Is folding causing my electricity bills?
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Is folding causing my electricity bills?
I decided to help out with F@H in recent months and used to shut down my PC when I wasn't using it mostly. However now I leave it on 24/7 folding with the GPU client and I just got an electric bill of £412.53.
I've never had a bill that high, it was bad enough when it hit the £300 mark earlier in the year.
Is folding costing me this amount of money?
I only have one PC on 24/7 folding even when I'm using it for other things usually unless gaming.
Intel E8500
4GB Crucial Ballistix
2x 8800GTS G92
Asus P5Q Deluxe
I've never had a bill that high, it was bad enough when it hit the £300 mark earlier in the year.
Is folding costing me this amount of money?
I only have one PC on 24/7 folding even when I'm using it for other things usually unless gaming.
Intel E8500
4GB Crucial Ballistix
2x 8800GTS G92
Asus P5Q Deluxe
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Re: Is folding causing my electricity bills?
Keep in mind it is winter and we are all using more electricity. Though that does seem high, are you on direct debit or a meter?
I'm going to point out the obvious one, like trying difference electricity suppliers and insulating your house, especilly your loft and the hatch!!!
You can get a pulg thing from amazon that measures your electricity useage for around £10-15. i mean to get one my self some time.
Ash
I'm going to point out the obvious one, like trying difference electricity suppliers and insulating your house, especilly your loft and the hatch!!!
You can get a pulg thing from amazon that measures your electricity useage for around £10-15. i mean to get one my self some time.
Ash
Re: Is folding causing my electricity bills?
I'll point out it's a gas heated 3-bedroom bungalow, we cook with gas also and everyone is usually out in the day on weekdays. I checked other prices and tried services like uSwitch and British Gas came in cheapest. I have one of those and I've tried round the house nothing seems abnormally high. It's direct debit each month.
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I am currently folding just on the 5x GTX 460's for aprox. 70K PPD - Location: Salem. OR USA
Re: Is folding causing my electricity bills?
My I suggest that you get/borrow an inexpensive watt-meter like a kill-a-watt and measure the direct cost. As a generallity, I assume between 300-350W for that setup. Then knowing the wattage and cost of your electricity you can determine a fairly precise cost.
monthly cost = Wattage x 792 (hours/month) / 1000 (kilo Watts) x price ( per KW Hr)
My personal machine runs 330 W and my local electricity price is 7.5 cents/KWHr
my cost = 305W x 792 (hours/month) / 1000 x ( $ 0.075 KWHr) == $18.11 US
That machine has a [email protected] and two 9600GSO's
monthly cost = Wattage x 792 (hours/month) / 1000 (kilo Watts) x price ( per KW Hr)
My personal machine runs 330 W and my local electricity price is 7.5 cents/KWHr
my cost = 305W x 792 (hours/month) / 1000 x ( $ 0.075 KWHr) == $18.11 US
That machine has a [email protected] and two 9600GSO's
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Re: Is folding causing my electricity bills?
I'm with Scottish on the "Online energy saver 4" package and pay by monthly direct debit and I've just done my lastest energy bill.
In the last 81 days I've used 5,210 kW
Most of that 2.7 kW.h, is used to keep the farm going.
I pay on average 8.2p per kW.h so its costs me around £150 per month to run the farm.
My Q6600 + dual 9800GTX's only pulls 350 watts from the wall measured with a Kill-a-Watt meter.
So at 8.2p per kW.h it only costs me around £20 per month to run it.
You box should be pulling slightly less, but you may be paying a little bit more, but thats probably a fairly good guess on how much it cost to run you system.
Its not the computer thats useing all the power.
Edited it to move the decimal point into the right place ........
Luck ............
In the last 81 days I've used 5,210 kW
Most of that 2.7 kW.h, is used to keep the farm going.
I pay on average 8.2p per kW.h so its costs me around £150 per month to run the farm.
My Q6600 + dual 9800GTX's only pulls 350 watts from the wall measured with a Kill-a-Watt meter.
So at 8.2p per kW.h it only costs me around £20 per month to run it.
