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"Watts" All This Stuff Cost?
Article from the October 1996 NFKPC Newsletter written
by Dave Stubbs.
Having just opened the envelope from Niagara Mohawk and gasped at the amount due, I figured that it was about time to calculated just how much it actually costs to move water around. We all know that one of the no-no's for successful fish keeping is stagnant water. We must both filter and aerate the bejeebers out of our pond water. (In addition, it also helps to filter out the algae food as well!) In fact, I have no idea how fish survived for the millions of years involved prior to man's intervention! Unless you have a large treadmill generator and a well trained hamster or gerbil to turn it, you must rely on the electric utility to provide the power to move the water. In fact, when we filter out the expletives, we refer to these utilities as the "power company". What we actually pay for is energy, which is power used over a period of time. If you look at your bill, somewhere on there it will tell you how much you are paying for KWH. KWH is short for kilowatt-hour.
How can we figure out this quantity from the nameplate data on our pumps? Here's where it could get a bit confusing. Some labels actually tell you the watts involved when running your device. however, most don't. You may run across amperes, milliamperes, or horsepower. Here's how to do the appropriate calculation. Unless you've had special wiring done and have a weird looking plug, you most likely are running your device on the standard household voltage of 110 volts. The special wiring would be 220 volts, normally used for hot water tanks stoves, and clothes dryers. lets assume its the 110 volts. Simply multiply the amperes on the nameplate by 110 to get kilowatts and multiply by time, in hours. Lest calculate one day's cost for a 1 ampere pump for 1 day. I will use the number on my most recent bill for about $0.1061/KWH.
Cost = (110v x 1 ampere) /1000 x 24 hrs x $.1061/KWH = $.28/day. Twenty eight cents a day ain't gonna break you, I think.
If, instead, they give you milliamperes, simply divide that figure by 1000 to get amperes and proceed as above.
Everything is OK until you are confronted with the mysterious term horsepower. Typically, sump pumps are sold in horsepower units. All that we need to know to complete the necessary calculation is that 1 horsepower = .7457 Kilowatts. So, the cost of running a 1 horsepower motor continuously for 1 day is:
Cost = 1HP x .7457KW/HP x 24hrs x $.1061/Kwh = $1.90/day
That's a pretty big pump, more of the swimming pool variety. My pump is a 1/3 HP pump, so my cost is about 63 cents a day. I create a pretty impressive waterfall with this size pump.
If you run a stock tank heater in the winter time to keep a hole in the ice, keep in mind that it is thermostatically controlled, and doesn't run all the time, except on very cold days. A typical stock tank heater might be in the range of 1500 watts. What does this cost?
Cost = 1500Watts/1000 x 24hrs x $.1061 = $3.82/day worst case.
All in all, the cost of electricity, when compared to what we spend on fish, plants, and fish food is pretty small, but please don't let the power company know that I said this!
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