Electron thieves / leeches
Posted: Sat Nov 20, 2021 10:20 am
Recent mention of the insidious drains on stored power reminds me that I haven't scrutinised our use recently either.
Apart from switching off lights when a room is not occupied and not leaving many devices on standby we don't really do much to drive down use, which is 5.8 +/- 0.5 kWhr/day across the year - and has crept up from 5.1 in 2014.
Time to do a re-evaluation. I suspect that every new wireless router that we get consumes more power than the predecessor as the current BTHub6 always feels quite warm. They advertise ever-better reach, which I assume means more power consumed.
I have a plug-and-socket meter that I bought from the old place, but to measure lots of things like the kitchen heat-recovering extract fan would mean breaking into the circuit and putting in a temporary plug and socket. Anyone know of better non-contact ways to do it? Is there a meter which will clip round a twin-and-earth cable?
I have no idea how much power the central heating controller / programmable thermostat / solar tubes controller and associated pumps take, for example.
We might run down our stock of frozen soft fruit and switch off the small chest freezer as one action. I have read that digital radios use more than analogue ones, so one gets left in a room where it is hardly ever used and only switched on and reprogrammed when there is a particular need. The other is my bedside radio, so maybe I ought to be looking at swapping that one out.
Any other suggestions for culprits or monitoring methods?
A
Apart from switching off lights when a room is not occupied and not leaving many devices on standby we don't really do much to drive down use, which is 5.8 +/- 0.5 kWhr/day across the year - and has crept up from 5.1 in 2014.
Time to do a re-evaluation. I suspect that every new wireless router that we get consumes more power than the predecessor as the current BTHub6 always feels quite warm. They advertise ever-better reach, which I assume means more power consumed.
I have a plug-and-socket meter that I bought from the old place, but to measure lots of things like the kitchen heat-recovering extract fan would mean breaking into the circuit and putting in a temporary plug and socket. Anyone know of better non-contact ways to do it? Is there a meter which will clip round a twin-and-earth cable?
I have no idea how much power the central heating controller / programmable thermostat / solar tubes controller and associated pumps take, for example.
We might run down our stock of frozen soft fruit and switch off the small chest freezer as one action. I have read that digital radios use more than analogue ones, so one gets left in a room where it is hardly ever used and only switched on and reprogrammed when there is a particular need. The other is my bedside radio, so maybe I ought to be looking at swapping that one out.
Any other suggestions for culprits or monitoring methods?
A