Transformer affect on Electric Bill

[hugoroundhouse]

I got my utility bill last month and nearly had a coronary!!! I know the rates have skyrocketed here in Colorado ( I assume everywhere), but so did my electrical usage compared to last year.

One of the things different than last year is that I'm spending more time with my trains and transformers on. I use a Flyer 30B rated at 175 watts, an 8B rated at 100 watts, and a 12B rated at 250 watts. The 30B isn't on all the time.

Do you guys think operating these would have a huge effect on my bill? Or should I blame it on the clothes dryer [;)], or the TV [;)] , or my 11 year-old [;)] ?

Jim E.

[Big_Boy_4005]

If you dry your clothes with electricity, I would certainly look there. Any electrical device that develops heat, stove, oven, toaster, water heater, etc is going to be a big power user. The 11 year old doesn't help.[;)]

Don't blame it on your trains. Just because the 12B says 250 watts, doesn't mean you are using it all. That's just what it is capable of delivering. Maxed out, you are only talking the amount of a few light bulbs. Making toast might be more expensive. [swg]

Have you been doing a lot of soldering, or perhaps some arc welding?

[laz 57]

HUGO boy you must run them 24hrs a day?
I haven't noticed a big increase.
laz57

[spankybird]

Turn off two 100 watt lights when running your trains. Then you should not see any cost differance.

[Anonymous]

I seriously doubt that operating your trains is having much of an impact at all on your electric bill. There has to be something else influencing the cost--perhaps it's in large part related to the general rise in energy costs (which differs from place to place, and depending on the utility serving your area).

[Jumijo]

I doubt it as well. If you weren't running trains, you'd be watching tv or using power tools, or kitchen appliances, or reading under a light or two. I'll bet all use about the same amount of electricity.

My electric bill is going to be affected because my trains are in the basement - where the only heat is electric. I can live with that.

Jim

[Anonymous]

Sorry about your electric bill . I run my trains alot and I havent seen any increase in the bill at all.If you have a meter with a glass housing on it check the rotating wheel and see it it increases when you trains are running.I really dont believe your trains can consume so much electric to increase your bill that much.[:O]

[Big_Boy_4005]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Allan Miller

I seriously doubt that operating your trains is having much of an impact at all on your electric bill. There has to be something else influencing the cost--perhaps it's in large part related to the general rise in energy costs (which differs from place to place, and depending on the utility serving your area).

Along those lines, I have been tracking my utility bills since I built this house 5 years ago. One company provides me both gas and electricity. My usage has been fairly steady and constant, but the recent rate increases have been monsters, making a huge dent in the bottom line. (I keep seeing trains go out the window[:(])

In the last 2 months, the gas rate per ccf has gone from $0.76 to $1.22. Given the trends, I would expect to see that rate peak between $1.30 and $1.40 before backing off in February, and settling in the $0.80 to $0.90 range by summer. The hurricaine hype is definately a factor, because prior to this, the rate had never gone over $0.90.

My utility actually made me an offer to lock in a gas rate for an entire year. It was basicly a bet on the weather this winter, and the price of natural gas. After crunching the numbers, I passed. There were hidden costs insuring I would pay more.

Heating with natural gas is still cheaper than with electricity, but the day is coming when that won't be the case.

[lionelsoni]

The 30B is actually a 300-watt transformer. But even if you ran it right at full power for three hours, you would use less than a kilowatt-hour, which, at the average rate for Colorado, would cost you less than 7 cents.

[Jumijo]

There is an upside to heating with electricity - no furnace to deal with!

Why isn't solar power making a comeback? It's a free natural resource no one seems to utilize, save for those dumb lawn lights people put near their walkways.

Jim

[Buckeye Riveter]

After seeing that ad for Nationwide Insurance where the kid's robot uses a laser to blow up the garage and the car, I think that the eleven year old might be the problem. You know everything you see on TV is true. [;)]

[lionelsoni]

The light energy is free; but the equipment to turn it into electricity isn't. When that is considered, it costs several times as much as the sources we use now.

