Working out power consumption

[pyrocam]

Ok one of my flatmates has this heater that looks like its just a long tube element that plugs straight into the mains. it gets red hot and he leaves this thing on 24/7 incl when hes not in the house. I went a bit apeshit at him for leaving it on and he says 'ooooh yeah I always leave it on its only 50w' which I dont really believe but I havent had a chance to look at it.

how do I work out how much a 50w element heater would use in a month.

I dont have my powerbill with me but im with mercury if anyone knows their rates.

[SixPackBack]

Ok one of my flatmates has this heater that looks like its just a long tube element that plugs straight into the mains. it gets red hot and he leaves this thing on 24/7 incl when hes not in the house. I went a bit apeshit at him for leaving it on and he says 'ooooh yeah I always leave it on its only 50w' which I dont really believe but I havent had a chance to look at it.

how do I work out how much a 50w element heater would use in a month.

I dont have my powerbill with me but im with mercury if anyone knows their rates.


Seriously dude i would be far more concerned about the fire risk.

[bungbung]

You'll be charged per 1000W/hour. A unit (about 12c depending on your plan) is leaving your 50W heater on for 20hours. 24 hours, 30 days @ 50W is 36 Units.

So maybe $4.32 (based on your 12c unit price, look at your power bill)

[kerryg]

You'll be charged per 1000W/hour. A unit (about 12c depending on your plan) is leaving your 50W heater on for 20hours. 24 hours, 30 days @ 50W is 36 Units.

So maybe $4.32 (based on your 12c unit price, look at your power bill)


A 50 watt heater? Really? I thought most heaters were measured in 100s if not thousands of watts? A 50 watt lightbulb maybe

[Ixion]

Ok one of my flatmates has this heater that looks like its just a long tube element that plugs straight into the mains. it gets red hot and he leaves this thing on 24/7 incl when hes not in the house. I went a bit apeshit at him for leaving it on and he says 'ooooh yeah I always leave it on its only 50w' which I dont really believe but I havent had a chance to look at it.

how do I work out how much a 50w element heater would use in a month.

I dont have my powerbill with me but im with mercury if anyone knows their rates.

Assuming it is 50w

(50 * 24 * 30) / 1000 equals the usage in a 30 day month . IN kWH. The cost for a kWH will be shown on your power bill. It varies by suburb (!) . Mine is 16.10 cents per kWH. So that would work out at $5.80 per month

Generically :

Consumption in watts * 24 (hrs in a day) * days / 1000 (to get kilowatts).

Watts is volts (230 ) * amps. maybe marked on the device.

[crashe]

No body needs to have a heater going 24/7.

Make you flatemate pay for most of the power bill ...
he will soon learn to turn the heater off.

There is also a risk of a fire as well.

[bungbung]

Is it a cupboard heater? they're about 50W or even less.

Isn't Hibiscus Coast somewhere warm? what is he doing with a heater on?


Ixion, 16.1c? crikey I hope your fixed daily charge is cheap cheap.

I pay (it turns out) 14.34c, but 90c per day. (incl gst) thats Genesis, in Wellington.

[Waylander]

Tell him to chuck another blanket on his bed and quit being a wimp.:finger:

[pyrocam]

yeah fire risk is the biggest one but ive got good insurance so if the fuck bruns the house down I can punch him in the face AND get all new stuff.

but yeah i just confirmed with my power company what you guys have said. im looking at about $5 a month. apparently theyre really ecconomical.

The calculation they used was:
1000 watts / wattage of appliance = hours it takes to use one unit

720 hours in a month

so lets say a 50w appliance takes 20 hours to use 1 KWH. then 720/20 = 36kWh per month = $5.1768 +gst

I pay:
58.27c per day +gst
14.38c per kwh +gst


the other thing is. the wimp has one of the smallest rooms and 2 people sleeping in there. I have 10 times the amount of glass in my room (im not exaggerating I have two walls of near solid windows) + the biggest room in the house (used to be lounge with a fireplace) and its just me and I havent used a heater in my room..... ok rant over.



Im getting really sick of having to be the person to bring this up with people though. even when other people agree with me Im the one to have to bitch to them.

[zjet]

BE WARNED

i belive my flatmate has done the same thing i don't know about the heater but its a Bar heater and my bill has hit the roof ..... normal monthly bill $90

This month $230

WTF i went app like for abit Its crazy over double my normal bill

[Racey Rider]

But!
Is the insurance company going to pay out on the fire damage when they find out a heater was left going all day unattended???

And,,
Even if they Do pay out,, Tell your flat mate, the insurance company will be coming after him to get their payout money Back if his unattended heater started the fire!! :shutup:

[vifferman]

Our last powerbill was $440 for the month.

