On 6/5/06, kelsey hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Rick Carlson wrote:
> Oddly enough, no, I am not sure my neighbor isn't running up the bill.
Start digging. :)
> I bought the house used in 1980 and did not live in it for the first two
> months.
> The electric bills were $150. They have never been lower than $150 for
> the past 26 years.
Have your service upgraded. Replace your entire breaker box and make
SDG&E replace your meter. I've seen panels that draw an inordinate
amount of amperage by themselves due to bad/worn circuit breakers.
Sometimes, a defective meter can draw large amounts of current. It's not
suppossed to, but it can. Hell, I've even seen defective wiring do it.
There'll be a half-short somewhere in a wire. That occurs when the
insulation on wires becomes old/frayed/conductive and although nothing
is connected, it's drawing a lot of current (but not so much that the
breaker trips). This is a costly repair as it involves removing walls.
Let's hope that isn't the case.
Please consider the physics (or electrical engineering) of the
situation. If the wiring is drawing a lot of current with "nothing
connected" the energy has to be going somewhere, as heat. I would
expect it to start a fire rather quickly.
> In the meantime I use X10 modules everywhere to control lights when I am
> not using them and I have everything except the refrigerator turn off at
> dawn when we are at work during the day. We do laundry after 10:00 PM.
The X10 dimmers don't really cut down too terribly much on current draw.
They utilize an SCR to rapidly shut the supply on and off, which
achieves the dimming effect.
I don't think that X10 dimmers were being discussed here, just on-off switches.
carl
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carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego
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