So what is your vampire load?

[josefontao]

Mine stands at around .28 kWh.
Thats 202 kW per month... damn it adds up.

[sensij]

Mine stands at around .28 kWh.
Thats 202 kW per month... damn it adds up.

Huh? Do you mean your baseline load is 280 W, accounting for energy consumption of 202 kWh / mo?

My lowest load is around 185 W, or more like 205 W when we have a little fountain running in the garden. Hoping for some drought relief this year so we can run it in good conscience again.

That load mostly comes from my toys:
50 W (ethernet switch, wifi router, cable modem, RFA eagle, cell phone booster, HD Homerun prime, TWC decrypter)
xx W (HTPC + wifi router)
xx W (irrigation controller)
xx W (standby load of whatever else is plugged in)

Clearly, I haven't traced it all out.

[josefontao]

Looking at SCE's data, the lowest reading in the middle of the night, when no one is home and AC, PCs, etc, are off, is .28 kWh

I figured that comes out to 202kW per month. Or are my calculations incorrect?

[SunEagle]

Looking at SCE's data, the lowest reading in the middle of the night, when no one is home and AC, PCs, etc, are off, is .28 kWh

I figured that comes out to 202kW per month. Or are my calculations incorrect?

You have your terms incorrect.

Your vampire load is .28kw. Your monthly usage from that load is 30days x 24hours x 0.280kw = 202kWh

[azdave]

I've not gone around and measured everything in the "vampire" category but this past June (when I went on vacation) I learned my normal base load for my unoccupied home with A/C is shut off. Everything was still plugged in such as the pool pump, deep freezer, fridge, security cameras and lights, etc. Only the A/C was shut down. We have natural gas hot water so that is not a factor.

SRP provides me with some pretty good feedback on my system. 15 kWh is pretty much the low daily average. See pics. Note Usage, Generation and Net graphs specifically for June 13-23.

[bcroe]

Vampire loads

You have your terms incorrect. Your vampire load is .28kw.
Your monthly usage from that load is 30days x 24hours x 0.280kw = 202kWh

Yes it adds up, 2450 KWH a year. Mine were even more when I first settled here.

The question is, exactly what are they, and what can you do about them? I found a hundred very
small loads, most power was pure waste, doing nothing for me. I managed to get rid of about
80% of them, attacking them one by one, without any life style changes. Details on my PHOTOBUCKET.
BRUCE ROE

[MoJ]

Now I'm embarassed

I shouldn't have read this. It made me download and take a hard look at things. UGH.

Home server (24x7)
Dish DVR
Fridge
Wine fridge (130 bottle, big)
plus all of the insteon light switches
6 cameras
cable modem + multiple routers and boosters
Whole house fan (in the warm months)

Yup, it all adds up A LOT. And very little of it I would turn off unfortunately ... it looks like .68ish (kW/hour) is what SDG&E shows me in the middle of the night, so that means I'm somewhere between 380-400 kWh/month. Convenience and technology really add up. Makes it even easier to make the case to invest in solar -- YESTERDAY.

[mattwillruss]

around .8kWh with the help of Eagle Energy Gateway and PVoutput

[bcroe]

I shouldn't have read this. It made me download and take a hard look at things. UGH.

Home server (24x7)
Dish DVR
Fridge
Wine fridge (130 bottle, big)
plus all of the insteon light switches
6 cameras
cable modem + multiple routers and boosters
Whole house fan (in the warm months)

Yup, it all adds up A LOT. And very little of it I would turn off unfortunately ... it looks like .68ish (kW/hour) is what SDG&E shows me in the middle of the night, so that means I'm somewhere between 380-400 kWh/month. Convenience and technology really add up. Makes it even easier to make the case to invest in solar -- YESTERDAY.

You don't have to turn it off. I didn't turn ANYTHING "off". A lot of old stuff was replaced by the latest
energy star versions. Other things were REDESIGNED not to waste gobs of power, or to REALLY be off
when you turned them off. The big fan, hard to improve; but I wouldn't categorize it as Vampire since
its off power might really be zero. Bruce Roe

[MoJ]

You don't have to turn it off. I didn't turn ANYTHING "off". A lot of old stuff was replaced by the latest
energy star versions. Other things were REDESIGNED not to waste gobs of power, or to REALLY be off
when you turned them off. The big fan, hard to improve; but I wouldn't categorize it as Vampire since
its off power might really be zero. Bruce Roe

Bruce- totally right about that. Maximize efficiencies 1st. I've already done a lot of that, unfortunately... PCs are all energy star and use hibernation mode, the server is an EnergyStar Lenovo box w/lower power CPU (only draws about 40 watts unless I have it work on something) compared to the previous one I had that was a "regular" PC at over 200 watts. 2014-model fridge also uses less energy than it's predecessor, so I think I've done about all I can. The DISH boxes (hopper and 2 joyes, even on standby) are .06 of my .68, so almost 10% of my "vampire" load (though the hopper is recording stuff some of the time). It all definitely adds up.

[Alchete]

This topic brings up a story I have to share:

I've got a friend who has a ~$20 electric bill / month.