[marxalot]

We just got done pricing a small photovoltaic system that should generate around 1200 watts when activated. They are not cheap but if you live in a state that allows "net" metering you can do away with the storage batteries which saves initially and on going maintenance. With net metering you basically use all that the PV system provides and if you ever don't need that much power if will feed back out to the utility company. Here are
numbers for the referenced 200 square foot roof system:
1. Photovoltaic cell (membrane or shingles) $7,500
2. Alternator, controls & gen elec mat’l 1,500
3. Installation 2,500
4. Testing & Startup 1,000

Subtotal $12,500

5. Storage batteries $2,500
6. Battery controls & assoc elec mat’l 1,000
7. Installation 1,500
8. Testing & Startup 1,000

Subtotal $6,000

TOTAL $18,500


Jim

[cnw1995]

Jim, even here in the frigid north, where ComEd quasi-encourages this - I tried pricing this out - the recapture costs / timeline are just huge.

[waltrapp]

I think my usage goes down when I set up the layout!! [^]

I don't have the game room lights on, TV is off, etc. - just the trains and 2 room lamps.

- walt

[Anonymous]

It depends on where you live. If you are up north, the recapture costs/times are high. If you are around the Great Lakes it gets worse. Cloud clover from lake effect weather cuts into solar usage on top of the latitude effect.

Do you have Christmas decorations on the house? Check to see if the bills you were comparing were actual readings vrs "estimates". Also check the weather reports form last year to see if there is a significant difference in temperatures over the same time period.

There are a few folks with massive holiday layouts that can impact their electric bill. These are the layouts that use an entire household 15 amp circuit (or two). When they fire up, the little dial on the meter starts spinning.

[marxalot]

Doug,

I was just sharing a pretty accurate recent estimate for a given amount of power. As long as your local utility is readily available and we haven't hit Peak Oil these systems will struggle to be cost effective for a lot of applications. One good application is for the real railroads where power is not readily available for signals or communication systems. This PV system would provide power for 20 years. Some recent readings include The Long Emergency and Twilight in the Desert. Yeesh........ pretty depressing; if either is close to being accurate PV might get a boost. Now to close with a train thought... I have the Marx 666 running under the tree with three buildings up: the Girard Station, the Atlas switch tower kit (finally done!) and a cheapo cermamic building for Marsh supermarkets! We don't have a fireplace but there is something just as theraputic about having a train chugging around the tree........ I can sit for some time and just watch and enjoy! The carpeting in the family room is almost done.... so a table should hopefully arise in 2006!

Jim

[overall]

Jim E.

I have spent the last 22 years working as a engineer in the electric utility industry. I have seen complaints such as yours before. You said in your initial post that your KWH consumption has gone up. Here are some things I have seen in the past;

One time, a customer's air conditioner malfuntioned so that strip heat and the cooling were both running at the same time, working against each other. That made the consumption skyrocket.

Sometimes sediment will accumulate in the bottom of a water heater tank, causing the element to work harder. Also, both the top and bottom elements could be coming on at once. That would indicate a malfunctioning water heater thermostat.

It is unlikely, but it may be that your meter is malfunctioning. You might want to ask your utility to test it.

Some utilities, especially co-ops, have a demand charge for residences. So if you turn on several appliances at one time, the utility charges you for having the capacity in place to run all those things at once. If you run the dishwasher at one time and the clothes washer at another, you may save money.

Also, call your utility and see if they have a department that will send someone to your house and investigate your excessive consumption. Investor owned utilities many times will do that as a free service.

You said you had an eleven year door flapper living in your house. If your child plays outdoors a lot with the neighborhood kids, his coming and going will really let a lot of heat out and cold air in. Tell him to limit that, if possible.

Finally, I don't mean to alarm you but, there is an outside chance that your house wiring has a connection that has corroded and has therefore lost some of it's current carrying capacity. This situation can generate heat. Heat can lead to a FIRE. A licensed electrical contractor should help you with that.

Hope this helps,

George

[phillyreading]

Like most people tell you; transformers should not have that much effect on your electric bill. Also I suggest unplugging any transformer when not in use as I live in south Florida and experiance voltage spikes and drops from my local power company.
Lee

[brianel027]

I won't claim to be an expert here, nor do I have the electircal knowledge that some lkike Lionelsoni have. But I do know I have never been rich and when I got laid off a couple years ago things got super-duper tight for me spending-wise.

