How to monitor/measure power consumption by floor?

[ZeferiniX]

I can't seem to find what I'm looking for on google, probably I'm not looking for the right term, I've only found solutions on monitoring appliances specific to the outlet. I don't have much background on this area so I'm having trouble on what to do either. So how do I go around this? Basically, I just want to monitor only the power consumption on the second floor (yes, including lights), get the total kilowatts then deduct that to the monthly kilowatts and observe how much power the second floor is consuming.

[klh2000]

The easiest way is to measure each decide  individually, unless you want to separate your service panel by floor, and install a power meter for that. But, unless your a licensed electrician you should do that yourself.

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, ZeferiniX said:

I can't seem to find what I'm looking for on google, probably I'm not looking for the right term, I've only found solutions on monitoring appliances specific to the outlet. I don't have much background on this area so I'm having trouble on what to do either. So how do I go around this? Basically, I just want to monitor only the power consumption on the second floor (yes, including lights), get the total kilowatts then deduct that to the monthly kilowatts and observe how much power the second floor is consuming.

Depending on how your house/building is wired up to the breaker panel, you probably can't.

 

To measure everything, including the lights, etc, you'll need to ensure the following:

1. All electrical items, outlets, lights, etc, on the 2nd floor are on ISOLATED separate circuits. If one circuit has some lights on the 2nd floor and some lights on the 1st floor because it was convenient to run the electrical wire that way, then your whole plan is bust and impossible, without the assistance of an electrician (Do not attempt this yourself unless you're an electrician, you can easily kill yourself with the voltage and amperage involved).

2. Assuming all items on the 2nd floor are on separate circuits, you'll need to wire in a Kilowatt meter (whatever brand of power meter you want, really) directly into the service panel for each circuit. You can buy more expensive units that can accept multiple circuits to measure them all, and even get "smart" units.

 

In either case, rewiring of the breaker service panel will likely be necessary, and unless you're an electrician, you should stay away from doing that.

 

If you wanted to skip the lighting and anything built directly into the circuits, you could install Power Meters into each and every outlet - I mean, that's gonna be damn expensive for the number of meters required, but it's doable (You can get Kilowatt meters for as cheap as $20 or $30 if you're lucky, but multiply that by, example, 40 outlets (or however many outlets on the 2nd floor), and you'll see how the price can jump quickly. And those $20 power meters will be dumb units like Linus and Slick use for PC Total System power consumption (It plugs into the outlet, has a plug on the front, and just displays the power used on a digital display). You can buy more expensive ones that can communicate with each other remotely and even to a central server, but you'll be spending well over $100 each.

 

The most ideal way to do it, would be to pay an electrician to install monitoring equipment into the breaker service panel, assuming most (or all) of the 2nd floor items are on their own breakers.

[ZeferiniX]

On 6/3/2016 at 10:27 PM, klh2000 said:

The easiest way is to measure each decide  individually, unless you want to separate your service panel by floor, and install a power meter for that. But, unless your a licensed electrician you should do that yourself.

 

On 6/4/2016 at 0:39 AM, dalekphalm said:

Depending on how your house/building is wired up to the breaker panel, you probably can't.

 

To measure everything, including the lights, etc, you'll need to ensure the following:

1. All electrical items, outlets, lights, etc, on the 2nd floor are on ISOLATED separate circuits. If one circuit has some lights on the 2nd floor and some lights on the 1st floor because it was convenient to run the electrical wire that way, then your whole plan is bust and impossible, without the assistance of an electrician (Do not attempt this yourself unless you're an electrician, you can easily kill yourself with the voltage and amperage involved).

2. Assuming all items on the 2nd floor are on separate circuits, you'll need to wire in a Kilowatt meter (whatever brand of power meter you want, really) directly into the service panel for each circuit. You can buy more expensive units that can accept multiple circuits to measure them all, and even get "smart" units.

 

In either case, rewiring of the breaker service panel will likely be necessary, and unless you're an electrician, you should stay away from doing that.

 

If you wanted to skip the lighting and anything built directly into the circuits, you could install Power Meters into each and every outlet - I mean, that's gonna be damn expensive for the number of meters required, but it's doable (You can get Kilowatt meters for as cheap as $20 or $30 if you're lucky, but multiply that by, example, 40 outlets (or however many outlets on the 2nd floor), and you'll see how the price can jump quickly. And those $20 power meters will be dumb units like Linus and Slick use for PC Total System power consumption (It plugs into the outlet, has a plug on the front, and just displays the power used on a digital display). You can buy more expensive ones that can communicate with each other remotely and even to a central server, but you'll be spending well over $100 each.

 

The most ideal way to do it, would be to pay an electrician to install monitoring equipment into the breaker service panel, assuming most (or all) of the 2nd floor items are on their own breakers.

