 10:17 pm Your usage is 6 times more than mine. You should log on the Citipower website and analyze your usage data. You may record time of use for big appliances such as heaters, dryers and compare with your usage data whether you can find appliances that cause high usage. If you have high usage during the day, it is worth to install solar system. My usage is only 10kw/day and I installed my solar system 6.6kw. My first bill for one month is $15 in credit. I expect zero electricity bill for the next five years. Re: Very high electricity consumption 5Dec 10, 2019 12:19 am It could be anything. We have 300 metres of 3 phase underground power cable going to the shed. Because the earth and armour strands weren't earthed, there were power losses that were caused by induction. XLPE cables have earths that spiral around the cable which is bad for loss by induction. Then there's the risk of a wire inside the power meter box thats got damaged insulation and leaking current. Also theres underground power cables that have got moisture inside them possibly leaking power. We had the electrician connect 16mm 3 phase power into the house and one of the active lines wasn't clamped into its crimp properly, it was just resting against the terminal. Wires resting or improperly crimped have a low surface area contact, which creates high resistance and that creates heat which adds black residue to the weakest link areas and that uses more electricity. If you want to know how much electricity you are allowed to consume, you need to run an online voltage drop calculation test. My 3 phase 16mm cables run 150 metres to the house. This means I can use up to 30 amps on each of the 3 phases while not exceeding the 5% power loss requirement. I can plug 3 vacuum cleaners into a single phase to consume 30 amps and they won't struggle to run and not exceeding 5% means I'm not causing that underground XLPE cable to run inefficiently hot. Inside the electricity boxes, you need to check terminal crimps for corrosion and electrolysis. Once the power lines have gone past the main earth neutral MEN link, RCDs start operating and it becomes harder to lose power to earth, but its still possible to lose power to neutral, without the RCD cutting out. One example of this is the dead electrocuted mouse that I found on the inside terminals of my washing machine. It had crawled over a neutral and active. You should be using switchmode power supplies wherever possible, because they use negligible standby power. Despite this, you'd be amazed at how much standby power can equate to. Firstly there's the smart power meter box that synergy are probably charging you to run, then theres alot of motion sensor security lights that are using a bit of standby power as well as the alarm system. An old transformer amplifier I leave on uses 20 watts of power but the wifi router is apparantly only using 2.5 watts while leaving the microwave on is only 1 watt. While turning off all standby appliances might only save you tiny amounts of power, those appliances could catch fire and burn your house down. While RCD's are useful at identifying power leaks, they don't always get used on lighting circuits, electric ovens or electric water heaters and they have potential to leak current. Personally I saved on electricity by using only one of the phases that the solar system was generating on. Though I still had to keep the electric water heater on a separate phase because it uses the full 30 amps. The worst discovery that I recently made was after we had a large Fujitzu ducting air conditioner installed. It has an outdoor unit and there is a 200 watt heater attached to the condenser. During cold weather the heater defrosts the condenser. According to the instruction manual, it never runs for more than 40 minutes, but it was running 24/7 using 200 watts. Re: Very high electricity consumption 6Dec 24, 2019 6:00 pm Numerous property holders have high power charges on account of the apparatuses that are connected to their outlets, regardless of whether they aren't utilizing them every now and again. Numerous cutting edge hardware keep on drawing power from the framework regardless of whether they're shut down or not being used. The simplest method to reasonably consider it is that these apparatuses are on "backup" until being turned on. These are now and then alluded to as "Vampire Appliances." In your very own home, this may incorporate DVR frameworks, carport entryway openers, brilliant home gadgets like the Amazon Echo, or your microwave. 5 Reasons Your Electric Bill is So High 1. Letting Vampire Appliances Bleed You Dry 2. Bolstering Energy Hog Appliances 3. Abusing Lights and Ceiling Fans 4. Utilizing Appliances Past Their Prime 5. Gadget Charging Frenzy VoucherHunt UK Re: Very high electricity consumption 7Dec 31, 2019 5:49 pm As others have said, it could be a faulty appliance. Can't be faulty hot water (which is often the culprit), as it's gas, so won't effect the electricity bill. If it's not a faulty appliance, it could be the way you heat your home, setting the thermostat to a very high temperature. Particularly if your house is leaky, or poorly insulated. Could even be problems with the ducts, leaking heat into the roof space. Another culprit could be using a clothes dryer a lot, instead of hanging clothes on the line in winter. Clothes dryers are very energy hungry. Re: Very high electricity consumption 8Jan 02, 2020 6:50 am vornez It could be anything. We have 300 metres of 3 phase underground power cable going to the shed. Because the earth and armour strands weren't earthed, there were power losses that were caused by induction. XLPE cables have earths that spiral around the cable which is bad for loss by induction. Then there's the risk of a wire inside the power meter box thats got damaged insulation and leaking current. Also theres underground power cables that have got moisture inside them possibly leaking power. We had the electrician connect 16mm 3 phase power into the house and one of the active lines wasn't clamped into its crimp properly, it was just resting against the terminal. Wires resting or improperly crimped have a low surface area contact, which creates high resistance and that creates heat which adds black residue to the weakest link areas and that uses more electricity. If you want to know how much electricity you are allowed to consume, you need to run an online voltage drop calculation test. My 3 phase 16mm cables run 150 metres to the house. This means I can use up to 30 amps on each of the 3 phases while not exceeding the 5% power loss requirement. I can plug 3 vacuum cleaners into a single phase to consume 30 amps and they won't struggle to run and not exceeding 5% means I'm not causing that underground XLPE cable to run inefficiently hot. Inside the electricity boxes, you need to check terminal crimps for corrosion and electrolysis. Once the power lines have gone past the main earth neutral MEN link, RCDs start operating and it becomes harder to lose power to earth, but its still possible to lose power to neutral, without the RCD cutting out. One example of this is the dead electrocuted mouse that I found on the inside terminals of my washing machine. It had crawled over a neutral and active. You should be using switchmode power supplies wherever possible, because they use negligible standby power. Despite this, you'd be amazed at how much standby power can equate to. Firstly there's the smart power meter box that synergy are probably charging you to run, then theres alot of motion sensor security lights that are using a bit of standby power as well as the alarm system. An old transformer amplifier I leave on uses 20 watts of power but the wifi router is apparantly only using 2.5 watts while leaving the microwave on is only 1 watt. While turning off all standby appliances might only save you tiny amounts of power, those appliances could catch fire and burn your house down. While RCD's are useful at identifying power leaks, they don't always get used on lighting circuits, electric ovens or electric water heaters and they have potential to leak current. Personally I saved on electricity by using only one of the phases that the solar system was generating on. Though I still had to keep the electric water heater on a separate phase because it uses the full 30 amps. The worst discovery that I recently made was after we had a large Fujitzu ducting air conditioner installed. It has an outdoor unit and there is a 200 watt heater attached to the condenser. During cold weather the heater defrosts the condenser. According to the instruction manual, it never runs for more than 40 minutes, but it was running 24/7 using 200 watts. Re: Very high electricity consumption 9Feb 29, 2020 4:12 pm Water heater takes loads of electricity unit. Do check its energy star ratings. Hi - thanks for your reply. Yes I think 'Ill go for whitish with very speckly bits rather than pure white something like this. PS was actually 2008 I built the… 2 12412 It will be neat but you won't have much freeboard. At least they are not weep holes. Are you in a high intensity rainfall region? The regulatory slope is only required… 3 8722 Thanks mate. Yeah good points! Leaning towards Option 3 to get a bit extra space in the cabinets but not going too crazy high (and expensive). Would require a mini… 13 41343 |