How he does it:

1. Has every powered accessory on a power strip that he shuts off immediately after use.
2. Doesn't use any powered phones, clocks, light switches, etc. Everything is mechanical. Corded phones only, the ones with pushbuttons.
3. No DVR. No cable actually. TV is on a power strip. I expect he shuts off his router when not on his computer. No cell phone, of course. No cameras.
4. He stopped using A/C.

So, his $20 monthly bill is comprised of his refrigerator, presumably one light to keep away total darkness, and a ceiling fan to blow hot air around his bedroom and help him sleep in the summer. And, he's become so obsessed with his electric bill that he can't/won't do anything that uses more electricity.

I kid you not. He's this thrifty with everything (I won't even describe the rest) that he has so much money sitting in the bank with no heirs, that the state will be spending all his money when he's gone.

Moderation in all things kids.

Buy LEDs and Energy Star devices, shut off lights not in use, invest in solar, and enjoy life.

[Mike90250]

Not really "vampire loads" but my baseline. It's about 200 watts

50w for the water ozone bubbler (so I don't drink raw pond water) Another
50W for the brain in the tankless water heater
20W for the hot water circ pump (water is more valuable than electric) and then
10 for the wi-fi router for power monitor
20 for the brains in 3 energy star cold food storage units
20 or so for the garage door opener
and at least another 15-20w for a dozen hardwired smoke / Co alarms
10 for the clocks in the microwave and alarm clocks/clock radios
2 laptops and 2 phone chargers - replacing lost/broken chargers is worse than couple watts

Then in the AM, the irrigation pump kicks on !
sept10BatteryPlot.jpg
sept10LoadPlot.jpg

Plots from my Combox monitor

[bcroe]

This topic brings up a story I have to share:
I've got a friend who has a ~$20 electric bill / month.
Buy LEDs and Energy Star devices, shut off lights not in use, invest in solar, and enjoy life.

I got seriously into this about 2000. I would come home from work and notice the meter disc was not
even moving. But the bill still went up when stuff started running. I dumped my ancient freezer and
fridge, and bought the most energy efficient fridge-freezer on the market, uses 1 KWH a day. Now I
racked up many electric bills under $20 in the no heat season.

After moving here, I noticed the disc was just sailing right along with nothing running, about 300W. With
a Kill-A-Watt, i tracked it down on 60 circuits. The biggest problem was those rather warm wall wart
power supplies and control transformers in the furnace, central vac, microwave, doorbell, door openers,
alarm, etc, dozens of them burning 2 to 5 watts even when they delivered no power. I was able in time to
modify or redesign or reconfigure most of these so that the standby power was between 0 and 0.1W.
A lot of small transformers got replaced by far more efficient tape wound transformers, in some cases a
single larger one replaced a group of inefficient transformers. A CO detector designed for 2 AA cells is in
fact running off rectified 3VDC. A few things were so low I did nothing, like the door radios and GFIs.
More details on my PHOTOBUCKET.

At this stage I have added some new stuff that hasn't been figured in, and several past items still
aren't "fixed". But when I decided to eliminate my house heating bill using PV, my whole electric
picture went from 3900 annual KWH to 27,000. Stray heat in the house was helping for heating
months. So not sure when I'll get back to Vampires. Bruce Roe

[Admiral Ackbar]

In my experience looking at utility data, a typical home of around 2000 Sqft (say 3 to 4 bedrooms and 2 bath plus garage) usually has a baseload of 500 watts. Now, I would expect people on this forum to be less because they're exceptionally energy efficient.

If your utility doesn't provide hourly smart meter data there is a simple method to get a rough snapshot of your house energy usage. All you need is a stopwatch and a calculator.

Go to your meter and find the spinning disk. Assuming most people have digital meters now, the digital disk might be in multiple locations. It might be a long row of dashes at the bottom of the screen. Or it might be a very small set of three dots in the left or right corner. The dots should appear left to right and then may disappear completely only to cycle around. If generating they should go right to left.

1) Take your stop watch and measure the seconds it takes for the dial to go completely around.

2) find the KH rating of your meter. It could be 7.2, 10, 12, 14.4, whatever. Different meters have different KH ratings. There should be a label that says KH and a number.

3) Use the following equation.
(3600 * KH)/(Time in seconds per revolution) = Watts

3600 is the number of seconds in an hour. KH is the conversion from seconds to watts. Time is the seconds you measured for one revolution.

Example, KH=7.2, T=40 s

(3600 * 7.2)/40 = 648 Watts

The method I listed above won't be as accurate as putting an amp probe at the breaker and doing the p=vi calculation but it will be very close. It's a quick and simple way to determine how much energy is drawn by a house at any moment. The only thing you need to watch out for is that something kicks on, like an AC, fridge, pump, or water heater, and throws off your stop watch.

Try that. Then you can start turning things on and off to see how much they actually draw in watts when running.

You can also use that to compare what your inverter says your generating and what you're actually putting on the grid.

[SunEagle]

Based on my Blue Line power monitor my base load (always on) or vampire loads are about 350 watts or about $30 / month.

I could reduce it but as of now that expense is something I can handle and it is not one of my higher priorities.