old installation query

**eagleeye** · 13-01-2011

I look after the maintainance at a small mens club I belong to and in the last comittee meeting they told me how much our electricity bill is a quarter. £900. I nearly fell off my chair. I have been asked to look into it which I did yesterday. Basically the setup is our meter and 3 phase supply is in a hall next door to us. The cu's are in our club that is about 20M away. We have 2 cu's. 1 which does the lighting and 2 hand dryers and the other which does the sockets. At the meter end we use the yellow phase. Out of the meter is 16mm tails that go into a Henley block then a 6mm T + E cable goes into an old DP MEM switch and also a 10mm T + E cable comes out of the Henley block and goes into a bigger MEM switch then both off to the cu's in the club. The 6mm cable is supplying the lighting cu and the 10mm cable is doing the sockets cu. The lighting we have in the club is made up of 45 18watt low energy lamps, 6 100 watt floursent fittings, 6 500 watt halogen security lights and a couple of picture lights. Sockets wise we have the main lump of the power being taken by 2 beer coolers (which cant be turned off), 3 beer fridges, 1 celler cooler, 2 3Kw convector heaters, 2 plasma screens, and the rest are not really used. Only for cleaner and when we have a function the Dj plugs into one socket (which can draw anything between 10 - 20 amps). I am going there again so will take some pictures and post them on here later. But in the meantime what do you think about this installation and the ammount of money its costing us per quarter ? Oh yeah and they have not have a PIR for years.

antimatter · 13-01-2011

Sounds about right for a commercial premise, using that equipment.

Take a meter reading after your next bill, compare your readings to the energy company's, if they tally, the bill is right, if they don't, further investigation is needed.

**nick611** · 13-01-2011

try an amp meter [clamp] on the tails get a rough idea of the load your pulling

**ian.settle1** · 13-01-2011

Originally Posted by nick611

try an amp meter [clamp] on the tails get a rough idea of the load your pulling

Make sure you do this when the club is busy otherwise you may get a false reading into the load.

Nothing to do with the age of the installation or whether it has not had a PIR