I think the effergy is cheaper. There may be other ones out there too. They all involve putting current transformer coils on the hot legs in the breaker box.
Average daily electricity useage
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In my quest to check if I had any well leakage i pulled the cap on the well. There was some bubble wrapped shoved in the 1st few feet of the casing. I pulled that out and could hear gurgling. Nothing noticeably leaking at the pitiless adapter. I shut the pump down and drained the system. The gurgling still was present. Put the well cap back on (left the bubble wrap out) and now it is hissing! Fairly loud to. This is with the pump still off and the system drained. I have had it off a few hours now and it's still doing it. I would have thought that it would have quit or drained out by now if it was a bad foot valve. Well pump sits at 357'
brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
~2000 sq ft, all electric except heat which is a wood furnace or wood insert stove that both have blowers running when in use. Two adults and one toddler. Two refrigerators, one is in the kitchen and one in the basement, along with one small freezer. 110' water well and gravity septic and floor drains. Some CFL and LED lights, some incandescent, one 65W dusk to dawn CFL security light. Whole house AC too.
We run 700-800 KWH/month on average summer and winter.
We run 700-800 KWH/month on average summer and winter.
maple1
Minister of Fire
We're right around 20kwh/day. Electric water heater, stove & dryer. Shallow well water pump. Used to be 5 of us here, now mostly 3.
Get an Effergy monitor, you won't regret it. Consumption guides & online calculators are usually out to lunch.
Random other stuff: set your water pump down. Ours is at 20/35. Make sure your cushion tank is pressurized properly. Its easy for a submersible to cost big bucks when its buried & you don't know how much its running. Fluorescent tube fixtures use more juice than you might think if they're on much. Check & verify how hot your water heater is heating your water. Install heat traps on the inlet & outlet, insulate all the pipes.
Get an Effergy monitor, you won't regret it. Consumption guides & online calculators are usually out to lunch.
Random other stuff: set your water pump down. Ours is at 20/35. Make sure your cushion tank is pressurized properly. Its easy for a submersible to cost big bucks when its buried & you don't know how much its running. Fluorescent tube fixtures use more juice than you might think if they're on much. Check & verify how hot your water heater is heating your water. Install heat traps on the inlet & outlet, insulate all the pipes.
Now we're getting somewhere. Your well should be silent when the pump is off. I've seen several well pipes develop leaks between the pump and the pitless adapter. This causes pump cycles when no water is being used. Also, 357 is quite deep and depending on the static water level you might have to use a lot of power for water even when everything is perfect.
Tonight, shut off the well pump breaker and note the pressure, no water to be used. In the morning the pressure should not have dropped at all unless somebody used water. If morning pressure is zero, go listen to the well and I bet the gurgling is gone.
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Maybe buy a 150$ whole house energy monitor. It will pay for itself.
I also own a clamp on ampmeter from Klein that was like 30$ but it doesn't log consumption, just gives instantaneous current.
My energy monitor is what alerted me to a rusted out check valve down on my submersible well pump. It would pump up the bladder tank, shut off and then the water would leak back down into the well. Over and over and over. When the electric usage went nuclear I went down in the basement and sat down for a bit and listened to the pump come on, go off for a little bit and kick in again.
So the well is actually blowing air. There is a vented cap on the well but the PO had it siliconed on with the vent/wire tube also siliconed up ( looked like a tube of silicone in there) . I had the pump off and system drained and it continued to blow air for 3 hours. So no change from pump on or off. I don't know a lot about wells but I would assume that if it needs vented and they had it sealed it can't be good. I did adjust my pressure switch. The tank had 30lbs and the switch was set to cut on at 38lbs. The well has a 1.5hp 7 gal/min pump. Once it kicks on it takes a little over 2 minutes to pump up.
maple1
Minister of Fire
I can hear the pump kick on from the living room. It's certainly not cycling. I'm just wondering if it wasn't straining if it should have been vented and was plugged. I'll look into the monitor.
It says it will hold 17.7 gals at 30psi bladder pressure. I figured with a 7 gal min pump , 2 min was about right?
brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
I guess I can't say for sure if it needs to be vented or not, but I bet the hissing was because of the water level rising. I know that on a commercial water well the water level can recover 10-20' when it is shut off...that air has to go somewhere...
Your pump is not blowing air but the water level in the well will rise and fall as the pump cycles which can move air if there is a vent. There is no need to accommodate this air movement with a vent because the well can only pump water and water comes in from the bottom. You don't want crap or surface water getting in to the well.
Do the test. Shut off the well pump overnight,use no water, and check for pressure loss in the morning. This is how you identify a leak.
Maybe valve off all water to the house to eliminate leaky toilet valves and the like?
I bet that water heater is gonna be a winner.
Did you plug the garage freezers into a kill-o-watt meter for a period of time, like a week?, at cold ambient temps to get a trusty kwh consumption rate?
I'll do that tonite. The pump is not blowing air the well casing is. I can put a lighter over the casing and it will blow it out. With the cap on it just whistles/hisses. That was even after the pump was off for 3 hours.
I adjusted all the toilets today and put them all 1" below the overflow. At least one of them could have been high. I did have the kill o watt on the fridges . I wrote it down several weeks ago and now I can't find it. I'll put it on there again and check. One strange thing which from what I searched is common, when the furnace is off it still energizes a transformer. Doesn't amount to much (comes out to 5.4 kwh month, .47 cents).
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The flapper could still be leaking. If you have a shutoff valve for the house, which you should, why not turn it off while you're doing the pressure tank leakdown test overnight?
I'll do that to. If they are leaking it would have to be minute. I put some food coloring in the tank and nothing showed up in the bowl.
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Totally weird. I've never seen that. I could imagine why it would suck air that fast but blowing out would be slower.
Shut the well pump off and the pressure gauge was 0 this morning. So I've got an external leak some where. Guess I better start another thread while I wait for the well guy to show up!
maple1
Minister of Fire
I would do the overnight thing again, but also valve off the inside-the-house stuff. Then if it's zero again, it's in the house. If not, it's in the ground.
Actually wouldn't need to be overnight, a couple/few hours should show a pressure drop. Long as no water was otherwise used.
Actually wouldn't need to be overnight, a couple/few hours should show a pressure drop. Long as no water was otherwise used.
I had the house valve off last night. I'm pretty sure it's not in the house unfortunately. I have access to all the plumbing and nothing is leaking and I also tested the toilets with food coloring and they aren't leaking.
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