The steamer paddle is about the size of an A4 piece of paper and you need a good 30-40s application for the steam to get in behind the scores and allow you to work it off. Even at that it needs quite a bit of scrapping to totally remove the paper. Laura was doing the work but she seemed to be working at an acceptable pace and it took her most of 2 hours to strip the back wall of one of our built in wardrobes.

The steamer definately wasn't on for more than 2 hours. I think I'm going to have to get the meter checked even though its an £80 bill if they find it to be ok. I raised the issue of my potentially gammie meter HERE but this thread is causing me to have a rethink. In that thread I experimented by turning everything in the flat off with the exception of a 2200 watt kettle and I monitored the meter running whilst the kettle was on. By my calculations it was using the correct amount of electricity so I reluctantly accepted I'd somehow racked up these bills.

Perhaps there is a load consideration here? Maybe when several things are running at once the meter screws up? In my experiment I took my readings from the rotation of the metal disk - perhaps these rotations don't equate correctly with the numbers although I'd have thought they would be on a fixed gearing? I think this case needs to be re-opened. At $0.08p per KW/h my girlfriend and I spent £2.64 on a fairly normal day!! For 2 hours the steamer should have only cost £0.36 of that!

 

You'll find that the chavs living next door to you will have taken a tap from your supply to run the lights for their grass plants

That's what most folk do ........... isn't it ;o)

 

You could just make your house open plan, smash every woodchip covered wall down :-) How did the **** did woodchip paper come about anyway ?

SBK

 

oi
i do those jokes !!!


me thinks the calculations are way off and anyway, wouldnt it have been better knocking one off with your wife

 

I ENJOY being a stats geek

Hense Job title -

"Management Information Analyst"

 

AKA Missing In Action..........

 

 

Your are overlooking the laws of physics though
Yer stats are way oot sonny

 

PS I cannae believe you've not called the leccy board in to check the meter. That thread from before was AGES ago, and yet you're still paying out a fortune on leccy bills....

For one so fiscally aware, this seems an oversight.

 

You are having a fecking larf!! 30-40 applications for an area the size of an A4 sheet?!?!!! Never heard anything like it.

Stick to poker, not DIY

 

Thats 30-40s you know seconds!! Not applications.

The bills are within the realms of 'possible' so difficult to contenst without some solid proof. I intend to run a series of tests to try and get that proof.

 

My humble apologies.
I didn't see the 's'

 

If it was 30-40 applications I'd just move house

 

Another tip - get a sponge and water down the wall lightly and leave for a while.

140 hours just sounds too long to strip a flat though. With practice, you'll be ripping it off in no time. Don't think it'll take you this long in reality.

Last time, I did 10 rooms in 3 days....with about 3-4 layers of wallpaper. Only worked during the day, so can only have been 24 man hours (8 hours x 3 days). Worst thing was the previous owner was a heavy smoker so ceilings were caked in nicotine - ie, paper was probably white, but was dark brown in colour now....taking the ceiling paper off was really really messy.

 

Did we ever find out if one can get their meter tested?

If you used 23kWh more on the day you used your steamer, and the steamer was on for nowhere near 10 hours, then I'd be asking Scottish Power (or whoever controls meters now) to come and take a look ASAP.

 

Sheesh....I should read threads completely.

So...you used a 2.3Kw steamer for 2 hours, and your meter said you used 23KwH more than a normal day.

I'd now be phoning Scottish Power first thing tmmrw!! Your steamer is not capable of drawing 11.5kW safely through your ring circuit.

 

PS Just read my DIY book.

On this 'meter' matter, it says to contact your leccy company, and they will send someone round to check the meter. If still not satisfied, they usually install a 2nd meter alongside to check for discrepancy.

I'd say go for it.

 

They confirmed they will happily send an engineer round but if the meter is found to be accurate they want 80 sheets for their time! I'm therefore not inclined to call them round until I'm absolutely sure.

 

But by your calculations you've already paid more than that in overcharged leccy!

 

...how sure do you need to be?!

You used a 2.3kW steamer for 2 hours, and MEASURED it yourself to be 23kWh up on the day!! That's FIVE times more than you should have used.

 

We got a fair chunk back when they realised they had been charging both meters at the day rate. I still think the day rate meter is wrong though so will check after this poker session

 

Ok, I’ve done a few experiments tonight and the results are as follows:

The metre says it has 166.6 turns per 1KW/H. When I turned absolutely everything in the flat off the disk stopped spinning. I then turned on a 2200 Watt kettle and a 2300 Watt steamer, which should have a drain of 4500 Watts.

I counted the disk at 13.5 revolutions in a 60 second period.

166.6/13.5 = 12.34 minutes per KW/H

So what would it cost at the day rate of £0.0975p to run those appliances for 10 hours:

0.0975p/12.34x60 gives us an hourly rate and times 10 = £4.74p

In theory with just those appliances on they should use 4.5KW/H or 45 units in 10 hours which at £0.0975p is £4.38.

The difference between a calculated and measured load of 4500 Watts is £0.36p for 10 hours use. Is this within acceptable tolerance? I make it at approximately 7.6% too much.

On our last 3-month bill we used 1103 day rate units during a 3 month period at a cost of £107.54. Applying a 7.6% reduction to that our true bill would be £99.36 – is that worth arguing about??

This is why it sucks as I’d really like an engineer out to give me piece of mind but if he finds the machine acceptable we have to pay a further £80 for the privilege! It might be easier to just freeze over the winter

 

Tonight's calculations seem to suggest that your meter isn't too way off.......5% here, 7% there.....

However :
If you really did nothing else that day, and ONLY had the steamer on for 2 hours, this anomoly is a whopping 500%!!!! Are you TRULY sure you used an extra 23kWh that day? Did you forget about the cannabis plantation in the spare room????

Also, a 3 month bill of £107 sounds about right. So nothing appears to be grossly wrong.......aside from these mysterious 23kWh from the other day.

 

I just can't account for that day - I was off with the ****s so didn't even bother getting out of bed till 12 and didn't shower at all . Laura had her shower and went to work as per usual. I made no food all day as I can't hold it down and spent most of the day at the computer checking out ****/scoobynet or sleeping. Even with the two monitors the drain of the computers is low. I had one or two lights on, no heating, no TV and no high drain appliances. Laura came home and cooked tea for herself which involved two rings and the oven and then she watched a few hours of TV before doing 2 hours of steaming. I can only assume that the boiler was left on for the dishes by mistake or a hob because there must have been quite a lot of high drain activity to produce that useage!

 

Quite.
So your ring was red hot all day, and she came in steaming....

No point in being a stat-meister if your basic data is uncertain

 

PS You always do far too many calcs to get to your end result.....you don't need to bring the monetary factor into the calculation.....I deduce that's a 80% inefficiency in your mathematic ability

13.5 rpm * 60mins = 810 rph
810rph/166rph = 4.86kWh.

4.86kWh/4.5kWh = 108%.

 

I perfered an examination of 'how much it costs' me

 

....besides there are many ways to skin a cat

 

Of course.

However, I'm still unsure "why being a stats geek can be useful" when you've done all this analysis, and disproven your original 'useful analysis'

The original stats have not been useful at all.....hehe

 

Meh