High power usage, are computers the problem?

GotNoRice

GotNoRice

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I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of this problem for a long time. Basically we have crazy high power bills, and it just keeps getting higher. Right now we’re paying between $500 and $700 a month for power depending on if we’re using the AC or not. This is particularly frustrating because we’ve taken significant steps toward reducing our power consumption and yet it’s still gone higher. We got rid of an extra freezer in the garage – still went higher. We got a new energy efficient washer and dryer, still went higher. We havn’t used our AC for pretty much this entire last month because it’s been cool, and we still got a ~$570 bill.

I don’t really know a good way to find out exactly what is using power or not. I came up with the idea of going to our power meter with a stop watch, and measuring how long it takes for the black mark on the flat spinning metal disc to make one complete revolution – that is what these timings correspond to.

We started by taking a timing with everything on (computers and TV’s and stuff, but not the oven or the AC or anything). This was to represent “typical usage”.

Minutes:Seconds:Milliseconds (doing this with a stop watch so there is maybe ½ second margin of error)
00:12:02 – base time that is supposed to represent normal usage

Then we turned off every major device in the house (not the fridge, but basically everything with an off switch like lights, computers, tv’s)

00:35:38 – After turning off 5 computers and 3 TV’s and some random lights.

From here is where things differ. We took two sets of easurements, and they are both based on turning fuses off or on. For the first set of timings, we started from the top of the fuse box and worked our way down, taking a timing after each fuse was turned off until they were all essentially turned off.

00:37:90 – Washer/Oven/Family Room Fuse turned off
00:37:81 – Dishwasher/Garbage Disposal/cooktop (stove I guess)
01:08:47 – Kitchen/Dryer
01:30:99 – “Unmarked” (not sure what this one is for)
01:33:49 – Furnace
02:07:67 – Lights/Plugs
04:00:23 – “Downstairs”
--:--:-- – Bedrooms (it was almost not moving, so we gave up before the time was complete)

Now these first set of timings seemed like they said a lot. Turning the computers and the TV’s off (base timings) represented about a 23 second increase, but turning off the “unmarked” fuse represented a 22 second increase, turning off the lights/plugs fuse resulted in a 34 second increase, and turning off “downstairs” resulted in a 1 minute, 53 second increase. I started to think though, is it the increase in seconds that is relevant, or is it the total amount of time compared to the previous value. Like for example, Turning off the “downstairs” fuse resulted in almost a 2 minute increase, and double the previous measurement, but the initial measurement after we turned off the computers and TV’s resulted in only a 23 second increase, but that was triple the previous time (~12 seconds to ~36 seconds). So what is significant?

We then did a 2nd set of timings. This time, all the fuses were on except for the one single fuse we were testing at that moment. All the devices inside that could be turned off, were still turned off, just as they have been throughout the test. Also, this time we tested the Kitchen and Dryer, and the dishwasher/disposal and cooktop, etc separately. I guess they are on the same fuses, but each have their own sub-fuse or something like that, whatever-

00:37:54 – 00:39:03 – Base timing, all fuses on (took the time twice)
00:38:26 – Dryer
01:01:49 – Kitchen
00:47:03 – cooktop
00:34:81 – Dishwasher/Disposal (Don’t really understand how this could be lower than the base timing, but I measured it twice)
00:37:07 – Family Room/Washer
00:35:28 - Oven
00:35:58 – “Unmarked”
00:35:88 – Furnace
00:39:63 – Lights/Plugs
00:40:68 – “Downstairs”
00:48:85 – Bedrooms
00:33:58 – Timing again with all the fuses on, not sure why it was lower than the base timing, though it’s kind of hard to keep a 5 person family from turning stuff on during the hour it took to test this stuff.

Now the biggest thing that I don’t understand is how the results from the two tests are so completely different. In the first test, we saw large increases in time when we turned off the unmarked fuse, lights/plugs, and “downstairs”, yet during the 2nd test, these only represented small if not insignificant increases in time. The only thing in the 2nd test that showed a significant amount of time increase was the kitchen.

Remember, increase in time = Decrease in power usage.