I reckon it's all the hotwater, but the vifferbabe reckons it's all the PCs, servers, and assorted electronic crap (a couple of amps, including a genuine 300W/channel job) whirling away in the basement 24/7.

Could be those ferkin pet rats, up all hours of the night partying...

[pyrocam]

this is a pretty good guide to working out what your stuff is doing

http://www.consumer.org.nz/topic.asp?category=Appliances&subcategory=Prices%20%26%20reliability&docid=2316&topic=Appliance%20running%20costs&title=Running%20costs&contenttype=summary&bhcp=1

[jrandom]

dunno about that 50 watts eh. you should really confirm that.

what you want is to buy one of those little dick smith ammeters.

then strip a section of the power wires coming out the back of the heater, and hold the probes on them while its runing.

[madboy]

So is it seriously only a 50w heater? Jeez, I thought they were all heaps more than that... not that I care, I don't have flatmates. I have my own home, and only a partner and daughter to suck up power... but we have a wood burner with a wetback, a mate is in the demolition trade (cheap firewood) and our neighbour works for a supermarket and drops a used wooden pellet or two off each week during winter (free firewood)...

And I still have $120/month power bills during winter!! Must be the half hour showers I have :2thumbsup

[madboy]

Tell your flat mate, the insurance company will be coming after him to get their payout money Back if his unattended heater started the fire!! :shutup: Hell yeah, I work for an insurer, and I know exactly what happens when a dumbass flatmate leaves something on. If the dumbass isn't insured, your insurance company will nail his ass... If he is, then his premiums just went through the roof :)

[Biff]

Piss Over Ivy

P/I*V

P-Power
I-Current
V-Voltage

[TwoSeven]

A 50W heater uses 50W per hour. You are billed roughly between 0.15c to 0.20c per kilowat hour.

So the heater will be using 1Kw after 20 hours of constant use.

However, I've never heard of a 50W bar heater (doesnt mean they dont exist). 500W would be more reasonable. (A light bulb uses 100W), so your flatemate is trying to use half a lightbulb to heat a room. Is not going to happen. If the room has a window in it, the thermal loss will probably be greater.

I wont allow bar heaters to be used in the house. I'd certainly go ballistic of one of the flatemates went out and didnt turn off the lekky, let alone leave a heater on.

[kerryg]

[QUOTE=vifferman]Our last powerbill was $440 for the month.

[QUOTE]


Holy sshit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :shit:



C/mon Vifferman, tell the truth...you're growing dope under lights, aren't you????

[pyrocam]

lol fish and madboy
I worked at dick smith for 2 years and AA insurance as a claims handler for 2 years.
a) im not going to stick a multimeter on the mains even though you are right I should check it, and I know it wouldnt blow up as long as I didnt get one of the $30 ones and knew how to use it (dont stick it on volts and in parrallel kiddies)

b) hahah yeah that would be some sweet sweet revenge. I think he doesnt I dont know. maybe I should encourage him to leave papers over his floor etc.... no I like my stuff actually.

[Fart]

Energy and Water Consumption.

http://www.waitakere.govt.nz/AbtCit/ec/bldsus/pdf/energy/householdapps.pdf

http://www.waitakere.govt.nz/AbtCit/ec/bldsus/pdf/water/savingwtr.pdf

[Deano]

Hell yeah, I work for an insurer, and I know exactly what happens when a dumbass flatmate leaves something on. If the dumbass isn't insured, your insurance company will nail his ass... If he is, then his premiums just went through the roof :)

I thought they covered stupidity.

The insurance companies will hassle you for payment but I think they have to prove negligence, and in most cases are probably bluffing. I bet some poor fools have paid up thinking they had to. There's one born every minute.

My insurance company paid out years ago even though I got done for careless driving so what's the difference ?

[crashe]

Pyrocam - Show your flatmate the last two or three power bills.
Then show him the latest one... he gets to pay the HUGE difference.

I can't believe that some people have no idea that leaving the bar heaters running 24/7 isnt gonna UP the power bill.. and what risks they are putting everyone in.

What happens mate, when you have one too many drinks and flake out... he knocks the heater or clothes fall onto it... you are out cold... you wont know about the fire let alone smell the smoke. Same thing when you all go out to work... do you want to come home and find you have no home. He is being irresponsible.

Turn it on when you wake up to warm up and turn it off when you go out to work.
Turn it on when you get home from work to warm up the room at night and turn it off when you go to sleep.

There is no need to leave the heater running 24/7.

[Bartman10]

The radiant energy emited by a surface is 5.6697E-8 *T^4 W/M^2

If you can see the heater glowing it is at least 873 K. Assume the lenght of the bar is 500 mm and the radius 10 mm. Using these conservitive estimates, that would give you AT LEAST 517 watt, or between 6 and 8 cents per hour.

Which is between $44.50 and $60 dollars per month.

