WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-03-15 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
City Power here in Johannesburg have been running around ripping out the old boxes where our electricity meters are and installing new ones! They’ve been doing it all over my suburb.
I liked the original 40(43)+ year old boxes because my one neighbour had showed me how to open them. If you kicked it right it would open and you could see all the meters. I found them very useful for some of my power experiments.
So unfortunately, I cannot tell you my final conclusions regarding geysers. There may be some evidence that switching off a geyser for periods of half a day or less (at a time), MIGHT save a LITTLE BIT OF ENERGY. The Govt and Eskom claim that switching off geysers saves a LOT OF ENERGY. That’s bull. It saves Eskom energy during peak hours – yes – but when you switch your geyser on, it USES EVEN MORE ENERGY TO HEAT THE WATER BACK UP! Switching the geyser off for longer than 24 hours at a time is not a good idea.
My own experiments confirm what my electrician told me. My electrician said: If you go away for longer than 3 days at a time – switch your geyser off. I will concur with that 100%. Switching off a geyser, even for a weekend, does not save you power. It uses more power to heat up the water.
It is possible that switching off the geyser for periods of 12 hours at a time or less MIGHT SAVE A LITTLE BIT OF POWER. But its not much folks.
I think I have found other ways of saving more power – also not much – but definitely proveable.
A friend of mine told me that in Britain they complained about all these little devices that use power all the time – even in sleep mode. He said it might add up to quite a bit. This is partially true.
In my office at home I have my PC and many other devices linked to it. I wanted to measure their power usage for when I connect up my generator – so I did some experiments and the result is interesting. Note, I have lots of devices – so its more than the average person would have, so in my case it is a bit extreme.
If I switch my PC off, and just leave the devices with their little lights shining… then, to my amazement, all my devices are using 83 watts an hour!! (Consider that these energy saving light bulbs are using only 15 watts an hour). I was completely shocked by that. Consider that I leave them on 24/7. I quickly calculated that that is causing me to use 2kwh per day or 60kwh per month! These “inert” devices in my office alone are chewing between 5-10% of my monthly consumption of electricity!!
For interest’s sake, I established the wattage used by some devices:-
My printer uses only 7.6 watts. But, the printer uses it, even if it is doing nothing!
My Scanner, which runs via the USB cable, uses: 25.5 watts.
Then I turned to my TV, video, DVD and Decoders.
When all devices are switched off – but their lights are flickering – they are using 39 watts! Again, it is 24/7 and works out as: 0.9kwh per day or 28kwh per month.
So all these “inert” devices in my office and lounge are responsible for 10% of my monthly power consumption!!
My TV only uses 80 watts when it is switched on.
My video seems to only use 3.5 watts (I can’t quite believe that)
My DVD seems to use 2 watts (I also can’t believe that).
What does use watts quite a bit are those decoders. You can feel the heat on your DSTV decoder. It gets pretty hot. It chews about: 18.5 watts.
Interestingly, the old analogue MNET decoder only uses: 7 watts.
But your DSTV decoder will use about 13.3 kwh of energy per month.
NB: My experiments with the devices are not that accurate. What I did was I plugged them all into one adapter, and then measured the total current drawn by them as a whole. So my measurements are based on the differences obtained by switching them on and off. So regard some of these measurements as mere estimates.
When my TV and Video recorder are both on, they only use 88 watts of power. So they’re not that power hungry.
I don’t know about these big flat screen TVs.
So for me, I can save quite a bit of energy just by switching off all the items in my office when I’m not home. I must admit, I had not realised how much power those items used. I thought they used very tiny amounts of power. They’re not exactly power hungry, but if you leave them on 24/7 then yes, it will all add up.
I actually think you will probably find yourself saving more power by unplugging your DSTV decoder than you will by switching your geyser on and off.
I am quite bummed out now that I will have no way of reading my own electricity meter again. The way City Power put in the new meters and locked them, I don’t see how it is possible.
So far, the only proven way I think that one can save power with a geyser is to go solar. But that to me is too expensive to be worthwhile – unless one of our regulars like Grazy can show us how to do it.
They do say that electricity costs will probably double within 4 years and will continue to rise thereafter. In time we will be paying much more for electricity. Of course the black free-loaders in the townships will be subsidised by you and me. In reality we’re not paying for our own usage. On average in this country, if you pay tax you’re supporting about 4 other people. So if you have a family of say 2, then you and your spouse are probably indirectly paying the bills for 4 x 4 = 16 black free loaders!
The less we pay Eskom the better. Then the Govt must find other ways of paying the black free loaders!!
If only we could generate our own electricity so that we don’t have to pay Eskom at all – that would be even better.
It brings me back to the whole White country idea. Currently, we have to generate electricity for (officially) 47 million people but in reality there are probably 60 million here given all the blacks fleeing here from Africa. However, we whites, only number 4.2 million and we’re paying for the electricity of most of the remainder. Imagine if we only had to take care of only ourselves! It would be a piece of cake.
But in this country, with its ever increasing emphasis on socialism, you and I are supporting ever larger quantities of black parasites.
Eskom says that when the rolling blackouts begin they will continue until July. Some people are going to have a nasty cold winter.
I stopped using heaters some years ago. There was always a question in our household as to whether heaters are good for your health. After going through alternate winters with and without heaters – I concluded that the dry air is bad for you and makes you sick more often. If one had nice heating like they have overseas with under-floor heating – then yes, heating works and I doubt it makes you sick. But the silly heaters we use dry out the air which is already too dry. Some heaters are worse than others. Oil heaters I think are not bad.
Note: If you blow your nose and dried blood comes out of it, that is also a sign that the air is too dry. I learned that from my ENT specialist. In Johannesburg that is common. You can counter it though by making your own saline solution and spraying it into your nose.
So the air is already too dry, and then we’re drying it out even more.
When I stopped using heaters in winter I found I became sick less often. So now I don’t use any form of heating at all in winter.