Any Meter Readers in the Group?

[large_time]

I am just in from 3 hours of cutting and grinding in the garage and I have 2 pictures of my electric meter (garage only) and I was wondering if someone could make sense of it.....

I am trying to calculate my electricity consumption during a few projects to forecast my expenses....

You have to click on them to make them bigger.... the dang regular link wont display the entire pic...

Thanks.

[Gamelord]

Rather than try to explain, this will be a lot easier - and most likely, much more informative.

http://www.glps.net/meterread.htm

[large_time]

Rather than try to explain, this will be a lot easier - and most likely, much more informative.

http://www.glps.net/meterread.htm

Thanks Gamelord!

That was a lot easier than I thought.....

It looks like for running my lights, compressor, computer, Plasma Table and grinder over 3 hours last night I burned in the neighborhood of 1 KW..... 0.16 Cents of off peak power cost..... That can't be right.

I way over estimated my electricity costs....

More to follow.

[Gamelord]

Another way to get a "ballpark" figure for energy costs (for a home shop) is to take your monthly bill, divide it by the amount of days that your bill was billed for (should be close to 30 days but here it can fluctuate from 29 to 33 days). That will give you your total power cost per day, then figure out how many hours you are in your shop, if you are in the shop for 4 hours, divide your daily total by 16 (I use 16 because you don't use much power while you sleep) and this will give you what your power costs are per hour (approximately), then times that total by the 4 hours you are in your shop.

This is by no way nearly as accurate as just looking at your meter, but if you are questioning what your costs are from your meter readings, this will give you something to kinda compare it against to see if you are close.

[large_time]

Good deal, thanks again!

[dgeorgester]

One full turn of the right dial would equal 10 kw.h. So this dial would be the 1s. For simplicity's sake, lets ignore it.

I'm looking at the second dial from the right. I'm assuming this is the 10s.
On the first picture it shows about 1, So 1 X 10 = 10.
On the second picture, the same dial is at about 9, so 9 x 10 = 90

90 - 10 = 80 kw.h
80 kw.h x 0.16$/kw.h = 12.80$

Hopefully I'm reading it right.

Georges

[large_time]

That makes more sense... I knew .16 cents was way too cheap!

Thanks!

[urbnsr]

To me it looks like the first picture is the "after" reading and the lower picture was taken before. The first one reads 82303 and the second one reads 82292. That would be 11KWh or $1.76 @ .16/KWh

Paul

[vmax549]

Technically you read meters right to left with the next left dial qualifying the number. I get 12kwh.

82304
82292

(;-) TP

[dgeorgester]

Vmax459 and Urbsnr are right. That would make more sense since the third dial didn't move much.

Georges

[large_time]

Good deal, Thanks guys!

Thats way better, Thanks again!