how much electricity should my system use?

my landlord was quizzing me about a rather scary £750 electricity bill for a 3month period. Given that most appliances (hob, boiler) are gas that means that someone had the oven on for a long time or the electricity board made a mistake...
or that my systems using up f*** loads of eleccy!!

its a 175w power amp
pre amp
cd player

then a p4 2.8ghz pc with a tft monitor. The pc has a 450W psu.

the hifi is left on all the time, but only playing for around 3 hours a day at around 1/6th volume if that makes any sense. the pc is on for around 4 hours a day.

the instruction manuals dont' give power consumption figures

any ideas on how much in electricity this lot should cost to run?

thanks

 

The hifi will have a negligible cost factor.

If the bill was just for you then something is wrong, probably the immersion heater.

I have Power Mac, 23inch Screen, Naim Hifi, washing Machine, Fridge and Freezer, TV, Oven, Immersion Heater, lots of lights and our bill is £44 a month.

Tell your land lord to look else where.

 

no the bill wasn't just for me. but one housemate has a digital piano, laptop and the other just has a telly. No immersion heater. Theres obviously washing machine, fridge freezer, kettle etc too but reassuring to know that your bill is considerably lower than mine per quarter.

 

Something clearly amiss...

I moved in to my house at beginning of february, and have used less than £80 worth of electrickery since then. That's with PC (formerly 350W psu, now 460W), twin 21" CRT monitors, hifi, oven, lights, etc...

However, if your contract says that bills are included and there's no reasonable use clause then there's not a lot your landlord can do. I'd take a look at the meter and take a few readings of your own to see what your rate of use is. Use an approximation of 10p/kWh.... £750 suggests you'd need to have used 7500 kWh. That means 2500kWh per month, which means you're running a continuous 4kW which is just not going to happen. That would mean running your kettle and a fan heater on full the whole time.

Your computer will take perhaps 300W on a bad day, hifi will idle around 25-50W and in use maybe up to 100W if you turn the wick up.

 

Hmmm, something is wrong with that bill!
Either the electricity board have put in an ambitious estimate or, previous customer readings were equally ambitious, or your cooker has been heating the property, or one of your flatmates has put in some Son-T's in the loft!
:JPS:

 

How about getting one of the plug-in power meters such as this from Maplins?

 

Lord LOL, that could be it.

Perhaps with the cold weather each of you guys had 2KW heaters running all the time. That would do it.

 

That is one interesting geeky toy. Do you have one? I might just go and get one as I always wonder how much my hobby actually contributes to the annual electricity bill and see if my assumption of around 10% remotely accurate.

I wonder what would your landlord think if you could measure the actual amount of energy used as I also think your hifi and computer should not be the reason for the £750 in 3 months. That is more then my annual bill.

 

Unless you have 5 Master Series Krell amps on 24hours a day it is impossible.

Check the immersion heater. If the overflow is damp there couldbe a fault with that, that is the only thing that could possibly use that much apart from a faulty fridge or a HUGE vibrator.

 

Got it today. Interesting but confirmed my previous estimate.

My 3 box system on idle uses 131W. In a year it would consume 1147.6kWh but depending on your supplier if the tariff is a bit higher say 8p/kWh that would be £91.80 a year. With white meter tariff ours average out 5p/kWh.

Power in use is 300W average. Therefore used 4 hours everyday mine cost £21.90 to run in a year (and turn everything off the rest of the time).

 

I bet running 5 Master Series Krell's would make a huge vibrator redundant!

 

Have you acctually seen the bill from the power company ? If not demand to see it ...IF yes was it an estimate or an actual meter reading ?

Any thing left on will of course use power ....but its heating elements plus 1kw fridges and freezers. The Hifi and computer are going to be in the tens of pennies per week range.

If nobody seems to be a high user....contact the Electricity provider as they may of course be a fault somewhere.

 

Definitely something wrong there...I have a set of Krell KMAs(at 800W plus each) and other assorted amps,plus 3 kids,PCs galore,and a wife who insists on leaving all of the lights in the house on,and our quarterly bill is nowhere near that.

You need to see the bill,and have the Electricity provider check the bill and the consumer unit.

 

A modern domestic fridge or freezer won't use more than 200kWh per year, so 50 in a quarter, which is £5 at most.

 

I live by myself, and I leave my system on all the time and with other appliances my electric key totals 20 pounds per month...