EcoRenovator - Got a question through the site about phantom power use

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Got a question through the site about phantom power use

Quote:

Help!
I'm single and conserve energy, yet my usage is 2,300 kilo for 28 days. I live in an apartment that was built in 2006. My highest usage in a similar apartment was 600 kilo in the middle of winter. I have been tracking usage daily and I use 80-90 kilo compared to the 12-16 kilo that is the daily average in 15 other apartments in my apartment complex. I use this amount without heat or air conditioning on. The electric company tested the meter and found it to be working fine. I had a renters advocate test all the appliances for usage. They found no problem. We suspected the water heater, when because when I turned the water heater breaker off the usage went down to 13 kilo per day. My landlord replaced the water heater thinking this could be the problem. No change. When I turned the main breaker off for the whole apartment for five hours, the meter did indeed stop, so its the correct meter. I tried using nothing in my apartment except for leaving the refridgerator and water hea!
ter on and I still used 69 kilo in a day. What do you recommend?

Any ideas?

If you used 69 kWh with just the water heater and refridgerator running, and the refridgerator is new, I would suspect something is wrong with the refridgerator. You could very easily test this with a killawatt. However, I would also look at lowering your water heater's temperature and insulating it with a water heater blanket.

First you should try to see if the over-consumption is a constant one or an intermittent one. 69kWh in one day is a constant 2.8kW consumption ie 1Wh consumed every 1.25s. My meter flashes every 1Wh consumed.

At home, I have a main circuit breaker and several local circuit breakers. If it's the case then you should try to disable them one after the other until the scheme disappears.

You can also disconnect everything, socket after socket, and see when the scheme disappears. If the scheme repeats when everything is unplugged then it's an hardwired appliance, I have the oven, the dish washer, a cooker and the water heater that are hardwired.

Do you have peak and off peak rates ? My water heater starts only at off peak hours : a signal is broadcasted. I can consume at most 9kW and I have 8 hours of off peak hours per day, which would be 72 kWh/day and 2,016 kWh/28days. If you have off peak hours, did the tests simulated them ?

Finally this may be someone stealing your electricity. If it's someone growing plants that make laugh... you may see a 24/7 light under the door of a neighbor's door and his apartment may be overheated.

Hope it helps...

Denis.