I've heard and seen some things on electric use of the news, and I do know that every little thing adds up. I use power strips for any appliances like TV's, or boom boxes. I've read that anything that has an instant start capacity is constantly using electricity... even a Sony CD player boom box, so by using the power strips, when I shut them off they are really off.

I use candelabra shaped light bulbs at 25w or less. I'm amazed at how much light I get from these bulbs. Even a candelabra 15w bulb in a night light fiture puts out a surprising amount of light with no heat problem for the fixture. I've read that shutting flourescent bulbs off and on uses more power (for the start up) than just leaving them on for a while. I have my refrigerator set at minimum cold to use less power.

Now to the trains.... at one time I was using about 7 transformers even for a small layout. Lights in buildings, etc. will very quickly max your transformer or keep it operating at full capacity. So I dropped the voltage of the bulbs I was using for these things from the standard 12-18v down to 1-6v bulbs. I was able to retire several transformers. I also operate my trains mostly on rectified DC current. Most of my locos anyways are the DC can motored type. Circuit boards have been removed in many and I run them on the DC current and find I am using less power to the track and can have more lighted carsl, though the voltage of the lights in cars and locos has had to be changed to reflect the smaller current amounts going to the track.

The few times I have had sound, command or speed control engines on my layout, the one thing that amazed me was how much more current to the track these locos took to operate.

I like the others, would doubt that the trains themselves are causing your electrical use to go up (and your bill too). Power rates are up here in NYS too... our community natural gas utility company here has been called the very worst in NYS and has been threated with state takeover. They were audited by the state and found to be in serious financial trouble. They were proposing a 60-70% increase in heating costs in the next couple months. My heat bill skyrocketed last month, and I have my heat set at 56-58 degrees and it was still higher than any month last winter.

Those utility rates are somewhat outside our immediate control as consumers. But I have found that just smart living and some small "cutbacks" or supposed "inconveniences" can help reduce your power consumption, which hopefull will help reduce your bill - or keep it from being higher than it could be.

[lionelsoni]

George, I agree with most of your comments; but I don't see how increased resistance in a load, whether the water-heater element or the wiring, could increase consumption, since current is inversely proportional to resistance.

In the case of the water heater, in particular, any heat produced would go into heating the water anyway; so the element would simply run for a greater or lesser time, controlled by the thermostat, and produce the same amount of heat energy.

High resistance in the wiring is indeed dangerous, but should decrease, not increase consumption.

[hugoroundhouse]

Thanks for all the feedback. Doesn't sound like the transformers are the culprits. As usual, it's probably some of my bad habits [banghead]

Jim E.

[Frank53]

at last count I had 39 home office items plugged in my office. Six monitors, four computers, four printers, four lamps, scanner, modem, network switches, speakers, fax machine, you name it.

My electric bill was running $315.00/month. Just being a bit more prudent, and the cooler weather has knocked it down to $230.00

WOuld love to see the south side of $200 for a change thou.

[okiechoochoo]

I am total electric. While many of my neighbors heat with gas and get 200 to 300 dollar monthly bills in the winter, I get by for about 160. At least in this state, electricity seems to be cheaper in the winter

[crip]

It can't be anymore expensive than having the boob tube on when nobodys watching it!

[tsgtbob]

I had a problem like that a few years ago. I watched the meter go like crazy, and couldn't find the culprit. I checked all of the usual suspects, Fridge, TV, no AC, so I didn't have that use in there. I have a timer on my H/W heater, and I still had an outragous usage number.
Turns out that my well pump was cycling from having a clogged intake, which was causing it to run too much. Fixed the pump. elec ues dropped by 60%

[wrmcclellan]

I have a terrible problem with my transformer affecting my CREDIT CARD BILL!

Every time I mess with the transformer it makes me buy more trains! [:D]

[overall]

QUOTE: Originally posted by lionelsoni

George, I agree with most of your comments; but I don't see how increased resistance in a load, whether the water-heater element or the wiring, could increase consumption, since current is inversely proportional to resistance.

In the case of the water heater, in particular, any heat produced would go into heating the water anyway; so the element would simply run for a greater or lesser time, controlled by the thermostat, and produce the same amount of heat energy.

High resistance in the wiring is indeed dangerous, but should decrease, not increase consumption.

Bob,

You're absolutely right. I checked into the possible water heater problem further and revised my post accordingly.

George