You box should be pulling slightly less, but you may be paying a little bit more, but thats probably a fairly good guess on how much it cost to run you system.
Its not the computer thats useing all the power.
Edited it to move the decimal point into the right place ........
Luck ............
Last edited by Tigerbiten on Tue Dec 16, 2008 1:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Is folding causing my electricity bills?
Wow, how do you get such a cheap rate? :O
I wish I could get it down to that, would probably help. Anyways, here's the bill;
http://www.dmb.me.uk/stuff/bg.jpg
All of the kitchen appliances are energy-rated as A also. The only things left on are the desktop for folding, Sky boxes and the fridge-freezer. Other stuff is knocked off when it's finished with. Only electric heater I have is on for 2 hours at night for one of my older dogs to keep warm with and it's not a 2kW hungry beast - 400w.
I wish I could get it down to that, would probably help. Anyways, here's the bill;
http://www.dmb.me.uk/stuff/bg.jpg
All of the kitchen appliances are energy-rated as A also. The only things left on are the desktop for folding, Sky boxes and the fridge-freezer. Other stuff is knocked off when it's finished with. Only electric heater I have is on for 2 hours at night for one of my older dogs to keep warm with and it's not a 2kW hungry beast - 400w.
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- Hardware configuration: Machine #1:
Intel Q9450; 2x2GB=8GB Ram; Gigabyte GA-X48-DS4 Motherboard; PC Power and Cooling Q750 PS; 2x GTX 460; Windows Server 2008 X64 (SP1).
Machine #2:
Intel Q6600; 2x2GB=4GB Ram; Gigabyte GA-X48-DS4 Motherboard; PC Power and Cooling Q750 PS; 2x GTX 460 video card; Windows 7 X64.
Machine 3:
Dell Dimension 8400, 3.2GHz P4 4x512GB Ram, Video card GTX 460, Windows 7 X32
I am currently folding just on the 5x GTX 460's for aprox. 70K PPD - Location: Salem. OR USA
Re: Is folding causing my electricity bills?
ok so your rate is 11.528p and I'll assume 330W and what it costs to fold 24x7 is aprox:
31.63 pounds/month = 330W x 792/1000 x 0.11528 x 1.05 VAT
That's the aprox the amount you can blame folding for on your electricity bill...
Just as a side note: Your electricity bill is for 84 days not a normal 30 so that is almost three months worth. Also, it appears that previous bills were actually estimates rather than taken from actual meter readings and if the estimates are off (which is likely when entering winter and heating useage increases), then when they do a real reading the bill becomes a catchup game that can distort your monthly bill.
31.63 pounds/month = 330W x 792/1000 x 0.11528 x 1.05 VAT
That's the aprox the amount you can blame folding for on your electricity bill...
Just as a side note: Your electricity bill is for 84 days not a normal 30 so that is almost three months worth. Also, it appears that previous bills were actually estimates rather than taken from actual meter readings and if the estimates are off (which is likely when entering winter and heating useage increases), then when they do a real reading the bill becomes a catchup game that can distort your monthly bill.
Last edited by P5-133XL on Tue Dec 16, 2008 1:33 am, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Is folding causing my electricity bills?
So about £94 a quarter which is a quarter of the bill. Something seems really wrong somewhere.
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Re: Is folding causing my electricity bills?
Leaving TVs, monitors, audio equipment, etc, on standby can send a bill high.
I use the obvious logic. Turn off the computer(s) and take a measurement over an hour of how much electricity you used in the peak of the day, do some calculations on it, what does it come to?
Im running two quads and a dual on SMP/Uni, all running 24/7 and i budget about £120/quarter for them.
I use the obvious logic. Turn off the computer(s) and take a measurement over an hour of how much electricity you used in the peak of the day, do some calculations on it, what does it come to?
Im running two quads and a dual on SMP/Uni, all running 24/7 and i budget about £120/quarter for them.
Re: Is folding causing my electricity bills?
