Home and Family

In light of the impending electricity tariff increase from 14% to 20% and more (depending on regions in South Africa), property owners are rapidly adopting privately owned, secondary, prepaid electricity metering solutions to help curb utility revenue collection risks on rentals.

Both commercial and residential tenants that have to pay higher electricity prices are also looking for solutions to monitor their electricity usage and try and save on usage as electricity bills are starting to increase and will probably continue year after year.
In addition to collection of rent, landlords also have to collect revenues from tenants for utilities consumed. Unlike rental, which is due on a given date, utility collection is problematic in that utility bills are only available to landlords in the month following that in which the utilities were consumed by the tenant.

For the tenants a completely different problem arises; they have no idea how much they are using until the electricity bill arrives, as no monitoring system is in place.

This means landlords must collect money for electricity and water in arrears, and tenants have to pay after the fact, which exposes the landlord to the risk of having to collect required amounts before the bill is due to be paid to the municipality. While tenants, are left without the ability to cut down on usage. In practice, this situation presents a risk to the landlord and uncomfortable bills for tenants. This is where the tenants dispute their billed amounts with the landlord, and the landlord collects electricity bills late.

Both for landlords and for tenants, this situation has never been the best, but since the electricity prices have been somewhat acceptable and not so high, both sides lived with the situation. Now with increases in electricity, bills are getting higher and cash flow tighter. Utilities revenue collection is becoming more of a problem than anyone wants to deal with. This situation can be easily avoided. Tenants can monitor their own usage while landlords can get their electricity bills paid in time all of the time. Making life easier all around.

To solve this problem for landlords and tenants, many residential and commercial landlords have turned to privately owned, secondary, prepaid electricity metering solutions to help that help reduce risk and improve cashflow on both sides.

These meters do not replace the existing municipal meter on a property and are installed inside the dwelling alongside the main distribution board. They serve to implement a system whereby tenants pre-pay the landlord in advance for electricity and so the tenants can monitor their usage and never again receive a surprise bill. With the landlord prepaid the risk of non-payment for electricity by the tenant is eliminated.

Electricity bills can be substantial but are traditionally higher during the winter months when people start using electrical heaters in an effort to stave off the cold. Geysers also start drawing more electricity as they cool down more frequently.

Non-payment by a tenant in these times can mean a substantial loss to landlords, who often rely on rentals for extra income or to cover mortgage payments. Tenants usually get a massive shock in winter when all of the sudden the bills are doubled. This situation creates a cash flow problem for them as well.

The risk associated with late payment or non-payment for electricity is dramatically increased as prices of electricity escalate. This also causes a bigger cash flow problem for tenants. Aware of this, an increasing number of Landlords are opting for the prepaid solution to avoid the associated financial risk of not doing so, and many tenants both residential and commercial are asking landlords to install prepaid meters to monitor their own usage.

While primary prepaid metering solutions are available from municipalities, obtaining a municipal solution is often a long and inefficient process. In majority of cases the municipal route can also be more costly than the price of buying and installing a secondary prepaid meter.

Municipalities are also willing to install only one prepaid meter per ERF, which is a problem for landlords with multiple tenant dwelling units or granny flats and commercial properties. A similar type of problem is also found in sectional title schemes where the building or complex is fitted with a single bulk meter, and resident billing is calculated based on a participation quota.

When compared with the municipal, primary meter option, from the perspective of a landlord, the privately owned, secondary, prepaid solution has a number of advantages. In addition to being easily purchased and installed at a lesser cost, the privately owned nature of the secondary prepaid meter means that the landlord not only remains in control of the utility management on the property, but experiences an improvement in cash flow and elimination of the risk of loss associated with non-payment of electricity.

For the tenants, cash flow improves when they can actually monitor their usage of electricity and never again get surprise electricity bills that eat into budget for other things, or end up in disputes for landlords.

