Anyone recommend a decent energy monitor

rogerblack

frugal_matelot wrote: »

My water and heating are gas and I have a standard digital electrical meter. It's not a large 3 bedroom house, 2 kids. When I queried it with Scottish Power they said that the old meter must have been reading low and I had been lucky!

22 units a day, for a property with gas, is extremely high.
Do you have gas hot water too?

I could imagine 22kWh/day, if for example you've got quite a lot of halogen downlighters that get used a lot as a main source of light, a couple of xboxes with big screens, perhaps a really large fridge, a couple of loads of washing and electrically drying a day, electric cooking.

But it's a stretch for most homes.

Checking the meter every couple of hours will be useful.

delboyo2005

Hi
I have an unused ( unwrapped actually) monitor, sent to me by Npower., make me an offer ( remember you will have to pay a postage charge as well).
Cheers
Derek

Dubito_ergo_sum

frugal_matelot wrote: »

When I queried it with Scottish Power they said that the old meter must have been reading low and I had been lucky!

Sorry, but if I read this right, on your 'old' meter you were using 8Kw, then they exchanged the meter and on your new meter you are using 22kw ? nothing else has changed re new appliances or consumption pattern ? and the meter exchange didnt happen in fall so you are not saying that you are using 8kw in summer and 22kw in winter ? if the only change is the meter and there is no seasonal variation, it could indeed be possible that either your old meter was running slow or your new meter is running fast. Switch every single last thing that uses electricity off until the meter stops recording. Maker a note of the meter reading including the digits in red. Then check the rating on your kettle, put the kettle on and check that the meter is recording the right amount of Kw by comparing the new meter reading to the one before the kettle boiled.

HappyMJ

Dubito_ergo_sum wrote: »

Sorry, but if I read this right, on your 'old' meter you were using 8Kw, then they exchanged the meter and on your new meter you are using 22kw ? nothing else has changed re new appliances or consumption pattern ? and the meter exchange didnt happen in fall so you are not saying that you are using 8kw in summer and 22kw in winter ? if the only change is the meter and there is no seasonal variation, it could indeed be possible that either your old meter was running slow or your new meter is running fast. Switch every single last thing that uses electricity off until the meter stops recording. Maker a note of the meter reading including the digits in red. Then check the rating on your kettle, put the kettle on and check that the meter is recording the right amount of Kw by comparing the new meter reading to the one before the kettle boiled.

A kettle? That only takes 90 seconds to boil 500ml of water using about 60Wh of energy. That wouldn't even register on the meter or it would have boiled by the time someone gets to the meter opens the door and starts the timer. It's a digital meter you need to turn everything off in the house and use something like a electric heater and count the number of flashes in a minute using a countdown timer. Multiply the number of flashes in the minute by 60 and that should equal the wattage of the heater +/-10% or so.

Richie-from-the-Boro

delboyo2005 wrote: »

Hi
I have an unused ( unwrapped actually) monitor, sent to me by Npower., make me an offer ( remember you will have to pay a postage charge as well).
Cheers
Derek

C'mon Del, you got a MOTA, send Rodders to deliver it :

CpHarding

Pretty much all the "energy meters" that are on sale ( the clip on the lead type) are best guess only for usage.

These work by measuring the current draw, and assuming the voltage. If you have ever actually looked at the voltage coming from your mains ( I'm not suggesting sticking a multimeter probe or anything in wall sockets, except those plug in meters which will show a rough idea of the voltage) you will notice that mains voltage is rarely 240V and rarely constant.

This means that the clip type meters cannot be relied on for accurate measurement.

Something must have changed other than the meter in order to create that much difference.

bondy01

Just done the calculation for Feb with my efergy USB monitor and it has overread by less than 3%. I tweaked the default voltage down as it was generally 4-5% high before. I have further tweaked the setting for March and hope to get within 1-2% of the meter reading. I don't consider that bad to be honest.