Where I live (Redondo Beach, CA, USA), we have a tiered system. If you go over a certain amount, you start paying more per Kilowatt hour. I think there are 5 tiers here. I just throw an extra $50 on to my rent, so I don't get yelled at. With the tiered system, it is too hard to decide how much the energy costs. I would prefer to pay at the lowest tier rate, but somebody else might think that my electricity usage should count as the high tier.
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Re: Is folding causing my electricity bills?
One simple thing we could all do : replace all incandescent (or halogen) lamps by compact fluorescent lamps. They a bit more expensive to buy, but they last longer and uses about 80% energy less than incandescent ones.
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Re: Is folding causing my electricity bills?
Are you on an "Economy 7" meter which gives you cheap power overnight ?
If you are then put thing like your washing mashine on a time switch so it will run on cheap power.
Mines setup like that.
I'm probably paying the same rates as you, but I'm setup to make as much use of the cheaper night rate power.
Plus around 90% of the power bill is the farm.
If I shut the farm off and only ran a small computer I could get the power bill down to around £15-20 per month.
Luck ..........
If you are then put thing like your washing mashine on a time switch so it will run on cheap power.
Mines setup like that.
I'm probably paying the same rates as you, but I'm setup to make as much use of the cheaper night rate power.
Plus around 90% of the power bill is the farm.
If I shut the farm off and only ran a small computer I could get the power bill down to around £15-20 per month.
Luck ..........
Re: Is folding causing my electricity bills?
Nothing sucks electricity like an electric heater!Only electric heater I have is on for 2 hours at night for one of my older dogs to keep warm with and it's not a 2kW hungry beast - 400w.
As you might know, nobody spoils their dogs worse than we Americans, and I'm no exception!
However, have you thought of a nice thick lamb skin rug/dog bed?
While not cheap, it would pay for itself in a couple of months in comparison to an electric heater.
I know, more advice than you were really looking for, but I thought I'd throw it out anyway.
Your post is helpful in that it gets us all started thinking about how to save power/money.
Transparency and Accountability, the necessary foundation of any great endeavor!
Re: Is folding causing my electricity bills?
No I don't think we have Economy 7 but I do time the dishwasher/washing machine for late night/dawn usually. I believe there is a cheaper duel fuel tariff I can switch to which will save about £350 a year, about one bill in the scheme of thingsTigerbiten wrote:Are you on an "Economy 7" meter which gives you cheap power overnight ?
If you are then put thing like your washing mashine on a time switch so it will run on cheap power.
Mines setup like that.
I'm probably paying the same rates as you, but I'm setup to make as much use of the cheaper night rate power.
Plus around 90% of the power bill is the farm.
If I shut the farm off and only ran a small computer I could get the power bill down to around £15-20 per month.
Luck ..........
Thanks for all your comments, I'll see what I can do about getting rid of that heater even if it'll only save a few hours a day worth gotta be worth a try.
Re: Is folding causing my electricity bills?
Here in California, most people still have the old mechanical electric meters. Rates vary based on total monthly use and as I've kept adding computers to my "garden" (too small to call it a "farm") the bill has gradually moved upward. Time-of-day metering is an option but the utility company doesn't take any real steps to encourage people to switch.
You have to upgrade to a new computerized meter which costs a couple dollars a month. There are only two summer and two winter tiers but if you're already getting charged high rates due to your total monthly usage, you should compare what you're paying with the TOU rates. I can easily shift my laundry/dishwasher to nights and I don't have an Air Conditioner so I won't be running it summer days, which is when they get their "pound of flesh."
They charge more 10am to 6pm M-F. Weekends and holidays are the lower rate. Summer is higher than Winter.
You have to upgrade to a new computerized meter which costs a couple dollars a month. There are only two summer and two winter tiers but if you're already getting charged high rates due to your total monthly usage, you should compare what you're paying with the TOU rates. I can easily shift my laundry/dishwasher to nights and I don't have an Air Conditioner so I won't be running it summer days, which is when they get their "pound of flesh."
They charge more 10am to 6pm M-F. Weekends and holidays are the lower rate. Summer is higher than Winter.
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