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We had an 100% increase of power consumption last and this year.

It is mostly the night-tariff, which we now consume 27'000 kWh The day-tariff is only around 2'500 kWh.

First we thought this may be due to our new computers, but then the day tariff would need to be high too.

So the only reason could be the electrical heater and water boiler. Both of which are the same for at least the last 10 years, so it kinda doesn't make sense that it went up so much.

So my thought was, could it be that this year for example one rod in the electrical heater corroded which lead to higher resistance => More power draw?

Or do you have any other explanation?

Thanks!

Tim
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3 Answers3

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So my thought was, could it be that this year for example one rod in the electrical heater corroded which lead to higher restistance => More power draw?

No. Higher resistance will reduce current draw. Thought experiment: disconnect the heater completely to create infinite resistance. Will the power consumed increase or decrease?

It's time for an energy audit. You can start by finding your energy meter and taking hourly readings or time how long it takes for the meter in increment by one or ten units. If these are consistent then you can switch off each circuit in turn and measure the change in timing.

Alternately you can get a power analyser with voltage and current probes and take measurements and log data for each load.

Transistor
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I find it funny that some think an old electric appliance would cost more, especially after no changes , I would bet your service contract changed. My Mom signed up for one of these programs and her heating bill tripled, we changed the house over to gas except for the clothes dryer, and her kiln, now there bills are much smaller but if she forgets and runs her kiln and dryer at the same time her bills are higher than they were many years ago. I installed a time clock on the kiln about 7 years ago because mom would forget, my step dad asked me to do the same on the dryer but then it died and I piped NG and a vent and he said can we change more to gas because the change cut their electric in half.

manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
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Ed Beal
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It is a very common occurrence that an old water heater will consume higher energy for a number of possible reasons. A heating element's ceramic coating may be bad, resulting in energy going to ground (earth) inside of the water heater instead of producing heat. The Temperature / Pressure (T/P) relief valve may be leaking, so hot water is just going down the drain without you knowing about it. The heater may be full of sediment so the elements may be essentially insulated from the water, making then highly inefficient so that they end up being on LONGER than necessary to make the same amount of hot water. In that case a reading taken at any given moment would not look unusual, because it's about the length of TIME that they are energized that is showing up as an energy increase.

JRaef
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