Many tenants have been able to reduce their usage by having a meter in their own premises that shows them, on daily-basis, how much electricity they have remaining.

As electricity prices and other costs increase, the trend towards prepaid solutions seems to be gaining momentum as landlords strive for better management of the traditional risks associated with rentals.

 

Every person spend one third of our lives in house and needs a good and restful sleep in house. If your property is electrically inspected, it will reduce the risk of a fire than we get a comfortable sleep during the night. Because the number of deaths or serious injuries from electric shocks. Electrical inspection will reduce the risk and help ensure any possible problems are likely whether from injury, damage to property, or exposure to prosecution. But you’d be amazed if you knew how many people are not done anything about electrically inspection. It’s bad when people ignore the matter of electrical safety inspections. These go a long way to minimize the risk of death or serious injury from an electrical shock or fire.

 

Electrical Periodic Inspections

Periodic tests should be made in such a way as to minimize disturbance of the installation and inconvenience to the user. Electrical installations are periodically inspected, tested and certified. Timescales between each period of inspection differs, depending on the type of premises. These inspections must be carried out by qualified persons. Insurance, mortgage, licensing reasons; change of use, change of ownership, after additions or alterations, after damage; change of loading requirements are important to A Periodic Inspection and Testing to assess compliance with current Regulations.

Portable Appliance Testing

Portable Appliance Testing is more commonly known is the process we call the testing of portable appliances to ensure that they are safe in the work place. Because any plug, lead or appliance can be damaged over time without the user knowing, this could make that appliance dangerous. In your house, it’s your duty to prevent harm from coming to your tenants from electrical appliances that you supply. Regular Portable Appliance testing and inspection will ensure that all portable appliances are safe to use and give you a safe environment.

Pre-Purchase Surveys

Many people take electricity for granted, but at the time of house purchase or before installing tenants, it can pay to know exactly what condition your electrical installation and equipment is in, before you face the cost and hassle of electrical fault. Most houses are second hand and the electrical installations can be the result of years of neglect or bad DIY. A small upfront cost can eliminate this trouble, and possibly assist you to reduce a purchase price.

Electrical Installations

The right electrical installation is highly important for your home or business. Never take lightly the term of Electrical installation. Electrical installation are inspected and tested for strength, integrity and compliance. When it comes to the idea of electrical installation is that there are a lot of electrical installation jobs that can be undertaken, this could be changing a light switch or as complicated as re-wiring your entire property.

Templarreports offers a full electrical inspection facility with all services such as Electrical Periodic Inspections, Portable Appliance Testing, Pre-Purchase Surveys, Routine Inspections, Electrical Testing, Consultancy, Electrical Installations and Alterations for safety of your property and tenants. For more information regarding our electrical testing and inspection services and electrical reports please contact us- www.templarreports.com

 

Rising gasoline prices may just make other forms of alternative means of transportation become more attractive. One of the ways not to be affected by the rising prices of gas is to have an alternative means of travel. Of course, saving up on gasoline use may help in some way, but such actions may still leave one affected with the rising prices of gas. A better way would be trying to use a mode of transportation aside from one that makes use of fuel aside from gasoline. One such example is the use of an electric car.

An electric car is one type of an alternative vehicle. It makes use of electricity as its primary power source. Instead of an internal combustion engine, the electric car, also commonly called as an EV or electric vehicle, has an electric motor to make the vehicle move. It is an alternative fuel vehicle that does not use refined fossil oil for fuel.

Electric cars get electricity for power by means of electric battery packs built on board. One of the advantages of using electric vehicles or EV’s is that they are environmentally friendly. Unlike fossil fuel that emits a number of pollutants into the air when being used, the use of electricity for power does not do so, except that the power plants that may produce them do. But with using electric cars, the emission of harmful pollutants may be reduced substantially. Less cars using fossils fuel and gasoline would help make this possible. And someday, when more electric power is sourced from nuclear, solar, wind and hydro-electric power plants, pollutant emissions will even be reduced more.

