ENERGY MATTERS

[plaques]

Think power factor Stanley. The best LED's are about .9 but some are down to .3. I'll leave Pluggy to crunch a few numbers for you.

[Pluggy]

Plaques has it. AC electric has this thing called power factor, The difference between real power measured in Watts or Kilowatts and apparent power which is amps * volts (VA or kVA). Cheap LED lamps can have an appalling power factor where they use lots of VA but not a lot of watts. The VA has to be generated but the bit that isn't used as real power is 'reflected' back at the generator and is not charged for. Smart meters (or any modernish meter) can be made to meter by VA rather than Watts. So you have 36 watts of LED lighting with a bad power factor of say 0.3 (they could theoretically be a lot worse than 0.3 but we'll work with 0.3) it would consume about 120 VA which if you're being charged for is not good. If you buy a portable mains generator it will more than likely be rated as VA rather than watts.

https://www.sgs-engineering.com/spg2200 ... 9EQAvD_BwE Link

[Stanley]

Thanks for that. I knew a bit about Power Factor but didn't make the link. If I remember rightly some heavy 3 phase electrical equipment had enormous capacitors in the switchgear to balance the phases and this reduced the power factor..... Again, wasn't there some very nasty material in those capacitors? I remember being warned to leave them strictly alone.

[Stanley]

This might be a bit off piste but it's about a utility. I got my annual statement for my water bill and it costs me about £20 a month on a metered supply for all water and sewage charges. I was wondering, how does this compare with a house full of family?

[Big Kev]

I pay about £300 a year, I'm not on a meter...

[Pluggy]

Thanks for that. I knew a bit about Power Factor but didn't make the link. If I remember rightly some heavy 3 phase electrical equipment had enormous capacitors in the switchgear to balance the phases and this reduced the power factor..... Again, wasn't there some very nasty material in those capacitors? I remember being warned to leave them strictly alone.

Mains capacitors for power power factor correction are usually paper and foil construction which is pretty benign - its a pretty ancient technology. You were probably warned to stay away because they could hold a lethal voltage charge even when turned off.

[PanBiker]

Some of the older semiconductor technology used in early TV's were Selenium rectifiers, you could tell before you took the back off a receiver if there were problems, stank of rotten eggs. For any high voltage or potential high voltage equipment the acronym SIDE was drilled into you. Switch off, Isolate, Dump and Earth. Particularly useful when working with EHT tripler circuitry for driving the final anode of a colour CRT based TV. 8,000v developed by the line output transformer, then fed into a 5 diode encased and potted EHT tripler to give 25,000v of final anode voltage. The CRT itself could maintain a hefty charge even when switched off. Golden rule was to remove the final anode connector with insulated pliers, one hand in pocket and discharge that by attaching to the chassis, then discharge the CRT with a fly lead and insulated screwdriver. Very high voltage but relatively low current so if you got caught you got a RF burn that tended to cauterise during discharge through you, often drawing an arc in the process, extremely painful. 25Kv can bridge approximately 1" in free air given the opportunity. We had EHT voltage probes for checking the final anode voltage and the input and output voltages of the line output and tripler stages while the receiver was powered. Same rules apply to larger capacitors although you should discharge through a resistor to limit the current flow. Dumping straight to earth can rupture the plates or paper foil construction, depending on the physical make up of the unit. Another ditty to always remember, "Volts that jolts, Mills that kills".

[Stanley]

Not these capacitors Pluggy. I know about residual charge and the warning wasn't about that.
Something clicked in my brain and I had a furtle. The culprit is Polychlorinated biphenyl which was used in the manufacture of the capacitors and is very dangerous. Usually called PCB. (LINK)

[Big Kev]

PCB is (was) a very good insulator, unfortunately it is a type 1 carcinogen that also bioaccumulates in the food chain. I was involved with some works removing it from a lot of National Grid's kit back in the 1990s. It's not very nice stuff.

[plaques]

I believe that future 'super' capacitors could be made from graphene one atom thick. Since the performance of a capacitor is related to its area divided by the distance between the plates, you could pack a tremendous amount of energy into a small place. Even if they could expand the graphene to the area they want I'm not clear what the dielectric insulator would be.

[Stanley]

I came across PCB when I was seeking advice about some very old electrical equipment in the engine house at Ellenroad. The advice I got was to leave it exactly as it was as the PCB in the capacitors posed no danger as long as they were not disturbed.

[Stanley]

November's bill was £100 reflecting the colder weather. It will be paid on the 14th. I do like the idea of not building debt!

