Energy Wizard

phill99

energy_saver wrote: »

I have had my ecotek wizard since 1/10/10.

I submit my readings every month on the 1st and my electric consumption has gone down significantly

My Direct Debit (for electric) used to be £35 per month. It's now down to £31 per month and i'm still on the same fixed priced tariff until Sep 2011 with Atlantic.

So i'm saving £48 a year which is 11.428% a year. I live in a 3 bedroomed flat.

I thought it was too good to be true but my meter readings are down significantly on the same months the previous year (eg Oct 09 compared to October 10 etc).

At Christmas i got one for my parents and their electric is down by about 8% a year (based on the first 3 months of this year). They have a house though.

Based on my electric units used it works. And the same goes for my parents.

What absolute rubbish.

The only way you can know this to be true is if every light, radio, pc and every other appliance had been on for the exact same amount of time every month for the length of time you have had it. And that never happens. What is more likely to have happened is that because of you new gadget, you have become more nergy focused and are making sure you turn off lights, not leaving things on standby etc.

You could have done this anyway for a lot less than £60.

Can't help thonking you have been had and are just trying to justify it. Or more likely that as this is your first post ever, that you are connected with the company that makes them or promotes them in some way.

DVardysShadow

energy_saver wrote: »

I have had my ecotek wizard since 1/10/10.

I submit my readings every month on the 1st and my electric consumption has gone down significantly

My Direct Debit (for electric) used to be £35 per month. It's now down to £31 per month and i'm still on the same fixed priced tariff until Sep 2011 with Atlantic.

So i'm saving £48 a year which is 11.428% a year. I live in a 3 bedroomed flat.

Summary. You used an ecotek and your Direct Debit has gone down. Well. it is April Fool's Day.

Only meter readings count on this question.

Paul_Varjak

energy_saver wrote: »

I have had my ecotek wizard since 1/10/10.

I submit my readings every month on the 1st and my electric consumption has gone down significantly

My Direct Debit (for electric) used to be £35 per month. It's now down to £31 per month and i'm still on the same fixed priced tariff until Sep 2011 with Atlantic.

So i'm saving £48 a year which is 11.428% a year. I live in a 3 bedroomed flat.

I thought it was too good to be true but my meter readings are down significantly on the same months the previous year (eg Oct 09 compared to October 10 etc).

At Christmas i got one for my parents and their electric is down by about 8% a year (based on the first 3 months of this year). They have a house though.

Based on my electric units used it works. And the same goes for my parents.

Balderdash, cods-wallop, nonsense, piffle, bullsh1t, twaddle, mumbo jumbo, drivel, poppycock, rubbish, baloney, bilge, flimflam, garbage, hooey, gibberish and tripe.

ormus

energy_saver wrote: »

I have had my ecotek wizard since 1/10/10.

I submit my readings every month on the 1st and my electric consumption has gone down significantly

My Direct Debit (for electric) used to be £35 per month. It's now down to £31 per month and i'm still on the same fixed priced tariff until Sep 2011 with Atlantic.

So i'm saving £48 a year which is 11.428% a year. I live in a 3 bedroomed flat.

I thought it was too good to be true but my meter readings are down significantly on the same months the previous year (eg Oct 09 compared to October 10 etc).

At Christmas i got one for my parents and their electric is down by about 8% a year (based on the first 3 months of this year). They have a house though.

Based on my electric units used it works. And the same goes for my parents.

ive not heard so much bull sh it since gordon browns last budget speech.

energy_saver_2

I paid £24.00 including delivery from E-bay. Were they £60 at some point?

The reason my D/D has come down is because my monthly readings have gone down. The actual units of elecric i'm using has gone down. I submit my figures every month on the 1st.

I have compared:

Oct 09 to Oct 10

Nov 09 - Nov 10

Dec 09 - Dec 10 (14% less units used this month - the highest reduction)

Jan 10 - Jan 11

Feb 10 - Feb 11

Mar 10 - Mar 11

Every month shows a reduction. I expect this to stop as of Oct this year when i've had it for a year.

I'm entering this topic late so am i right in thinking most people from the forum who bought these have lost money as they have not worked for them?

I do not work for this company - i work for my local council (but that's looking dodgy!).

I can only speak as i find.

ormus

michael faraday would give you a good argument.

Dippypud

Another dead fred gets revamped to give noobs summat to do...

And the energy doodah wotsit still don't work...:rotfl:

pantaydaya

hh13 wrote: »

Funnily enough I've just read about this effect in their FAQ, although they say 130W max. I mailed them ages ago with some general queries about the Energy Wizard and forgot about it. I finally got a reply today hence ending up at their FAQ again.

