The air-conditioner repair season is peaking, and Mike Reyes is on his game.“You’ve got fan motors going out,” said Reyes, owner of Mike Reyes Heating and Air Conditioning in Fort Worth. “You’ve got capacitors going out. You’ve just got people who procrastinate. Every time you go into spring, you should have your air-conditioning unit checked out.”Temperatures soared to 102 degrees Tuesday at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, the ninth consecutive day of triple-digit heat, which means Reyes has spent this month working inside suffocating attics or outside in the blazing sun.“You get used it,” Reyes said. “Just like anybody else who works outside, the weather breaks you in.”Here’s a look at the heat wave, by the numbers:848 million gallons of water that evaporated Monday out of the four lakes owned by the Tarrant Regional Water District and three others used for storage.498 million gallons of water used Aug. 3 by TRWD’s four largest customers — Fort Worth, Arlington, Mansfield and the Trinity River Authority.

That’s nowhere near the record of 592 million gallons used on Aug. 11, 2011, by those same four entities.70,169 megawatts of electricity used in Texas between 4 and 5 p.m. Monday, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the electric grid for 90 percent of Texas. One megawatt serves about 200 homes during peak demand.13 days of 100-degree temperatures this year, including every day in August.18 days of 100-degree temperatures on average in DFW.71 days of 100-degree temperatures in DFW in 2011, a record.103 degrees on Monday, the hottest day of the year.Forecasters are saying the 100-degree heat will likely stick around for the rest of the week, but a rare summer cold front is expected to drop high temperatures into the 90s this weekend.“It’s still going to be hot but it's not going to be triple-digit hot,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Lamont Bain. “We could see some rain this weekend that could provide some relief. We’ll just have to wait and see what develops.”

YOU MAY ALSO LIKEThis page contains some notes and measurements on electricity consumption of various household items. I had to work out the cost of running a server for a year and was surprised at how many units of electricity were used, so I decided to start recording other householdThe items I've listed here are things which are typically left plugged in (on standby). Electricity consumption (at least in the UK) is measured and paid for2 ton ac unit area by units, where one unit is the equivalent of 1 kilowatt hour. cost of an air handling unit light bulb left on for ten hours uses 1unit of electricity (100watts x 10hours =hvac units residential 1000 watt hours = 1kwh) as would a 2kw fan heater left on for half an hour.

The following table is provided as a guide and shows how many units (kwh) devices would use according to their rated power consumption: So a 100 watt bulb left on 24 hours a day for a year will use 876 units of electricity, which at (say) 15p per unit would work out at £131.40. time switch to switch that same bulb on for only 8 hours a day would reduce the annual electricity cost down to £43.80 (a saving of £87.60). So if the time switch cost £20 then it would pay for itself more than times over within aContrast that with a modern high efficiency 15 watt bulb (which gives out almost as much light) that would use 131.4 units of electricity if left on 24 hours all year, or �20 - a significant saving. If you want to see how long it takes to use one unit of electricity for a device then this is tabulated in the following table: The following table lists the power consumption figures that I have measured for a number of different devices:

Almost everything which uses electricity will come with or have on it an indication of how much electricity it uses. This might not be obvious, because an indication of electricity usage might take any of 1000 watts = 1kw = 1 unit per hour. Using the high school equation: you can work out the wattage provided you know theMains voltage in the UK is notionally 230volts, in much of Europe it is 220 volts and 120 volts in America. the UK if something draws 2.4amps then the wattage = 230 x 2.4 = If this were on a power supply supplying 2.4 amps at 9volts then this would give a notional figure of 21.6 watts. BTUs are unit often used with heating or cooling. For a traditional electric fan heater you can use: However this equation cannot be used for air conditioning units or heaters other than fan heater types. Treat the above as a guide, as the actual consumption figure will depend on the conditions in which a device is used and any published