After having spent a total of about 2 and a half hours on this, I seem to have more questions than answers. I know that turning off 5 computers and 3 large TV’s results in a significant decrease in power usage – duh. I also know that the kitchen uses a lot of power – duh. What I still don’t know is why we’re paying $500+ while everyone I talk to pays no more than $200, even when they have as much electric shit running in their house as we do. Was timing the flat metal disc just a stupid way to do this or what? Sigh…

Any help would be appreciated. Maybe if you guys have one of those old Westinghouse analog power meters like we do, run out there and do a quick timing and see how long it takes the flat metal disc to make one complete rotation. We got about 12 seconds with an average amount of stuff on, and about 36 seconds with most stuff turned off. Would be interesting to see how that compares to everyone else.
 
I didn't read everything you said but I'd say it is probably yoru AC system, there is a big problem, it's common that this happens. probably that a room in the house is open to the outside or the ducts are cut open to the attic or your ac is dieing... I mean it could be a number of things. but I'd check the AC out the most.

~Adam

Edit Sorry I just read... yea odd electrical problem. I'd get an electrician in there!
 
Well here's an example for my house. Say your computer has a 400w powersupply (which mine does). My computer runs 24x7 (unless I go out of town, at which point I generally power it down). Our hot tub has an 8,000w heater which runs for about 6 hours a day (at intervals) to maintain the temperature. Which uses more? Figure a house full of your standard 60-80w light bulbs. Which uses more? Your computer or a light fixture with 5-6 of these light bulbs? Combine all of your TV/AV equipment, your appliances, etc... your computer is really just a tiny percentage of your overall power usage. I seriously doubt your high power bills are a result of computers.
 
Look for an extension cord leading to your neighbor's house. And ask them if they had any weird power outages the day you did the tests.
 
webdes03 said:
I seriously doubt your high power bills are a result of computers.
Click to expand...

I don’t particularly think they do either. When we tested it, we lumped them in with the TV’s, and I’m pretty sure it was the TV’s that represented the bulk of the power consumption.

SmokeRngs said:
Look for an extension cord leading to your neighbor's house. And ask them if they had any weird power outages the day you did the tests.
Click to expand...

Are you serious?
 
GotNoRice said:
Are you serious?
Click to expand...

I had meant it as a joke but from the way you describe things, it may actually be feasible. Considering you left a circuit on and just turned off the stuff that was in the circuit and that didn't equal the same "savings" as turning the circuit off, it's possible there is something snagging power from the circuit that you don't know about.

As I said, it was meant as a joke but you may look to see if there is something else in the circuit you don't know about or didn't see.
 
Do you have records of previous electric bills? Can you compare your current usage with last year's usage? Was there a steady increase in price or did it all of a sudden jump one month? That is really weird. I don't understand how it could be so much. If you can't figure it out then you should probably get an electrician in there to track it down or call the power company to see what's up. An electrician should be able to measure how much current you are actually drawing and see if that corresponds to what the power company is charging you. I just can't imagine you are using $700 of electricity a month.
 
I'd check for any old multimedia electronic equipment you may have again. Nowadays, TVs come with the Energy Star Compliant logo. And don't quote me on this, but I think that could mean something.

...

Then again, your power bills shouldn't really be going higher I believe.
 
Holy Crap, between $500 and $700 a month!! How big is your house? There are 3 people in my house, 7 computers (2 running 24X7 the others average about 8 hours a day), everything is electric (water heater, stove, etc) exept for heat. We have outside lighting that runs all night. In the summer when the air conditioning runs all month, we get a bill of about $160. Spring and Fall the bill can drop as low as $85.


But then again, I don't live in CA.
 
I did a little more research

1. We’re on the E-1 rate schedule, which is a flat rate all year round (other rate schedules vary by season or something I guess.). I don’t know if it’s good or bad that we’re on this rate schedule

2. Last billing cycle, we used 2,884 kw/h for a total charge of $520.33, which calculates to just about $.18/kw/h. Is this a good or bad rate, is 2,884 kw/h a lot of power?

