How much hydro??

[wantstoburnwood]

My light bill has gone up alot recently . Does anyone know how much hydro an Econoburn EB 150 consumes?

 

[hoth2oguy]

in case anyone is wondering, 'hydro' is the stuff that comes out of a wall socket in Canada.

wantstoburnwood, I don't know what the fan draws, but I would guess around 100 Watts. I am sure someone around here will give you an exact number soon.

 

[DaveBP]

I can recommend a slick device that I just found in my local hardware store. It's called a Kill-a-Watt. You plug it into a 120AC outlet and then plug your device into it. There on the digital readout will display the voltage, current, power in watts, VA, power factor, KWH total and the time over which that total has accumulated. I am having a ball with this thing. It is designed for loads that have a plug on the end of its power line, but you could temporarily wire a plug onto the end of a hardwired cable.
This is my current favorite toy.

 

[Floydian]

I was told 2.4 amps total. That includes the control, the blower and a Taco 007. This was from Hank @ Alternative Fuel Boilers.
Noah

 

[wantstoburnwood]

Chris for info only we call it the "light bill". Mine was 280.00 this month

 

[Duetech]

wantstoburnwood:
Sounds almost like electric heat. I put in an EKO40 in '06 and added $10 to the electric bill (forced draft furnace blower is included) but cut about $60 a month average in propane and stopped using an average of 140-145 gallons (US) of fuel oil in winter. Payments for the unit are $160 per month plus electric (which has gone up about 50% since the install) plus the wood and labor. My hot water is heated by the unit also so that average price savings for propane goes on all year long.

 

[RJP Electric]

$15 a month sounds about right with fan and circulator for me.

Watts x Hours per day on x days per Year ÷ 1000 (converting to kWh) x kWh Rate = Cost

 

[heaterman]

My light bill has gone up alot recently . Does anyone know how much hydro an Econoburn EB 150 consumes?

I have one operating nearby and I'll stop in and check it with an ampmeter. I have seen far more "hydro" consumption increases tied to undersized tube and oversized pumps than I have actual operation of the burner fan.

 

[wantstoburnwood]

What do you mean heaterman by undersized tube and oversized pumps?

 

[Der Fuirmeister]

$15 a month sounds about right with fan and circulator for me.

Watts x Hours per day on x days per Year ÷ 1000 (converting to kWh) x kWh Rate = Cost

When reading this web page I'm surprised by the number of folks who don't factor in the kW used when adding a pump or other device.

Yet another factor in the system design.....each additional zone pump can add $15/ mo. w/o the fan. I'd expect several pumps, fan and controllers to run $30-$50 per month.

kW usage would be zero with solar or wind, but the acquisition costs and repairs for those systems add up as well.

No free lunch..............

 

[LeonMSPT]

Uh oh....

Quite a thread on this topic I've been involved in today. Actually pretty informative...

See:

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewreply/355574/

What do you mean heaterman by undersized tube and oversized pumps?

 

[heaterman]

What do you mean heaterman by undersized tube and oversized pumps?

Well fer instance........here's a common scenario that I run into all the time around here. A system will be installed with, let's say a 250' round trip of 1" tube from the boiler to the house. Then various elbows, tees, valves and other flow impeding devices are added to the circuit in the house and on the wood boiler which further reduce the flow capability in the loop. A typical loop providing space and domestic hot water heating should be able to flow 10-13, maybe as high as 15 GPM depending on the actual heating requirements. A 1" circuit doesn't have a prayer of providing that with any "normal" low/medium amperage circulator. So, the installer selects a high head model like a 0011, 13 or 14 Taco or maybe a Grundfos 26-99 and tries to boost enough water through the tube to satisfy the demand. The reality of the situation is that with an appropriate design using 1.25" or 1.5" tube in that situation the load could have been met with a lower head circ like a 15-58 Grundfos or even a 007 Taco. The difference in amp draw between those two types of circulators can be as high as 3 times. That adds up to a substantial amount over the course of a heating season.

Let me use the system described in the post "Garn Deluxe" as an example. One of the loads connected to that particular system requires about 9 GPM at a loop length of 600' plus the additional valve and fitting loss. Using 1.5" tube on that circuit allowed the use of low head circulators which come with the corresponding low amp draw. When I checked that system with both loop circs running along with the wood boiler side, all 3 circs were only pulling 3.1 amps. Smaller bore tubing would have dictated the use of head head circs which would in this case push the amp draw to around 7-8 amps. Low restriction heating circuits and intelligent design are well worth the nominally higher initial cost in the long run.

 

[pybyr]

What do you mean heaterman by undersized tube and oversized pumps?

