Electric bill; what are you paying for? Amps?

Francis was mean to me
Ah, but Francis has accused me of sophistic reasoning. I am wounded to the core and demand satisfaction!

Maybe dueling...

The offended party has the choice of arms!

At the mall you occasionally get what you pay for: most of the time you get approximately what you pay for from the electric company. A device with a switch to select 240 volts or 120 volts, will typically use the same number of watts, produce the same amount of heat, and cost perhaps 1% less as the electric company saves a bit on 220/240 volts over 120. There will also be a tiny materials savings if you get your house rewired. A 240 volt device operated on 220 volts will use about 10% less watts, and produce about 10% less heat, so that is often a fair trade off.
The main advantage of 120 volts is greatly reduced probability of death from electrocution. Most very low wattage devices are more efficient at 120 volts; for medium watts such as 40 watts, it hardly matters, several thousand watt devices are better run on 220 volts or even more, but the difference is perhaps 5% until you get up to 10,000 watts or more.
A heat pump is one of the few exceptions, as it can deliver twice as much heat per watt as a portable heater. On the average there is little difference, as a central heat pump typically looses some heat to the outside, because of leaky ducts, while the portable heater often operates at about 99% efficiency. Fire hazzard with portable heaters is however higher than for central heating systems. Neil

Seriously, this has all be very informative and entertaining. I very much appreciate everyone's input!

General Tsao
PS: I'm not too lost. Really. Back in 1986 I took primer courses in both hydraulics and electricity. Fascinating, the direct comparison between the two!

For what it's worth, neil, the powerplant I used to work in had all its big (and I mean Big) motors running on 4160V on three phase. Rack out one of the circuit breakers while it's under power and you are pretty much assured of third degree burns from the arc. I was not an electrician, by the way.

Glad to help


As in many fields, the similarities are amazing. I hope your primer course steered you through the various errors in the thread and got you to where you wanted to be.

No one has pointed out that the rest of the world outside of the USA, you remember, those other countries, almost without exception use 220v as the standard Why? Efficiency.

A 220v air conditioner produces more cold air per watt than a 110v one of similar BTU size. Electric stoves in the US are 220v because trying to broil a chicken breast using 110v would take forever.

Joe( let's see, the black wire goes on the brass screw, right?) Nation

A conscience decision


It's not that the US is slow on the uptake, quite the opposite. Here is an interesting web site explaining why the US uses 110V. 110 vs 240. I've also heard it explained as a safety measure since 240 is going to pump twice the current through you as 120v, but I like the explaination in the link better.

Ol' Tom Edison was a big fan of direct current, and didn't much get along with George Westinghouse, who - with some help from Nicola Tesla - came up with the alternating current scheme. In connection with the rivalry between the two, Tom was instrumental in the adoption of the electric chair as a means of execution. He figured folks would make the connection. Despite Tom's resistance, however, George's scheme was well grounded, and its popularity surged.

Bravo...

Timberlandko wrote :



You mean Ohms' resistance!!! :wink:

Re: Electric bill; what are you paying for? Amps?

Yes the meter measures Kilowatt hours including phase angle.

Amps mutiply by Volts is watts (or power). Kilowatt is 1000 Watts.
A kilowatt hour is 1 kilowattt for one hour.


Yes

No. A 1.5 kilowatt kettle uses 1.5 kilowatts regardless of voltage. This ignores small losses due to wire resistance.
The advantage of 220 v is you get 15 A x 220 v for a 15A outlet vs 15A x 110V for a 110V outlet, or twice the power.
So I can run a 3 kilowatt kettle instead of a 1.5 Kilowatt kettle javascript:emoticon('')
Very Happy

I was told by an electrician friend to "balance my panel" to try and have an equal amount of 110v being used from either polarity of the power from the utility company through the meter. His point was that 220v draw through the meter was metered correctly, but if the draw was heavy on one side of the panel (more 110v being used on one polarity) it would equate to dumping the other side of the 110v (opposite polarity) and being charged as you were using 220v.