"I love my Energy Monitor – do you have one?" blog discussion

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loracan1 wrote: »

...You can check how much one item is using if everything else is switched off or if you check it before and after you switch (for example) the kitchen lights on in my house. Shoots up because they're 4 x R80 100watt spots. That is probably the single biggest difference to our usage because they got left on everytime anyone went into the kitchen.

You can, but I was led to believe they wern't particularly accurate when low usage devices were being used alone. And it may not be practical to turn every device off.

e.g I can think of the following items I have on continually (or in stand-by mode)
Cooker (clock)
Microwave (clock)
Video
DVD recorder
Digi-box
Central heating electrics
TV aerial amplifier
Fridge/freezer
Clock radio
Fax
Telephone
Answer machine
.
.
.
and there's probably quite a few others.
If disconnected from the mains for any significant time, many lose their settings which can be real time consuming to reset (imagine my frustration whenever we have a power cut).
But I liked to discover what each actually uses - some less than 10w each. (though obviously not possible to measure for the cooker and central heating electrics - hence why I suggest both type of meter are ideally needed)

Barnetbear

Mine took 9 weeks to arrive, I didn't think it'd come, but free is free so thank you NPower.

One of the best things about it is this: if you know what your usual "everything off or on standby" consumption usually is (at my place it's 40W unless the fridge motor is on, then it's 160W) you might be alerted that you've forgotten to switch something off by checking the consumption displayed on the monitor. If it's something like an iron, then you've probably just prevented a fire. The monitor can also remind you how much waste plugged in phone and shaver chargers are responsible for, it all adds up.

luxor4t

Oooooh, I want one - a new toy for the school holidays! It'll keep us amused for ages playing 'hunt the power waster' & will pay back it's cost over time.

loracan1

luxor4t wrote: »

Oooooh, I want one - a new toy for the school holidays! It'll keep us amused for ages playing 'hunt the power waster' & will pay back it's cost over time.

The 'see how low you can get this' game is my particular favourite.

Impet_Limpet

mystic_trev wrote: »

I got my freebie NPOWER 'Home energy meter' yesterday. I've enjoyed playing around with it, and it's been interesting, seeing how much power things use.

I have an npower one too, it has suddenly become not so useful as I discovered it was losing 1hour and half every day on it's internal clock, I have to send it back to get a replacement sent out

Propapedia

The government should issue these devices free of charge or at cost to help the environment.

Wee_Bargain_Hunter

Propapedia wrote: »

The government should issue these devices free of charge or at cost to help the environment.

I agree. We saved nearly 20% when we first got it & became more aware of our behaviour & changed it. We lent it to a friend so don't have it anymore but even now about 2 years later we are still using less electricity. :money:

ETA - Keep an eye on the daily newspaper thread on the discounts forum as sometimes there are offers to get these monitors free/at a discount.

roddydogs

Dont forget that these devices in theselves use power, but they can throw up some strange results...ie my "Henry" Vacuum uses as much power on "low" setting as on high??, also if things are plugged in but no on even standby, they still use power?

ClootiesMum

I've got one of the OWL ones from Amazon & I firmly believe that EVERY household should have one - they just make you aware of what might have been left on and make you think about what you're using.

pinksleepybear

In Bristol, you can borrow these from your local library for free for a month, but I think they can't be renewed online. You would have to take it back to a branch to have it renewed.

Might be worth checking out other areas too.