Working out Electricity Prices

[pollution]

Can anyone help me here: if a heater is 1000 Watts how much will it cost to use for an hour. Wait a moment. That's easy but my heater

has a dial that goes from zero ( off ) to 10 ( full on ). Is the consumption 50 % at eg setting 5 ? It also has a blower - what is the cost of that ?

I'm not really penny pinching, just curious.


Second point: how true are these meters we use, old style or new ? There must be 20 million in the UK. Who knows if they over or under read ?

It is a mathematical impossibility that they all work perfectly.

I have always felt that this topic is over looked in society, to the benefit of the electricity companies.

[Killiehibbie]

I've always wondered about meters. Petrol pumps need to calibrated and checked regularly but meters get installed and never checked after.

[Stubbsy90+2]

I've always wondered about meters. Petrol pumps need to calibrated and checked regularly but meters get installed and never checked after.

I know for a fact my meter is all over the shop.

Over a week recently I used 1 unit of electricity. The previous week I used something like 12. All my heating and water etc is gas so the electricity really won’t vary all that much yet according to my meter the difference was absolutely massive.

I don’t even know how you get it checked tbh.

[nonshinyfinish]

Can anyone help me here: if a heater is 1000 Watts how much will it cost to use for an hour. Wait a moment. That's easy but my heater

has a dial that goes from zero ( off ) to 10 ( full on ). Is the consumption 50 % at eg setting 5 ? It also has a blower - what is the cost of that ?

Whether the 0 to 10 setting scales linearly is something only the manufacturer will know. If you want to test it properly you need something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_A_Watt

If you have a smart meter and a display that shows 'live' usage then you could change the dial and look at the change on there, but you'd need to be sure that the rest of the house's power draw is constant at the time or your numbers will be inaccurate.

[Killiehibbie]

I know for a fact my meter is all over the shop.

Over a week recently I used 1 unit of electricity. The previous week I used something like 12. All my heating and water etc is gas so the electricity really won’t vary all that much yet according to my meter the difference was absolutely massive.

I don’t even know how you get it checked tbh.

Looks like you can request that they test your meter. If you believe gov.uk info almost all meters are within the limits.

[Stubbsy90+2]

Looks like you can request that they test your meter. If you believe gov.uk info almost all meters are within the limits.

Cheers. I’ll maybe consider it if my bills get out of hand. If it seems to be working in my favour I won’t :greengrin