One 220 amp curcuit has major power drain?
Question:This curcuit was put in about 2yrs ago for a commercial esspresso machine. It worked fine for about 1 1/2 yrs, than boom, a $200 electric bill went to $900! I isolated it to this breaker, had the espresso machine guy come, says it's in the curcuit? Checked both ends, everything is tight?
Answers:
put an amp meter on it,see how many amps is drawn with machine on...you may have to upgrade wire size depending on how many amps...30 amps/10 GA wire 20 amps/12 GA wire...15 amps/14GA wire...etc...
Check your electric company, in some places, rates have dramatically increased. If rates did not go up in your area, then your energy consumption increased. Either it is the expresso machine or you have a bad breaker or connection. If you had a bad breaker or connection, you would have either smelled it or burned down the building by now. Or something else beside the expresso machine is on the circuit.
You should have an electrician come out and check. He can put an ammeter in the circuit and determine how much power is being used, and from this he can calculate how much it would cost.
In addition to the wiring, you also need to make sure the breaker itself is tightly connected to the source of power in the breaker pane. It is puzzling that you would know how to isolate the source of your "power drain" to the espresso machine, but not know how to resolve the problem. I suspect you have incorrectly assumed the power drain is the espresso machine.
You need to measure the power consumption (amperes) of the wires that feed the espresso machine. If the measured current draw is consistent with the rating on the machine's name plate, then it is operating as designed, and not the source of your problem.
If it is, the problem is elsewhere. You will then need to check each other circuit that is connected to a breaker. Do this in the breaker panel using an am-probe or similar current reading device.
You will have to remove the cover of the breaker panel to access the wires to read the current, so you have to know what you are doing, as the power and the devices have to be "ON" during the readings, and there are several exposed "live" wires and parts that can do serious damage to you, the breakers, the breaker panel, the wires, and the equipment.
If you are not qualified and confident you can work around live voltage with exposed bare conductors, call someone who is.
Sounds to me like your meter has freaked out.
The amount of your bill is based on kilowatt hours of consumption, not amps or volts. The only way I could see what your describing happening is if the circuit in question is hot to ground in which case the breaker should trip, especially if it's a ground-fault breaker, which it should be if you are running an appliance that works with water.
For example if your espresso machine is rated at 3,000 watts that means it consumes 3 kw/H per hour, so you'll pay the going rate per kw/H x 3 for every hour of every day that this thing is plugged in and turned on. If your electricity rate is 10c per kw/H it will cost you 30c per hour plus the fees and taxes to run your machine. That's $7.20 per day in case your wondering, $216.00 per month JUST for the espresso machine. That doesn't include anything else!
To go from $200 to $900 is to say your consumption has increased about 4.25 times what it was. If it were a single device that caused this I am certain it would have burned up if it were drawing excessive power in that ratio. If the device were drawing its normal amount then its operational hours had to increase.
You seem to assume the hours of use for the expresso were the same so it has to be drawing more power and must be faulty. That obviously, don't have to be the case though. You could have increased the hours of operation over time and this of itself has caused an increase in the bill.
Consider it this way, as it is the bill is about $900 a month which is about 225 a week. Shut down the expresso for one week, if the bill is about 200 less next month then you do know it is related to the expresso and its Hours of usage. There is no faulty device, only heavily used devices. Maybe a larger machine will operate less often.
Do you have a business next door to you? I know of cases where a person has tapped into his neighbors line and stolen power to run some power hungry device of his own.
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