I live in a 3,500 sq. ft. house in Minneapolis, MN, my power bills have been extremely high, and I'm trying to track down any sources of phantom drain as I think the draw is inappropriate.
With most everything than can be powered down, both HVAC systems off, well pump not running, computers shut down, all lights and ceiling fans in the house off (except for the utility room lights), I'm having about a 1,000W constant draw. With a current clamp, I'm reading 2.06A on one phase and 6.36A on the other.
From what I've traced down so far out of the 1kW draw:
- 50W: Cable Modem, 2x Routers, a few monitors on Standby
- 40W: Outdoor bug trap
- 10W: Security Panel
- 100W: Utility room lights while I was measuring at the panel (motion activated)
This leaves about 800W with no obvious source of where it is going. I will be tracing down each circuit next, the highest current branches being 2x ~1.5A, 2x ~1A, 3 ~0.5A, and 2x ~0.3A.
Is this anywhere in the realm of a normal phantom draw for a house of that size?
Since I'm operating under the assumption that it is not normal, what would be good items to check if I have unplugged everything that can be unplugged and the draw still remains?
Other than TVs in standby and my two refrigerators, what would be good candidates to plug into my kill-a-watt and measure their draws?
Edit
I have measured the standby/resting stable current of everything I have plugged in to an outlet, and came to 340W.
The only remaining things plugged in are permanently wired:
- Three light fixtures that turn on when I'm in the utility room measuring current
- light fixtures while off
- dishwasher while off
- furnace/AC 1 while not running
- furnace/AC 2 while not running
These probably have some draw while off, but let's be more than generous until I measure them and say 500W total.
This means I have a solid 500W going somewhere, in my house, completely unaccounted for. Nothing I can think of can plausibly be dissipating this much power without a trace.
Best Answer
Older Fridges can draw upwards of 300 W (while in defrost for example), and can average over 150W even if they are working correctly. If you've got two of them, that could be your load and could explain the variance (if one were in defrost while measuring). 1KVA "Phantom" load for a 3500 sqft house doesn't seem totally unreasonable. You've already found 500-700w of draw. Everyone's circuit breaker idea (in comments above) is good to localize which circuit the phantom drain is attached to.