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Originally Posted by JanGeo
If you have a clamp on amp meter and go around two wires of the same circuit they cancel the magnetic field they create when they draw current . . . however if there is a short to earth ground the current flow will be unbalanced and you will read a current. Drywall screws into wires in the wall are the typical problem and critters chewing the wires.
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Cool! Thanks for the info. While I didn't know that fact before now, in retrospect (when I think about how a clamp meter works, which FWIW is pretty much the same principal that TED uses to measure house power) it makes a lot of sense!
I do in fact have a hand-held "clamp meter". Before I heard about TED, I got it as a tool to try to track down this power usage problem, but never used it much because of the hassle of isolating one wire from a pair. Until now, I never knew that it has an even more useful (and easy to do) function as a whole circuit test for "power loss to ground"! So when I get some time to play with the wiring (given other family/work commitments, and the fact that I may be starting to get sick, it will probably be this weekend at the earliest before I get back to this), I'll run that test over the various house circuits (the two circuits I noticed the "issues" with will be "at the top of the list" for checking). That should quickly tell me if leaking to ground is a problem (and if so, which circuit(s), and roughly how much current is leaking), or if something else is going on.
The "detective work" is on. But at least now I'm actually starting to see the "real problems", vs just "guessing". Amazing what the proper instruments (along with some idea of what they are good for) can tell you. Imagine how much electric power (and the resulting electric bill) I could have saved, if I had been able to get these tools (and info) a few years back (vs just trying to improve things "blindly", and thereby continuing to pay high electric bills because I was missing "hidden" power usage).
I wonder how surprised the power company will be, if our home starts (consistently) using a fraction (1/2 of less) of the power we have used for years?
Oh well. On "the bright side", one thing that TED did start to show me, is that at least some of the places where I already worked on "energy efficiency" (while far from the worst offenders), do in fact have decent energy efficiency. Take lighting, for example. While the TED is sensitive enough to notice the power difference in even a single "compact florescent" light turning on, the extra power usage difference is small. And even when the family has a lot of lights, TVs (most of the TV are "energy star" rated), etc. turned on, the power usage is still very reasonable in those areas I previously worked on. It was the things I didn't previously think to check for, or was unable to figure out how to check for (power loss to ground on a circuit, the real power usage of the sump pumps, the power of the central air blower, etc) that seem (with the little investigation I've done this week) to be where many of the problems still remain. So if I can get a handle on some of these "big boys", and maybe do a little more with "phantom losses" from the consumer electronics (when they are turned off), I should be in pretty good shape. Because I already have some of the other "basics" (lighting, being a big one) addressed.
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