Well fer instance........here's a common scenario that I run into all the time around here. A system will be installed with, let's say a 250' round trip of 1" tube from the boiler to the house. Then various elbows, tees, valves and other flow impeding devices are added to the circuit in the house and on the wood boiler which further reduce the flow capability in the loop. A typical loop providing space and domestic hot water heating should be able to flow 10-13, maybe as high as 15 GPM depending on the actual heating requirements. A 1" circuit doesn't have a prayer of providing that with any "normal" low/medium amperage circulator. So, the installer selects a high head model like a 0011, 13 or 14 Taco or maybe a Grundfos 26-99 and tries to boost enough water through the tube to satisfy the demand. The reality of the situation is that with an appropriate design using 1.25" or 1.5" tube in that situation the load could have been met with a lower head circ like a 15-58 Grundfos or even a 007 Taco. The difference in amp draw between those two types of circulators can be as high as 3 times. That adds up to a substantial amount over the course of a heating season.

Let me use the system described in the post "Garn Deluxe" as an example. One of the loads connected to that particular system requires about 9 GPM at a loop length of 600' plus the additional valve and fitting loss. Using 1.5" tube on that circuit allowed the use of low head circulators which come with the corresponding low amp draw. When I checked that system with both loop circs running along with the wood boiler side, all 3 circs were only pulling 3.1 amps. Smaller bore tubing would have dictated the use of head head circs which would in this case push the amp draw to around 7-8 amps. Low restriction heating circuits and intelligent design are well worth the nominally higher initial cost in the long run.

Another factor in terms of trying to belt too many BTUS through too small a pipe is that to do so you have to push some much higher than average flow rates and velocities- and if you read some of the literature on that (Siegenthaler, etc), once you do that, then at best, you'll have an unusually noisy system,

and at worst, if you get the water flow velocities up too high, you're flirting with erosion (from the inside out) of fittings, leading to eventual failure over the long haul. between having a system out of service when you need heat, and the potential for damage from leaks, that alone is a darn good reason, beyond the energy waste (from oversized circulators) of trying to pump too much heat through too little pipe, to avoid such bad design parameters

as usual, what is cheap in the short run is not necessarily what is affordable in the long run. a former girlfriend of mine once quoted some relative of hers as having said "we're too poor to buy cheap junk" -- and I think that outlook makes a lot of sense

 

[pybyr]

My light bill has gone up alot recently . Does anyone know how much hydro an Econoburn EB 150 consumes?

Circling back to the original question that spawned this thread- I don't recall what your prior/ existing heating system was. I assume that PEI does not have piped natural gas, so probably oil, propane, or a woodstove.

Oil burners pull a significant amount of electricity between the burner head's blower motor and the ignition transformer. A gas furnace or boiler probably pulls less.

if your bill has really taken a huge leap, then, as folks are mentioning here, look at whether the circulator between your EBW 150 and your heat loads is bigger than it needs to be. also make really sure that whoever installed your unit set it all up correctly- if not, then you may have motors running when they don't need to be

 

[BrownianHeatingTech]

Oil burners pull a significant amount of electricity between the burner head's blower motor and the ignition transformer.

FYI, with a modern-type control, the igniter only runs for a short time at start-up.

In any case, electric consumption is, indeed, a cause for concern. Even the little things add up: I can’t tell how many systems I’ve seen with half a dozen 120V->24V transformers all running, just because each control has one.

In most cases, one transformer can easily power all the relays and even the zone valves (if efficient zone valves are used, rather than the power-hogs like heat motor valves).

Joe

 

[wantstoburnwood]

Well I made that trek to the hardware store yesterday and picked up an electronic energy meter. I hooked it up only to my econoburn which includes the blower fan, circulator in closed loop which only runs up to 150 f and the circ that runs between my oil boiler and wood boiler over 150 . In 24 hrs of running it took 4.56 kwh , 1.7 amps , and was running at 200 watts. At 15.8 cents per kwh it calculated .72 per 24 hr period. .72 x 30 days 21.60 for 30days .That is better than oil at .80 / liter.

 

[Der Fuirmeister]

Well I made that trek to the hardware store yesterday and picked up an electronic energy meter. I hooked it up only to my econoburn which includes the blower fan, circulator in closed loop which only runs up to 150 f and the circ that runs between my oil boiler and wood boiler over 150 . In 24 hrs of running it took 4.56 kwh , 1.7 amps , and was running at 200 watts. At 15.8 cents per kwh it calculated .72 per 24 hr period. .72 x 30 days 21.60 for 30days .That is better than oil at .80 / liter.

Do you have two or three pumps?

You might want to check for longer than 1 day.

 

[wantstoburnwood]

Well I made that trek to the hardware store yesterday and picked up an electronic energy meter. I hooked it up only to my econoburn which includes the blower fan, circulator in closed loop which only runs up to 150 f and the circ that runs between my oil boiler and wood boiler over 150 . In 24 hrs of running it took 4.56 kwh , 1.7 amps , and was running at 200 watts. At 15.8 cents per kwh it calculated .72 per 24 hr period. .72 x 30 days 21.60 for 30days .That is better than oil at .80 / liter.

Do you have two or three pumps?

You might want to check for longer than 1 day.

I have 2 pumps but only 1 runs at a time 1 below 150 and 1 above 150.