[Big Kev]

I came across PCB when I was seeking advice about some very old electrical equipment in the engine house at Ellenroad. The advice I got was to leave it exactly as it was as the PCB in the capacitors posed no danger as long as they were not disturbed.

That's about it, sadly a lot of the kit develops leaks...

[Tizer]

PCBs and dioxins are a terrible health hazard in those countries where people pull apart scrap to get the metals then burn the rest in the open air.

[Stanley]

It used to be common here as well Tiz particularly in recovering copper from cables insulated with plastic. A friend of mine died, riddled with cancer, and that was what did him in. In the 1950s Armoride in Earby who made plastic seats for the car industry routinely burned waste in a quarry on the hill behind the town. The dangers were't realised then.

[plaques]

All home chargepoints for electric vehicles must be 'smart' by July 2019 to reduce the strain on the grid, says the Government, Link.. It looks like people are gradually being forced down the road (sorry!) of smart meters whether they like it or not. So just when you need a rapid charge for your car the Grid will decide you can only have a trickle unless there may just be a fast track (sorry again) by paying a bit more. All sounds a bit strange to me.

[Stanley]

I'm glad I don't have that burden David.....
Funnily enough I was thinking about how important it was to me to see a whisp of steam from the exhaust of my boiler as I got back home in yesterday's bitter cold. I was reviewing my phone call the BG if the boiler failed. It would start, "Hello, I live alone, am 82, have cancer and my heating has failed......" From my experience, I would get an immediate emergency call out. Comforting. (And there is always the stove in the front room!)

[Pluggy]

Our heating has failed. The pump in the combi has given up the ghost. Not really too much of a problem we dug the fan heaters out of the cupboard and switched the hot water to a electric heater I put in years ago when we had a persistent HW problem caused by the present boiler's predecessor. I've got a new pump on order which I'll fit myself when it arrives. The amount of electric we burned yesterday was frightening when it was very cold.

[Tizer]

Pluggy, how long have you had the boiler? The oil-fired one in our last house was 21 years old when we left and never gave a problem. Now we're on a combi gas boiler and I was hoping it would last as long!

[Big Kev]

I have a 25 year old Valliant combi boiler, replaced the diverter valve in it early part of this year. Other than the usual diaphragm replacement there's not much else in it to go wrong...

[Stanley]

Isn't it funny how a boiler will go on the blink just when you need it most! I mentioned the other day that I keep a close eye on mine all the time especially when it's cold even though I am on a BG contract.
When I got this boiler and it came due for its first service the BG man said how good it was that they had started putting a hole in the front panel so you could easily check the system pressure. I had to tell him that was down to me and a hole saw. I didn't see what use a pressure gauge was if you couldn't read it!
Only other fault was last winter when the insulation blew off the condensation pipe and it froze up. I drilled a hole in the pipe and put a bucket under it until the thaw then got my mate Ian to insulate it for me. A bit of insulting tape round the hole and Bob's your uncle. The BG man noticed this and congratulated me.

[Pluggy]

The boiler is 5 years old. A bit disappointing it failed after such a short time. I put it down to an ancient sludged up central heating system. I'm going to put in a magnetic filter / dosing pot thingy whilst I'm replacing the pump. It hasnt exactly been pristinely maintained the going on 40 years much of the system has been in. Its an Intergas jobbie which I bought because its predesessor was plagued with Diverttor / Diaphram / Microswitch problems which meant the hot water was very iffy. Cue the electric water heater. The Intergas doesn;t have any Secondary hot water gubbins. Somewhat Ironically the Intergas will work for hot water without the pump.......

[chinatyke]

I put it down to an ancient sludged up central heating system. I'm going to put in a magnetic filter/dosing pot thingy whilst I'm replacing the pump. It hasn't exactly been pristinely maintained the going on 40 years much of the system has been in.

Just a thought: what about adding a bit of antifreeze to the CH system water? My thoughts are that antifreeze solutions contain anticorrosive agents which should keep the system clean. Anybody tried it? Now, if I was working, I'd add a little sodium nitrite to prevent rusting. You need only a small amount, I think it was 0.05% that we used to add to stop products rusting the inside of 200 litre steel drums.

[Stanley]

There are very good proprietary additives that do that job available but I think Pluggy could well be right.
You're right Pluggy, 5 years is not a good return for the investment.

[Tizer]

Pluggy, we have a Magnaclean on our present and previous system and it worked well, pulling out a lot of sludge. Easy to maintain, just watch out you don't get black sludge on your Christmas jumper when you clean the magnet! And once you've washed sludge off the plastic sleeve in a bucket of water don't try rinsing the magnet in the water as I did the first time. Silly me, the magnet grabbed the sludge particles back out of the water!