Performance-wise, electric cars offer smoother and noiseless operation that cars relying on gasoline. Electric cars provide stronger acceleration and the electric motor requires lesser maintenance than the internal combustion engines of cars using gasoline and other fossil fuels. By using electricity through batteries, energy conversion is more efficient. Electric motors makes use of 75 percent of the chemical energy converted into electricity to run the car. Internal combustion engines or ICE’s only are able to make use about 20 percent of the energy stored in gasoline to power the vehicle.

If most think that the electric car is a recent invention, then they are mistaken. The electric vehicle is in fact one of the earliest vehicles known to exist. Small electric powered vehicles even predate the development of the diesel and gasoline engines. The earliest electric carriage was built between 1832 and 1839. The development of other electric cars also increased for some time during the 1860’s along with the improvement of the storage battery. It was even the electric cars that held many of the speed and distance records during this time. But unfortunately, the advent of the internal combustion engines came during the early 1900’s, which led to the decrease in the use of electric cars.

With the appearance of the more powerful and affordable diesel and gasoline powered cars starting in the early 1900’s, the market for electric cars slowly disappeared. Although there were still electric cars being made, those that do exist were being produced for specialized applications. One of the most common use for the electric vehicle today may be found in the golf carts as a primary mode of compact transport in golf courses. But because of the rising gasoline prices as well as the worsening pollution, there has been an renewed demand for the less polluting alternative electric vehicles in recent years.

 NOVYAR

A basic electrical course can be taken in as little as one day. It can teach you the basics of do it yourself work at home or let you get a glimpse into whether an electrical career might be right for you. As long as you keep in mind that you cant run out and perform all sorts of electrical functions with a basic course it can be helpful.

Lets look at one typical entry level electrical course and see what it offers.

This two day course focuses on teaching students a basic understanding of electrical terminology, the basics of electrical theory and the most-used units of measurement in the practice of electrical work. This basic electrical course is highly beneficial for those who have no electrical background or whose electrical knowledge is limited. If others have had some basic electrical training quite some time back and feel rusty, they can take this electrical course as a refresher.

This two day electrical course is also considered a voluntary requisite to more advanced electrical training. It also helps prepare those who want to test for portable appliance electrical work, certification in the area of electrical inspection and installation and other areas that require certification. For those who know they want to go on to take another electrical course or two or three, registration for this basic electrical course will provide a 10 percent discount for all others when they register.

This initial electrical course teaches, or at least introduces the students to the basic units of measurement and electrical parameters. It teaches them about the various types and methods of electric current , the ins and outs of electrical power and energy and all it many options, the rudimentaries of electric circuits, and the theory of continuity resistance and insulation.

Students in the electric course will also learn how to protect themselves and others from harm as a result of electricity or electric currents and how to calculate the ratings of protective devices. The principle of earthing is another topic for discussion in this basic electrical course, as is the isolation and switching of electrical equipment, and the polarity of plug connections. Students also learn how to use extension leads and what they’re meant for, and are familiarized with various types and circumstances of hazards due to electrical equipment.

While primarily classroom instruction and lecture method of teaching, there is some practical hands-on work in this basic electrical course. Students get to perform some rudimentary electrical work in the shop under the watchful eye of instructors.

When students leave the two day class they will have learned, for example, how and why a circuit experiences drops in voltage and how to calculate and assess the occurrence. They’ll know as well about Ohms Law and what is says about how voltage, resistance and current relate to each other. They’ll know the characteristics of both AC and DC power, the role that earthing plays in electrical power, and the difference between it and bonding. They’ll understand the particulars of inspections and the reasons they are important.

The media are full of news about electric cars. The $100,000 Tesla electric sports car is going to be sold soon, automakers are falling over each other to announce new electric vehicles, and entrepreneurs across the world are jockeying for venture capital.

