Bad LP
Minister of Fire
You can get some great deals on cords off flea bay. In fact my twist lock cord caps cost more than the 100 feet of 10-3 SJO cord.
Buying store bought extension cord is $$$
Buying store bought extension cord is $$$
I bought a roll of "used" 10-3 wire from a local electrician and put the ends I needed on it for my generator to plug into the genny disconnect panel here at the house...don't remember what I paid, but it was pennys on the dollar compared to buying a 100' cord!
Whoa whoa whoa...back up the truck here! This was NOT stolen wire...this dude is a highly reputable electrician (business owner) in the area...not a thief!The price of copper is the price of copper. The biggest cable buyers in the world do not get a discount that goes below the market price of copper.
I would never do business with that guy again, if I was you. If he is willing to steal from his other customers and/or his employer, he's probably willing to steal from you. (To say nothing of the fact that he probably sold you Romex knowing you were going to use it for an extension cord... anything you'd use to make a generator cord, like SJ, would say 10/4, not 10/3.)
To have a full run of 10/3, you'd also need to run 10/3 from the panel to a new outlet outside.
The less total cords you're plugging together the less resistance you have at the plugs, especially as they age.
Honestly if you're looking at spending $180 on extension cords and $50 on 10/3 romex, and then maybe replacing the electric splitter when it dies of being run like a gas splitter.... I'd look at buying a gas splitter.
1400 watts divided by 120 volts = 11.66 ampsI don't have the ambition to figure out how many amps that might equate to at the moment
That's an excellent way to lower your bill!Once I get enough data, I'll probably start plugging into my neighbor's outdoor outlets.
Howdy again all.
Conserving electricity has become sport to me (we're 100% electric). I bought a product called Sense, which is a device you ring-clip to your two main legs, and it uses machine learning to identify devices. Installed in January. Honestly, detection is pretty bad.
It's only detected 10 devices, but not the heat pump, even though I can see the juice it pulls. I'll try to get to a review in another post.
Turns out you can buy a smart outlet that uses wi-fi to connect to the monitor. I plugged the splitter into the smart outlet and monitored a few splits. I didn't have any serious rounds up here, but the gist of what I saw was--
Splitter idles at 675W!!
Saw a power stroke max out around 900W on my phone display.
Going into the app's "Power Meter" function I see a few sharp spikes with a 1400W scale. So for now, I'll call it a 1400W peak.
I don't have the ambition to figure out how many amps that might equate to at the moment, but will probably give it a shot later on.
I think the software that goes with the sensor will log (no pun intended) all the splitting and keep track of the cost. Once I get enough data, I'll probably start plugging into my neighbor's outdoor outlets.
Thanks.
Measure your voltage at the work site while it is under load and divide wattage by that. Voltage will dip under load, especially with long/small conductors like extension cords, or anything else that causes resistance (so if your outlet in the house is 121v, you might have 105 at the end of a 14g extension cord that is pulling 10 amps).
Heat also causes resistance. As your conductor heats up, resistance goes up more, which heats the conductor more, and so forth until something melts or the breaker goes. This is one reason to use an extension cord bigger than your wiring.)
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You'll also get more accurate info with a dumb meter on the leg in question than you will with a clamp-on device, especially one that is trying to guess current on individual runs from the service entry...
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