Tracking down power loss

wilfo

Hello everyone, I am hoping someone might know the answer.
I have been trying to find the source of a constant power loss of 50W shown on my power monitor (Owl). I started a the consumer unit turning off the household circuits until got a 0.00 reading. The last circuit I turned off supplied the garage. Turning on the garage supply restored the phantom 50W and I thought I had found it. Unfortunately not so, isolating the supply at the garage fuse box didn't reproduce the problem. To cut a long story short whenever I try and track down the loss, it appears to be the last thing I turn off that gives a 0.00 reading. Turning on the offending appliance restores the 50W reading, but this can be several different things, the last one being the freezer (the compressor wasn't running so I wouldn't think it should be consuming any power). Leaving everything off, including the freezer and turning something else on results in the mysterious 50W returning but turning on the freezer doesn't show an increase, I would have expected an extra 50W to then show. Is it a quirk of the monitor, or is it reading something in the household supply?
This is very frustrating, so any suggestions would be welcome.

IronGiant

I don't have the same monitor but it sounds like it can only measure a minimum of 50W, so if you are running anything it will show 50W even if it's only pulling a few watts.  But then you need to pass 50W before it registers anything further.  I have a meter (not owl) on my solar panels and even when they are asleep overnight the meter still registers 75W, which I hope doesn't mean the inverter consumes 75W when it is in sleep mode!

wilfo

Thanks very much for the quick reply. That would account for when the monitor showed 0.00 and I turned on a 12W light, nothing registered, but turn on other stuff and you get the total measurement which appears to include the low wattage load. Like you I wouldn't want a constant power drain of 50 to 75W.