Petroleum prices have jumped during the last year and everybody is feeling the pain at the pump. Not a single soul is concerned about filling up the batteries of his next electric car with electricity. After all, you just plug the car into the next receptacle and there seem to be no appreciable costs.

Joe owns a Corvette, a high performance car manufactured by General Motors, which according to the car manufacturer drives 25 miles per gallon.

Joe’s monthly commute is 1000 miles, he drives very carefully, and actually achieves 25 MPG on his daily trip going to work and running errands. At $4.00 per gallon at the pump he is paying $160 for gasoline every month.

Joe is thinking about buying the Tesla, an electric sports car. He tried to find the cost of electricity for driving this car. He could not find any data anywhere. Joe knows that he must explain to his wife why he needs to save energy and money before buying the Tesla, a new, very fast electric sports car.

The Tesla will accelerate faster than his Corvette. There is no doubt that an electric vehicle can have a faster acceleration than a gasoline car. Electric motors and liquid fuel engines are just two different devices converting electric energy or petroleum fuel energy into mechanical energy. Electric motors can generate much higher torque at the wheels at much lower turning speeds.

In comparison, electric motors will have several shortcomings, too. They certainly will emit more pollutants and more carbon dioxide as long as coal is used for producing electric power. Overall energy efficiency of the electric car, from power plant to the road, is still worse than that of a modern automobile propelled by an advanced combustion engine.

The biggest drawback of electric cars is the small number of miles they can drive after a complete recharge. Additionally, the charging of an empty electric battery will take forever, high performance batteries are expensive, and will only have a limited life expectancy.

What about energy costs for driving an electric car compared to a gasoline powered car? Both vehicles will have to store energy. The electric car stores electric energy in its battery, the combustion engine powered car stores energy in the form of gasoline or diesel fuel in its fuel tank.

Now let us take a comparative look at the cost of storing and paying for enough electric energy or liquid fuel energy to drive 100 miles. Let us assume that both cars will have the same power requirements to drive 100 miles. In this respect the match-up between Tesla and Corvette is perfect. But how do we compare prices at the gas station with utility costs at the receptacle?

Energy contained in gasoline can be converted into mechanical energy only at the limited energy conversion efficiency of a typical heat engine. The Corvette engine will have an energy conversion efficiency of about 35%. (Fuel fired engines may eventually reach 50% peak energy conversion efficiency after decades of future advancements). Conversion efficiency of electric power from the receptacle into stored energy first and into mechanical energy later is much higher at about 85%.

The energy content of gasoline is 131 MJ/gallon (megajoule per gallon). For driving 100 miles the Corvette will burn four gallons of gasoline or 524 MJ/100 miles. Only 35% of the energy in gasoline or 183 MJ will be used to propel the Corvette. This is the mechanical energy transmitted to the rear wheels of the Corvette. Virtually the same amount of energy must be transferred to the wheels of the electric car, the Tesla. Both cars are very similar in size and driving characteristics.

However, the Tesla has to take a little more energy from the receptacle because the charging, storing, and discharging of electricity in the battery experiences energy losses. These losses are about 15% of the electric energy taken from the receptacle and will not be available at the wheels. The Tesla owner will, therefore, pay 1.15 times as much to get the same energy to the wheels as the Corvette or 211 MJ per 100 miles. Electric energy is priced in the form of dollar per kilowatt hour or $/kWh. The average price of electricity in the US is $0.09/kWh. The factor for converting energy measured in MJ to energy measured in kWh is 0.2778 kWh/MJ.

To drive 100 miles, the Tesla will consume 58.6 kWh of electricity at a cost of $5.28. The Corvette will consume 4 gallons of gasoline at a cost of $16. Now we know that the Tesla will save about $10 per 100 miles or $10,000 over 100,000 miles.

The Tesla will cost $100,000. The Corvette is priced from $50,000 to $75,000. Guess who gets the square deal with the roar of the engine as a free bonus.