You cant argue with the physics. If you could give me the actual lenth and radius of the bar, I'll give you a better figure.

The fire risk is also serious.

[pyrocam]

Which Single bar heater of the below is 50w Pyro?? 1200 watts is the lowest.

BTW the first column is watts, then cents, then per day/hour whatever.

Maybe he should put a heated towel rail in his room.


none of them
when I was speaking to Mercury Energy the girl said she had seen them and they WERE actually really efficeint. unlike todays oil heaters pumping in 1200w to 2400w

[Beemer]

I used to work for a power company and people with new babies were the first ones to notice a huge increase in their power bills - usually caused by leaving an oil-filled heater on 24/7 - they really do chew through the power and can easily add $100 or more a month to your bill. Water heating is the highest cost - at least a third to a half of your total bill.

We're lucky - we live on a ridge so get all day sun, the house is only five years old and has good insulation and windows that actually seal properly, and we have a wetback on the fire. Dearest bill we've ever had was $112 - and then we found out it was for 58 days and not the usual 28 because they'd forgotten to send an account the month before! This month it is an estimate - $67, it's a little under, but only about $9 so it's not worth worrying about. And we have a friend with a 50 acre forestry block he's clearing - so no firewood cost either!

[TwoSeven]

Water heating is a bugger in our flat.

We have a small cylinder which is good and are on night rate. Save money you think - like bollox.

What happens is that during the day, everyone has showers and half empties the cylinder. It promptly tops itself up, but with cold water. So by 5pm the cylinder has gone cold. Then when the night-rate kicks in, we are charged for heating the entire cylinder, even tho we only used half the water.

I'm working on generating my own lekky, so one day I will create a system where we heat our own water and bugger the power companies.

Next year, I'm going to switch over to day rate and see if it makes a difference as to how much excess water heating we used.

[Brian d marge]

Ahh the joys of nuclear power.we can leave our heater and aircon on all day and night and at the end of the month its 8000 yen 1/50th of my wage approx the water is heated by gas which is even cheaper ...all in all our utillitys bill is about 60 000 a month that includes 2 internet connections, 2 mobile phone bills etc
If I remember it was called the heat light index ,,,and NZ WAS 4th ie very good ,,now who knows .....?? 40th??? 4000th ??

possibly all those CEO s who feel they are worth the markets rate ....my point there is the market rate in bunga bunga land .....or the deepest sudan is a lot less that corperate America ......

( you know I could never fathom that,,,even with my maths level ......if the company earns 10 dollars and you pay the ceo 5 dollars you only have 5 dollars left ....as in If you took Telescums gutted bird s 1 million wage and walked down to the unemployment office and said we need some labourers to dig a trench down columbo street so we can lay super fast light speed fibre optics ..to stephen house ,,,so he can watch naughtys .... you would still walk away with beer money for the boys ,,,,,)

The above is very simplistic , but is intended to draw the point ....2 many chiefs and not enough well paid indians .. ( the basics in a country should be virtually free and available to everyone ...... and I promise to give everyone a loaf of bread and a job ....

Stephen

here what you doing with that ice pick ....put it down before someone gets hurt ........:gob:

[madboy]

I thought they covered stupidity.

The insurance companies will hassle you for payment but I think they have to prove negligence, and in most cases are probably bluffing. I bet some poor fools have paid up thinking they had to. There's one born every minute.

My insurance company paid out years ago even though I got done for careless driving so what's the difference ?The caselaw I was thinking of did have an element of negligence in it, so I guess you could be right. I'm not in general insurance, so I'm only going by the highlights I hear. You are right, though, about stupidity, they do cover that. The vast majority of fire and general insurance claims are as a result of stupidity. They'd be outta business if they stopped covering that!!

I would have thought if the insurance company can prove in the case of multiple flatmates and therefore multiple contents policies, where one flatmate left the heater on that caused the fire that that flatmates insurer would be up for the claim... prob just as well I don't work in general insurance!!

[pyrocam]

The caselaw I was thinking of did have an element of negligence in it, so I guess you could be right. I'm not in general insurance, so I'm only going by the highlights I hear. You are right, though, about stupidity, they do cover that. The vast majority of fire and general insurance claims are as a result of stupidity. They'd be outta business if they stopped covering that!!

I would have thought if the insurance company can prove in the case of multiple flatmates and therefore multiple contents policies, where one flatmate left the heater on that caused the fire that that flatmates insurer would be up for the claim... prob just as well I don't work in general insurance!!


I did general.
the person at fault needs not just to be negligible but it has to be proven 'Gross negligence' so not just a slip of the mind. or thinking that his heater isnt a fire risk. but lets say. sellotaped his heater to the wall hot side facing it and left it on. thats gross. or lighting an open fire on your bed to keep you warm.