metering electric usage

[Fred Perreault]

I feed my wood shop's 100 amp service from the main house's 200 amp service (about 90 ft). I also feed the 100 amp service to the 2 car garage with studio apt. above the same way (about 60 ft.) I was wondering if there is any way to meter the electricity usage at these two accessory buildings? Are there aftermarket meters or something that an electrician can install, or will the power company do such stuff? thanks......

[Mike Lassiter]

for your local electric service to do it would require separate electric meters at each location, which would mean complete electric services for each one. Here if you have more than one electric meter in your name they consider 1 (residence) to be residential service and all others "commercial" meaning you pay higher commercial rates on electric usage. We have our shop on a separate meter and have underground electric service coming from the pole in our back yard with transformer that our house service is connected to.

Perhaps something you could have installed at the 2 locations other than home, but I am unaware of anything other than having each one with it's own meter and as a separate account. It would likely cost a lot to have them changed and either have above ground wiring or underground wiring ran to each by the electric company.

[Curt Harms]

I feed my wood shop's 100 amp service from the main house's 200 amp service (about 90 ft). I also feed the 100 amp service to the 2 car garage with studio apt. above the same way (about 60 ft.) I was wondering if there is any way to meter the electricity usage at these two accessory buildings? Are there aftermarket meters or something that an electrician can install, or will the power company do such stuff? thanks......

I'm not an electrician and don't play one on TV. :) If you don't need 'official'/billable measurements would something like this found on Ebay work?

301125

eBay item number: 190829979037 Buy it now $29.99. You'd still need the socket and associated wiring. They have digital inline-type meters from China but I'm not sure how far those could be trusted to not fail in a spectacular way.

[Joe Pelonio]

You can measure individual plug-in tools using an inexpensive device called Kill-a-watt. Less than $20 at Amazon. I have one and used it to determine the cost of electricity for determining overhead costs for the laser. Unfortunately with only one, you have to do one item at a time. It plugs into the wall, then the tool plugs into it. You can buy a meter for each building but it should be installed by a licensed electrician. We use a lot of these at work, to submeter tenant buildings but they are certified for billing and cost over $600 each.

http://www.emon.com/techspecs/ecc_owneroccupiedt%20flyer_COMPLETE.pdf

[Ryan Mooney]

http://www.theenergydetective.com we used a prerelease variant of this for a while, worked pretty well, not sure on the month-month cost nowadays.

A homebrew solution: http://m.instructables.com/id/Real-time-Web-Based-Household-Power-Usage-Monitor/

Some more ideas here: http://www.homepower.com/articles/home-efficiency/electricity/tracking-your-energy-use

Try searching for "house electricity usage monitoring"

[Fred Perreault]

Thanks for the responses... I had time late today to research the issue, and there are mfg's that produce electronic devices that do "submetering". There are expensive units, and much less expensive units ($150-250) and even has software to fiddle with the data created. And then there are units that send the data remotely, etc. Most of the less expensive ones can be installed by laying the feed wires in the unit and then running screws into the insulation to provide contact. Others require cutting the wires and making connections that seem better. It appears that submetering is big business, residentially and commercially and across large enterprises. The claim is that the electrician can install these units rather easily.... I might be able to place them in-line right after the cable runs out of the 200 amp panel. The units are sized according to the kind of service being monitored.... amps, phase, multi- voltage, etc. Leviton is about the biggest mfg. in the space.

[Brian Deakin]

I live in the United kingdom and as part of the package from our energy supplier I recieved a wireless electricity meter

The meter works in the folowing way A sensor is clamped to the electricity supply near the meter and a monitor with a readout is placed into an outlet in the house You then set the cost of the electricty per kliowatt The meter then diplays in real time electricity usage and cost

This method would allow you to monitor usage of individual tools, lighting/ heating by comparing the reading with the appliances switched on and off

Please see link below of a possible solution

http://www.amazon.com/Efergy-Elite-Wireless-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B003XOXU02/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1417603649&sr=8-4&keywords=electricity+mon

(This could be used to monitor cost of any electical source (eg house lights which do not have plug) and see amazon reviews /info

http://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electricity-Usage-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417602853&sr=8-1&keywords=electricity+monitor

(can only be used for electricity souce with plug)

You may need to look at other products before reaching a conclusion (Nb The products above I have no knowledge of and were the first on I found on the internet I also live in the UK not the USA)

regards Brian

[Steve Peterson]

I guess the switchover to smart meters has put a lot of the old analog meters on the market. There were many complaints of higher electric bills when the new meters were installed. The speculation is that the old meters always erred on the conservative side, while the new meters were properly measuring the real electric usage. An analog meter might read a few percent low.

I believe that the old meters require 240V. I had one years ago that would not record any current with only 120V.

Steve