3. I clocked it tonight with the washer and dryer running, as well as most of the computers, TV’s, etc. I clocked it at around 3 seconds, compared to 12 earlier. Obviously the washer and dryer are a big part of the picture, heh

brom42 said:
How big is your house?
Click to expand...

Our home is 4 levels. That’s not the same as 4 stories though, because each level is only about half the size of the house and they are staggered to that each level is about a half a level higher than the others. It's hard to explain I guess. It's a big house, but not "very" big. I live here along with my mom, dad, and two brothers.
 
I know its a sacrifice, but you should turn off those 'grow lights' in the basement... Thats what kills ya;)

No but really, I am being blamed of the same situation, so when you do find a definate answer, ill be watching:)

Good luck,
-Brad
 
I really dont think that your computers are the problem. In my house I live with 4 other college kids and we have our 5 computers on 24/7. Plus, none of them can ever remember to turn a damn light off or their A/C (we have 5 of those too) and I think our bill hasnt ever been more than 400.
 
You should ask the electric company to come check the meter. It sounds like its BADLY out of calibration. Theres no way a family home should have an electric bill that high (unless, like Bradish said is true and you have some plants growing in the basement ;) )
 
jesus man,

Definately call the power company and get them out there right away. Something is seriously wrong in your house.

I live in Phoenix and the most my power bill has ever been is about $250. $500+ is not normal for a residential home.
 
2,884 kw/h

thats 2.88 MegaWatt hours of electricity...you running an induction furnace to melt steel?

How's the filter on you AC system?

How's the ducting? if it's busted you will be trying to cool the neighbourhood.

Change lightbulbs to compact flourecent, but don't use a dimmer with them.

Change regular bulbs to lower wattage and don't leave them on all the time.

Electric hotwater heater or gas? use water rerstrictor, take quicker showers...3 minute navy shower, #1soak & water off, #2 soap, #3 water on & rinse.

I agree you should also get the meter looked at, it is a mechanical device and can breakdown, rarely.

Also verify no one is stealing your power.

MD
 
I normally have 2 computers on 24/7. And my electricity bill only went up $5 other than the summer/warm weather increase...
 
Summoner said:
You should ask the electric company to come check the meter. It sounds like its BADLY out of calibration. Theres no way a family home should have an electric bill that high (unless, like Bradish said is true and you have some plants growing in the basement ;) )
Click to expand...

And if you aren't growing anything in your basement start cause nobody would notice the powerspike and then you would be able to pay for the high bill with no problems at all and to boot you would just be really happy and the house would smell good
 
yep, I'm in CA and my bill is only $170 a month with 3 systems on 24x7, and 2-4 more on between 4-12 hours a day.

I don't have AC tho :(
 
2.88 MW hrs of electricity a month? That's Industrial-Strength. Sounds like your meter absolutely is busted, or you have an illiterate meter-reader. I would definitely get a professional electrician out there. Even if it costs you $400, if he fixes the problem, you've saved a boatload of money. There's just NO WAY on earth that you should use anywhere near that amount of electricity. My dad works for a nuclear power plant, he'd love for you to move in next door. He needs a new car. :D

Oh- just noticed that you have a large timing differential after you start unplugging fuses. I would check the AC ducting, compressor, and unit to make sure you're not just dumping air into the atmosphere, then check those anamolies in timing, and everything on that circuit. It almost seems as if everyone in your neighborhood is running off of your meter. Seriously, anything over $200 is absolutely ridiculous. We pay like $75-85 a month during the summer. MAYBE...

So something is definitely way off. Call your power company. They'll listen, since you're a big customer. :p Check your payment method, there's sometimes a different method that is better.
 
I know this is going way off topic, but in my house, I've got the same problem, but it's gas. How do I cope with that?

Back on topic. There's no way in hell you should be paying that much for electric, and computers will never account for that much cost, unless you are hosting a supercomputer farm. My home is 3 levels, and we've got TONS of outlets, almost everything in the house in terms of appliances are electric, except the furnace, and the max we ever paid for electricity was $275.00, and that was in the peak of summer.

