OWL monitor reading vs electricoty meter

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I don't use that much in a whole year in my 3 bed detached bungalow and that includes electric heating (2 ASHP split units) and immersion heater

grizzly1911

easylife73 wrote: »

My concern though is that my electricity meter is NOT the most accurate measure of electricity usage - I'm worried that it is not reading correctly, as since having the new meter fitted we have gone from paying an average of £5 per month up to £60 per month! Whilst I accept that the £5 a month we were paying was probably inaccurate (and was probably the reason for the meter being changed), £60 a month seems too high. We are an average family of 4 - I would think £30 a month would be more the right amount. Our latest bill shows 3370 KWh for a quarter - but the newly fitted OWL monitor is giving readings of about half what the meter is saying.

We have a 4 bedroom house, 4 near adults, Gas CH/W & Hob. consumption is 7800KWh. I put this down to electric shower for the teenagers and an average one washing machine/dishwasher use a day. I would say our elec/gas split is 65/35 with electricity closer to £60 than £30 on a very cheap tariff.

victor2

Switch everything off (including your fridge), read your meter, make sure it is showing no usage, then run just something that takes a known amount of power, like a 1KW heater for something like 15 minutes. Then take another meter reading and see how much it says you've used. You'll need to look at fractions of kWh as a 1KW device will only use 0.25kWh in 15 minutes.
If your meter is way out, like you suspect, you should see quite a difference between what you ran and what it says you've used.
Don't forget to switch the fridge back on!

Edit: You can also see what your OWL says at the same time.

easylife73

Okay, I'm getting increasingly confused here....now suspect the OWL may be the one that's wrong, but still think our meter readings are too high! Plugged the0 kettle in - it says on the bottom 1850-2400w, so was expecting the current usage on the OWL to go up by between 1.8 and 2.4 KWhrs. It has actually gone up by 0.63! I am send the other half outside to move the clip to the other wire, although he insists he's put definitley put it on the live wire.

easylife73

Okay, with the clip on the other wire the readings are even lower...so have put it back on the original one!

And now it's gone up, so maybe the connection was loose or something?

Electricity usage can't be due to immersion heater or anything like that, as we don't have one! I'll keep playing and investigating....

penrhyn

The halves of the ferrite core must touch when the clip is closed for it to work properly.

DVardysShadow

easylife73 wrote: »

Okay, I'm getting increasingly confused here....now suspect the OWL may be the one that's wrong, but still think our meter readings are too high! Plugged the0 kettle in - it says on the bottom 1850-2400w, so was expecting the current usage on the OWL to go up by between 1.8 and 2.4 KWhrs. It has actually gone up by 0.63! I am send the other half outside to move the clip to the other wire, although he insists he's put definitley put it on the live wire.

Are you measuring power [instantaneous rate kW] or energy [cumulative total kWh]?

A 2000W appliance [eg kettle] will increase the energy reading by 2 kWh in an hour. But as a kettle is done boiling in 3 minutes, you will register an extra 0.1 kWh. However it should increase the power reading by 2kW

grizzly1911

As a PP has said make sure the jaws are firmly closed round the cable.

Our monitor reads appliance load OK but isn't very good at measuring background usage when nearly everything is switched off. Usually measures 160/170w when measurement at meter suggests 100w.

I would suspect the OWL and it's set up rather than the meter in my experience.

easylife73

We've been reading the usage number when trying to get it to tie-up to, say, switching the kettle on - like you say, it should go up by 2KW. When comparing to the meter we've been using the cumulative value. Don't have a clue what's going on now, as the OWL was under-reading compared to the meter before. For the last 24 hours it has been over-reading (OWL=11 KWh Meter=8 KWh). And when I came home from work this afternoon the usage reading had blanked itself, which was useful :mad:

victor2

Treat the OWL as an indicator of change in usage and just a pointer to how much.
My eon monitor is often way off actual figures. For instance, it has just changed from about 200W to 550W, which I know means my fridge/freezer has just cut in. Does it mean the fridge/freezer is using 350W? Nope, but it's in that sort of area.
It's not consistently wrong though - if it was I could adjust the reported figures. Comparing its log to actual daily readings for a month, the variance ranged from 5% to 60% below what the meter said. For the whole month the monitor was 25% below the meter.
Yet when I have spot checked it by measuring what an electric heater was taking, the monitor was spot on, so maybe it is more accurate with higher power usage.