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Cost Or Running A Kiln .


Magenta

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Hello , I am new to this site and am after some advice please . I have recently fired my kiln to do a glaze . I had no idea of the cost of running it . I was told by somebody that it wouldn't be expensive ! BUT , I have just rang my electricity company to find out .. It was fired during the day and had used 200 kW ... I have now been told that has cost me £100! I'm gob smacked , I had no idea it was going to be that much . I just wondered if any of you could tell me that's about the right price to expect ?

Thanks in advance

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That seems extremely high. Did you fire to ^10?  2300 F.

How large is the kiln?

What is the cost per KWH?

When I worked at a coop we always wrote down the starting and ending numbers on the electric meter.

Then multiple the price of a KWH to figure the cost of the firing.

 

 

Marcia

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I have an Olympic 1823 and estimate it costs me $10 a firing to fire to cone 04 bisque and cone 6 glaze. I keep record of every starting meter number and then the finish number.

 

Your price seems very high, do you know your kWH price? If so do like Marcia suggested and multiply kWH by the hours run to get the Aproximate cost. A kiln doesn't run 100% the entire cycle but doing that will at least get you in the ballpark.

 

T

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Guest JBaymore

Amps x Volts = Watts

 

Consuming 1 Watt of electricity for one Hour of time is one Watt Hour.

 

Consuming 1000 Watts for one hour is one Kilowatt Hour.

 

Look on the kiln...somewhere will be a plate on it that says the voltage and the amperage for the kiln.  That Amperage number will be the MAXIMUM that it could EVER draw.

 

Take the Voltage and multiply by the Amperage.  That is the maximum number of Watts that your kiln could possibly draw per unit of time.

 

Look up how many hours that firing you did the kiln was switched on.  Multiply that number of hours by the figure you just got above.  That is the absolute total MAXIMUM amount of electricity you could have EVER used.  PERIOD!  It cannot be more than that.  EVER!

 

Now the reality of what you consumed will be a lot lower than that number...... because that above number assumes that the kiln was set on the maximum heat input for the whole time it was ever turned on.  I am sure it was not set that way. 

 

That number gives you some documentable and irrefutable "backup argument" for your problem. 

 

Now the potential complication here comes if you are in an electric service area that uses "peak usage" metering to determine the rate they charge you in a billing period.  If by using the kiln at certain hours of the day you kicked your rate into a higher bracket for ALL the power you used during that week/month... then it is possible that you DID end up getting charged a heck of a lot.  That is because they charge the higher per Kilowatt Hour rate for ALL the electricity you used for the billing period.... NOT just for the single kiln firing itself.

 

If you are on that kiln of electricity plan, you will have to monitor the timing of your firing carefully.

 

200 Kilowatt Hours is the equivalent of running a 1000 Watt space heater for 200 hours...... or straight for 8 1/3 days, 24 hours a day.  Seems WAY out of line unless you have a BIG kiln.

 

best,

 

..............john

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Hello , I am new to this site and am after some advice please . I have recently fired my kiln to do a glaze . I had no idea of the cost of running it . I was told by somebody that it wouldn't be expensive ! BUT , I have just rang my electricity company to find out .. It was fired during the day and had used 200 kW ... I have now been told that has cost me £100! I'm gob smacked , I had no idea it was going to be that much . I just wondered if any of you could tell me that's about the right price to expect ?

Thanks in advance

 

Just to confirm the other responses, my kiln is relatively small, it's 6.3Kw, internal diameter is 18" and the internal height the same - a glaze firing to cone 6 will cost me a maximum of £7.50, often less (slow cooling bumps the cost up).

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Thank all so much for your replies :)

It's good to know that there are some helpful people out there . I have since rang the electric company to get another quote on what I had used and it turns out the £100 was COMPLETELY WRONG ...... Its around £6 ! I nearly had a heart attack the first time .... Stupid man that told me the first cost !

I can now well and truly relax and will definitely be carrying on with making ceramics , slowly but surely :) thank again guys for taking time to help me out .

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If you are living in the United Kingdom- which I am assuming you are as you are using pound sterling, you can fir at night out of the peak power usage time. I think the most expensive time for power usage over there was supper time.

You could start your firing at 5:00pm and be done at 1:00a.m. Easy if you have a computer kiln, but if you have a kiln sitter you can still do it. You just have to get up in the middle of the night to make sure that it has shut off.

TJR.

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If you are living in the United Kingdom- which I am assuming you are as you are using pound sterling, you can fir at night out of the peak power usage time. I think the most expensive time for power usage over there was supper time.

You could start your firing at 5:00pm and be done at 1:00a.m. Easy if you have a computer kiln, but if you have a kiln sitter you can still do it. You just have to get up in the middle of the night to make sure that it has shut off.

TJR.

For most people in the UK there is no price difference, night or day, unless you have Economy 7 or Economy 10. With Economy 7 it is cheaper between 00:30 and 07:30 GMT. Unless like mine, the time clock is running 35 minutes slow! I make sure my kiln is running at full speed during the cheap time. It is around 50% (from memory) cheaper, but day time rates are slightly higher than if you don't have Economy 7.
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