I suspect someone is stealing your electricity, meter is broken, or you're cooling the atmosphere, inadvertantly. Just like everyone said, call the power company and get a professional to check it out for you.
 
ajm786 said:
I know this is going way off topic, but in my house, I've got the same problem, but it's gas. How do I cope with that?
Click to expand...

Check all of your gas connections, use colored dishsoap and a paint brush, paint it on the pipe joints to see if the gas is leaking, even if it leaks to atmosphere you get billed for it.

How energy efficient is you setup?, do you change your filters (I mean ALL of them)...

I was a pipefitter BTW and it's pretty easy to find problems with the soap method...
 
We haven’t really used the AC at all this month, because it’s been really nice weather. Also, two of my computers (which are both dual processor fileservers) have been out of commission for all of last month. When the bill was still high, that is what prompted me to try and figure this out again. This is a new AC that we’ve only had for about a year or so. Before that we still never got a power bill lower than $400 or so, so I don’t think the A/C is a problem. I’ll try to have my parents call PG&E and have a guy come out here or something. If it turns out that it is a faulty meter, is there any chance we could get paid back for like the 5+ years we’ve had these insane power bills?
 
I would love to hear about why your power bill is this high. It seems like an insane amount of electricity. I think the most we have ever used was around 1200 kw/h one August. We do have a gas hot water heater and a furnace but my dad also has a work shop with some power hungry tools and we used to keep the lights on all the time. We also had 1 or 2 computers on 24/7 and a TV on quite a while. Keep us updated. It will be interesting to hear why your bill was this high.
 
Yeah, our water heater and furnace are gas also; just one more reason why this is all so stupid.
 
that's just an insane ammount of power. I have a small buisness and we were insanely busy a few months ago for about a month straight. there were several electric motors (about 15-18 hp worth) about 2000watts worth of lights, a couple computers, TV, fax, other random electric motors running intermittantly throughout the day, and a heater all running 14+ hours a day and the electric bill was under 400 bucks.
 
that's just an insane ammount of power. I have a small buisness and we were insanely busy a few months ago for about a month straight. there were several electric motors (about 20+ hp worth) about 2500watts worth of lights, a couple computers24/7, TV, fax, other random electric motors running intermittantly throughout the day, and an ac in the office all running 14+ hours a day 7 days a week and the electric bill was under 400 bucks. This is in a 3600 sq ft building
 
OK, so I got my parent’s to “authorize” me to talk to PG&E on their behalf. The results were quite… well…

Maybe I just got the bitch night-shift twit or something, but all this chick did was give me the run around. She didn’t have an answer for any of my questions like when I said that getting rid of our garage freezer and getting new energy efficient washers and dryers just caused our bill to keep going up. It was like…

Me: Is it normal for a residential household to use upwards of 3 megawatts of electricity in a 28day billing cycle?

Bitch: Well, you have to take into account the little things that use electricity also; do you have any glade plug-ins?

Me: … Glade Plug-ins?

Bitch: You said you have a 2500 square foot house, that’s a really big house.

Me: Well, the house is made of wood and drywall and those things don’t use electricity. Seems that would only affect the AC, and we haven’t used that at all lately because we’ve had cool weather.

Bitch: Well you can go on the PGE.com website and use our electricity calculator to get an idea of what you can do to save power.

- She then proceeds to go to that very same page, then ask me info in order to fill it in on her side. She kept coming back saying that it’s all about the appliances and stuff. When I told her that I’ve been hard pressed to find anyone who uses even a third the amount of power we use, she came back with some crap about how you can’t compare two different households. OK, well maybe not, but when we use 3 or more times more power than everyone else does, that is saying something. I asked her if there was anything she could do, like send someone out to check the meter or anything, and she said they “didn’t do anything like that”.

I guess I didn’t really expect them to basically just tell me “tough shit”. She kept coming back and talking about appliances this, appliances that, as if we are the only house in North America that has a refrigerator, washer machine, and dryer. Not to mention the fact that we got rid of our extra freezer, and have replaced both our washer and dryer with new energy efficient models which resulted in an increase in our bill.

I was a little pissed before, but it’s fucking war now. I mean, if this were a phone company or a cable company I would have told them to go fuck themselves a LONG fucking time ago but we don’t have any choice of what power company we use. I’m about one step short of launching Molotov cocktails into PG&E headquarters (ok, not really).