I guess there's no easy way, and looking at the breaker panel, I think the circuit is as what you've said on #1. I guess the plan is busted unless I'll have to contact an electrician to proceed with the plan. #2 is too expensive for something like this, so yea. Thanks for the insights.

[dalekphalm]

7 minutes ago, ZeferiniX said:

 

I guess there's no easy way, and looking at the breaker panel, I think the circuit is as what you've said on #1. I guess the plan is busted unless I'll have to contact an electrician to proceed with the plan. #2 is too expensive for something like this, so yea. Thanks for the insights.

Are you renting out the 2nd floor of the building in question, by any chance? I'm just curious as to why you want to do this to begin with.

[ZeferiniX]

13 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Are you renting out the 2nd floor of the building in question, by any chance? I'm just curious as to why you want to do this to begin with.

Nope, we own the house. I'm just curious how much power consumption the people on first floor are consuming since there are 2 window-type aircons (not-so efficient) + few laptops + 40" TV + other gadgets compared here in the 2nd floor where there are 1 split-type inverter aircon + 1 desktop PC (total wattage as per pcpartpicker is less than 300w) + 2 laptops. The bill is pretty ridiculous and I think the 2 window-type aircons are the culprit here so I wanted to get exact figures. I live from Philippines and we have this rate atm: P9.8037/kwh ($0.21/kwh) and we're having an average bill of 6000php, more or less depends on inflation, ($129.69 as of this date's exchange rate) per month which is pretty expensive here in my country.

[dalekphalm]

9 hours ago, ZeferiniX said:

Nope, we own the house. I'm just curious how much power consumption the people on first floor are consuming since there are 2 window-type aircons (not-so efficient) + few laptops + 40" TV + other gadgets compared here in the 2nd floor where there are 1 split-type inverter aircon + 1 desktop PC (total wattage as per pcpartpicker is less than 300w) + 2 laptops. The bill is pretty ridiculous and I think the 2 window-type aircons are the culprit here so I wanted to get exact figures. I live from Philippines and we have this rate atm: P9.8037/kwh ($0.21/kwh) and we're having an average bill of 6000php, more or less depends on inflation, ($129.69 as of this date's exchange rate) per month which is pretty expensive here in my country.

The Window Aircons should be able to be measured via a Kilowatt Meter, since they probably plug into a wall outlet, yes?

 

I would definitely do an energy audit, using a Kilowatt meter. You won't be able to measure everything (ceiling lights/fans, etc), but you can measure anything plugged into the wall.

 

Frankly if you want to lower your power bill, get rid of all the air conditioners, or perhaps keep one in a central location you all agree on (The living room, for example), and make sure it's the most efficient of them. Aircons of any type suck power like mad.

 

The other thing you can do is make sure that all of the PC's have power saving settings enabled, such as turning the monitor off after say, 15 minutes of idle, and putting the computer to sleep after say, 20 minutes of idle, and training everyone to get into the habit of turning off their computers at night.

 

What kind of 40" TV is it? If it's an LED LCD TV, then it really doesn't use that much power. CCFL LCD TV's (Generally advertised as simply "LCD") use a bit more power, and Plasma TV's use by far the most power out of modern flatscreens.

 

Get people into the habit of turning off lights when they leave a room, and not using lights during the day when possible (Eg: Open the curtains and let natural sunlight light the room).

 

But really, you should buy a Kilowatt Meter and actually go device by device to find out what devices are actually using the most power.

[ZeferiniX]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

The Window Aircons should be able to be measured via a Kilowatt Meter, since they probably plug into a wall outlet, yes?

 

I would definitely do an energy audit, using a Kilowatt meter. You won't be able to measure everything (ceiling lights/fans, etc), but you can measure anything plugged into the wall.

 

Frankly if you want to lower your power bill, get rid of all the air conditioners, or perhaps keep one in a central location you all agree on (The living room, for example), and make sure it's the most efficient of them. Aircons of any type suck power like mad.

 

The other thing you can do is make sure that all of the PC's have power saving settings enabled, such as turning the monitor off after say, 15 minutes of idle, and putting the computer to sleep after say, 20 minutes of idle, and training everyone to get into the habit of turning off their computers at night.

 

What kind of 40" TV is it? If it's an LED LCD TV, then it really doesn't use that much power. CCFL LCD TV's (Generally advertised as simply "LCD") use a bit more power, and Plasma TV's use by far the most power out of modern flatscreens.

 

Get people into the habit of turning off lights when they leave a room, and not using lights during the day when possible (Eg: Open the curtains and let natural sunlight light the room).

 

But really, you should buy a Kilowatt Meter and actually go device by device to find out what devices are actually using the most power.

I think it was a LED LCD TV from Samsung if I recall correctly. I'll give it a shot.