Gregor Robertson wants to install water meters in Vancouver Houses

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Tom R

As I understand it the meters are on the outside of the building and either Hydro or Terasen reads them when they are around reading the Gas or Electricity usage.

well they can't be on the wall of the house as they will freeze, so they have to dig a pit and install it, or they put them inside the house. the ones inside the house have a transmitter on them so a reciver truck just drives down the road and takes the readings. the cheeper one for the utility is to install it inside the house, then they don't have to dig. and for places like where I am, they would have to burry it 6 feet deep or more. I know if Victoria mine was about 1.5 foot deep.

Steve

[Tom R]

Yes it all starts with each and every one of us doing our little bit to help.

As my 5 year old granddaughter tells me.
Like turning off a light as we exit the room or pulling the plug on a battery charger when its not charging a battery.

There is a push right now to identify Power Vampires. Hydro estimates that there are on average 50 Power Vampires in most homes. They estimate that by eliminating them we could easily save 10% of our power usage or a good dinner out for you and the significant other once or twice a year.

I recently purchased a little devise from Canadian Tire

http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/brows...gy%2BMeter.jsp

It estimates the usage and cost of energy consumed by an item over a period of time. I plugged it in on one of my 3 computers I have running 24/7 in my home and it estimated a power consumption in stand by mode of about $4.50 per month. Not much however I have 3.

My Hydro bill runs at about $165.00 per month and I am not about to give up my hobby, however I am certainly going to start by looking into these Power Vampires.

Within the hobby we can make more informed choices on the equipment we buy. Many of the pumps used today are just extreme power consumers. An example is that my main circulation pump is an Amp Master 3000 it uses about 95W per hour and moves approx. 3600 Gallons an hour with no head. Whereas a comparable Reeflo Dart uses 145W per hour to move approx the same amount of water.

We can still enjoy our hobby however the time has come to be smarter with what we are doing.

I guess I will now get down off my little soap box and get on with my day.

Tom R