I’m going to call the California Energy Commission tomorrow and lodge an official complaint. That should be a good place to start at least.
 
It sucks that they gave you the runaround, but the direction your heading in is exactly right. Don't let those bastards brush you off when you're getting royally screwed by them it seems.
 
Dude, you are getting screwed royally!! I'm in Charlotte, NC, so I don't know the standard kw/h rate in Cali but I average $.08 kw/h. My last bill was $77 for 944kw/hours. My house is just shy of 2000sq/ft, the AC was on all the time, 2 computers running 24/7, one TV is almost always on, washer dryer run every day, I even got a big chest freezer in the garage that sucks juice 24/7. To add to this, my wife is always on my ass to turn off shit, as I always leave the TV on when I go upstairs, forget to turn off lights, yada yada. Suffice to say, I am an electricity whore and my bill is below $100.

Fight the bastards, there is more than just a billing error going on.

edit: this was all based on 32 days usage.
 
Good ol' deregulated power, thank DAVIS for that one...

Everyone together now:

"If it ain't broke, dont fuck with it."

Word to the wise...the "helpdesk" staff read a script from a book, they know fuck all about electricity and thats the truth.

You need to get a hold of the actual linemen that will come and check the meter, tell them that you think someone is stealing your power.

MD
 
If they still refuse to come out and look at the meter, take a sledge hammer to it, then they will have to come out and fix it.
 
Wow... that's most definitely a lot of power. Before I came to college I lived in a 4,000+ square foot house and there would be multiple computers and and a TV always running and the electric bill was nowhere near that high.
 
OK, the heart of your question is do computers use a lot of power. Answer is no, on average, the PC (alone) will use ~150W, about 2 lightbulbs worth of power. The monitor, it varies, a CRT will use about as much as a PC, LCD, much less.

There are multiple threads about this "issue" where parents think a computer is sucking up all the power.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=815016 (one of the better threads out there)

It was calculated that a PC running 24x7 would cost ~$6, with HIGH power costs. At most your looking at ~$30/ in PCs, add the monitors, subtract if your not running 24x7 (I doubt all 5 are) or have power save modes enabled.

None of that however, solves your problem... High bills.

I would try calling the power company back, perhaps during daytime hours and see if you can get help from them. If they give you the run-a-round ask for a supervisor.

This statement should get you a long way "OK, well maybe not, but when we use 3 or more times more power than everyone else does, that is saying something." Start by asking them what the average power usage is for your neighborhood, THEN ask why yours is 3X that amt. If they say "glade plugins" when your asking why it's 3X the amt. ask for their supervisor.

Good luck.
 
It's gotta be the Glade Plugins. I mean, really, you don't expect good smells to come for free, do you?

Really, you should have asked for that woman's supervisor. If you can't get the help you need from the first level, go up a level, until you're as high as you can go. Write letters to their customer service and send a copy to their manager. If you want action, I find that it helps to write an actual letter and send a copy to whoever's supervisor you are sending it to.

$500 is definitely pretty high for a standard household.
 
Well damn…

I picked up this thing at fry’s where you plug it into the wall and then plug whatever you want to test into it. Then I went and tested everything… Looks like under normal usage my room pulls between 800 and 1000watts. Most of that comes from my main box, which uses 200watts at idle, 300watts when both processors are at full load, and 365 when the videocard is also being used. My server uses about 200watts. Both of my receivers together use 75-100watts. My 21” Trinitron uses 113watts. The fan in my window uses 130watts (wtf). My light uses 24watts.

The entire entertainment center downstairs uses about 400watts combined. The fridge measured 50watts (wtf). Most of the CRT TV’s use about 60-80watts.

So looks like I’m screwed, lol.
 
Holy dead thread bump Batman! :D

Looks like your power consumption is a little higher than I though, but not much.You're accounting for ~672KWh (1000W=1KW*24hr=24KWh*28(days in a your example cycle) from your room. That's $120.96@ $.18/kwh out of a $500 bill. It's not all you, but you are a fair part of it.

 
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