Energy monitor / base usage

chookie1

Hi - have just got myself an Owl energy monitor and wondering a couple of things of people who have an energy monitor already

- what sort of base usage do you have - during the day, just things like the fridge, microwave clock etc running? ie the minimum that you can realistically get the kW down to.

- are there any sneaky things to watch for that soak up power... hobs on standby and the like?

All thoughts gratefully received!

Joyful

When I come home at lunchtime it's usually around 225watts, Just now with 3 lights on( 2 of them energy saving plus 1 strip light) also a fridge, freezer and laptop it's at 287/297 watts. Just me in the house at the moment.

Swipe

Mine ranges between 80 and 150W. includes internet router and two aircon units on standby and fridge and freezer.

rhiwfield

The biggest hidden usage I noticed when I went thru the leccy usage was a towel rail. Replaced the connection with one digitally timed to come on 6am- 12 noon.

At our house the things on permanently are internet router, microwave clock, alarm clock, doorbell chimes transponder, fridge and freezer, oil tank sensor and oil boiler controls. Maybe 2.5-3 kwh a day. Washing machine/tumble dryer will use 2.5kwh for a wash/dry, and we will use about 8kwh a day for cooking, electric showers, computers, dishwasher, tvs etc. In winter the oil boiler pump as well per timings. Overall we're down to an average of 12.5 kwh a day over the year for a large house, 3 adults, 24/7 occupied. Thats about half of what we used to use 2-3 years back.

JennyR68

Mine is reading 0.23kw at the moment.

Dave_save

Mine is currently reading 0.23 kW as a base load too. The overall daily average is around 8 to 10 kWh over the year. This used to be around 18kWh until we got rid of one of the freezers and replaced an old fridge freezer with an A rated one. So for me, the biggest contributors to the base load were the freezers.

chookie1

Many thanks all - feel happily inline now I have mine down to about 300W

Thanks!

uptomyeyeballs

With fridge, microwave clock, cooker clock, internet router, pvr standby and burglar alarm mine is usually indicating around 0.1kW when nothing else is happening. If I turned off the microwave and cooker, it might save me a few extra pence a month, but not much. At the moment, i'm using about 7 kWh per day.

Average Electricity consumption over the last year is 166 kWh per month, so 5.5 kWh per day.

davetaylor

Hey I really want to get one of these OWL devices. Can someone recommend the cheapest place to get one. Is the OWL device the best monitor for electricity usage?

Thanks,

Dave

chookie1

davetaylor wrote: »

Hey I really want to get one of these OWL devices. Can someone recommend the cheapest place to get one. Is the OWL device the best monitor for electricity usage?

Thanks,

Dave

Whether it's the best, I don't know but I quite like mine. There are no end of reviews on the various newspaper etc websites, and I used http://www.electricity-monitor.com when buying mine - has a good bit to compare the different monitors.
Cheapest place to get one fluctuates - if you exclude eBay then the manufacturer seems pretty much as cheap as anyone else theowl.com. They do free shipping which helps, or you might get it for a couple of quid cheaper elsewhere if you poke around. Don't think anyone has offers at the moment.

Cardew

There is plenty of conjecture that at very low consumption these monitors are wildly innaccurate.

I cannot 'find' where about 100W is being used.