Apparently I'm not allowed to post links so if you want to read it you'll have to go to this site (without the spaces)

standby-saver . co . uk / faqs

Can't comment on whether it really works or not

OK guys I too bought one of these as I have other products by this company which work brilliantly. I read the comments here and so did my own tests last night as I have the monitor provided by my electric supplier. I too was shocked to see it used around 80w+ so I removed it and sure enough @80w dropped on my monitor I did this 3 or 4 times.

This morning I emailed the manufacturer and also called via telephone the seller on eBay. She tried to explain but it was soon apparent to me she was out of her depth in knowlegde and she gave me an 0870 number of th manufacturer which I decided againts calling anyhow.

I went back to the manufacturers website and found and read the FAQ which I have pasted here below.To cut a longer story shorter I tested with my own plug in monitor and low and behold as the FAQ states contrary to what the ring main monitors show mine is using a paltry .8 of a watt not 80+ watts.

So don't write it off by reading panicky ill researched threads .

So mine is going back into the socket as I had removed it. The seller was gracious enough anyway and said i could return for a full refund anytime despite the fact I have thrown the box away. Anyway here's the info from the FAQ

Energy Wizard FAQs


Clamp Type Whole House Energy Meters
There are several remote whole house energy meters available on the market. They typically connect to your mains supply by a clamp which is fixed around your incoming live mains cable at the metering point. The clamp is connected to a small sender unit that transmits its information to an indoor receiving/display unit.

The clamp and sender actually pickup and send information about the instantaneous electrical current to the receiving unit. The receiving/display unit then accumulates this information over time, converting it to power through a simple formula and also usually making a convenient display of the approximately cost of your current or periodic consumption.

Such meters may display misleading information when an Energy Wizard is in use. The load within your house gives rise to the electrical current that the meter is collecting. This load will normally be inductive in nature, which causes the timing of the current waveform to be displaced from the ideal. It is said to be out-of-phase with the voltage. Energy Wizard provides a capacitive load which will help to bring the current back in-phase, making it closer to the ideal and improving efficiency. The whole house energy meters don’t typically measure this phase, and so the inductive and capacitive currents are just seen as currents in total. The net effect is that although Energy Wizard does not consume any significant real power at all, it may be shown as adding to the consumption of your house. This apparent increased consumption can be as high as 130W.

If you have a single appliance energy meter – one that is connected between your appliance and mains, use it as a check to measure the power being taken by Energy Wizard. You will see the consumption is approximately zero. These types of meter do correctly measure the phase of the currents and voltage and therefore give a true reading of power consumption. For further proof consider this – if Energy Wizard really did consume 130W of power, it would get extremely hot!

Ring Main
Energy Wizard is designed to be used in a domestic situation. In an average sized house, there will be a number of “rings” of power wired around the property, usually including a “ring main” for each of the upper and lower floor wall sockets, and also similar rings for the lighting on both floors. The recommendation for Energy Wizard usage is to connect it a close as possible to your distribution unit or “fuse box”, perhaps in a utility room for example. In such a location you do not need a separate unit for both the upper and downstairs rings.

Hope this helps:)

pantaydaya

Ok I have had my Energy Wizard in a stand alone plug in power meter doobie and the reading is as follows. 22 hrs and 20 Min's running and the cost has been 0.2 pence so almost nothing, but as the manufacturers site states that a false reading is evident on the monitors provided by electric companies because of the type of setup is correct as my monitor (Provided by my electric supplier and clamped around the main wire in the box) is showing @ 80w whereas my device which is very accurate says 0.7 to 0.8 of a watt

pantaydaya

I just had a reply from the manufacturer and this is what they kindly sent me.

Distorted Readings on Whole Property Energy Monitors

The whole-house meters connect to the electricity network in the house using a device called a
current transformer, or CT. This is the little gadget that clamps around your main power cable,
usually in your meter box. The problem with the CT clamps is that they read the amplitude of the
current and not its phase with reference to the voltage. All that the CT is doing is giving the current
flow into the house. Everything else is “derived” from this figure and that causes a problem, because
the meter is not seeing the true picture of the energy being consumed.

The Energy Wizard creates a capacitive reactive load which to the meter is just seen as a “load”.
Essentially the energy meter fools itself into thinking that there is an additional load/cost caused by
the Energy Wizard, whereas we know that the capacitive reactive load provided by Energy Wizard
actually counteracts the inductive reactive load caused by the other appliances. The value of the
capacitance inside the Energy Wizard should, in theory give rise to a disagreement of about 130Wh.

This is exactly what is being reported. The problem here, really, is that the whole house meter is not
a proper meter and is therefore not telling the true story.

Case closed ;-)