How to cut your electricity use

Judith_Proctor

Mostly from a view to reduce my CO2 emissions, but also from a desire to pay less money, I bought a small plug in power and energy monitor.

It helped me spot what was eating electricity and what wasn't. My fridge (25 years old) was costing a small fortune to run and has been replaced. I discovered that my stereo was using 30W on standby! I now unplug it at the wall. (but my radio in the kitchen uses almost nothing on standby and thus I leave that connected)

My electricity bill was £30 less this quarter - a saving of over 40%.

The monitor cost me all of £13.99 Maplin have them at this price until the New Year, so this is a very good time to buy them as the price almost doubles after then.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=38343

You do need to be comfortable with a little bit of math to use one, as you need to be able to work from Watts or kWh to get the cost of the electricity. However, your electricity bill will tell you how much you pay per kilowatt hour and you can use 11p if you can't find a figure.

nielingren

got one but yeah they are good :T

EdinburghKev

Does anyone have any information or links to a Whole House Energy Monitor? I have seen in the past one that fits to the curcuit board but I cannot find anything about it.

EdinburghKev

Found it:

http://www.greenshop.co.uk/acatalog/index.html?http%3A//www.greenshop.co.uk/acatalog/Smart_metering_and_electricity_saving.html&CatalogBody

Thanks.

tawnyowls

Yes, I've got one of those. Pricey, but very good. I got it on ebay for a tenner cheaper.

beer2006

I just got the same one from Maplins a couple of days ago.
Being playing with it and finding out how much things cost.
For instance...........
Boiling kettle 2 cups about 2p
Toaster 2 slices bread about 2p
Dishwasher cycle about 20p
TV on for an hour about 1p
This PC on most of the day about 7p

Its fascinating

Jonesya

I've just bought an Electrisave - it gives a read out total power consumption for the house.

Cheapest I could find it for was £60 + £4 p&p from:
http://www.innocentproducts.co.uk/

espresso

Jonesya wrote:

I've just bought an Electrisave - it gives a read out total power consumption for the house.

:doh:

Isn't that what the electricity meter does?

:rotfl:

Jonesya

espresso wrote:

:doh:

Isn't that what the electricity meter does?

:rotfl:

Well yeah, but the Electrisave gives you a realtime readout of your usage (updates every minute) and because it's wireless you can put the display somewhere convenient so you can keep an eye on it.

Plus with it being green it provides a good excuse to get another gadget!

navig8r

[QUOTE=

You do need to be comfortable with a little bit of math to use one, as you need to be able to work from Watts or kWh to get the cost of the electricity. However, your electricity bill will tell you how much you pay per kilowatt hour and you can use 11p if you can't find a figure.[/QUOTE]


Have you looked in the instructions to see if you can enter the price per KW??..you can do this on the one that Lidl some times sell so no need for any maths..
Dave

Cypher

I got one tonight, actually I got two, a lad at work wanted one as well.

Thanks Judith.