appliance energy monitor?

olivia84

i know this will undoubtedly have been asked before so apologies.

brief story; my mother in law lives across the road from us. my OH has a garage in her drive where he keeps his 39 year old car and installed a small air conditioning unit for heating and controlling the moisture (i think!)

we obviously don't want her paying for the electricity this will use but need to know what this will consume so have been looking at energy monitors. it's very confusing. the couple i looked at, i don't think are that suitable. he wants to be able to see the Kwh that it uses?? also, some reviews for different models are saying that the memory is wiped if there's a power cut.

basically, we want to know how much this unit uses in electricity exactly and to be able to track it. so, say we put the unit on tomorrow and it runs for 18 hours, then the next day he turns it off, then the next day turns it on again; after say a month we can look at the moniotor and say, right we have used x amount of hours of electric at x £s per kwh.

i know i'm not making much sense! but any help would be appriciated.

thanks

x

p.s - he had looked at a "kill a watt" model, however after researching, i think this is more for the america market so isn't accurate for our voltage and tings.

Wywth

olivia84 wrote: »

i know this will undoubtedly have been asked before so apologies.

brief story; my mother in law lives across the road from us. my OH has a garage in her drive where he keeps his 39 year old car and installed a small air conditioning unit for heating and controlling the moisture (i think!)

we obviously don't want her paying for the electricity this will use but need to know what this will consume so have been looking at energy monitors. it's very confusing. the couple i looked at, i don't think are that suitable. he wants to be able to see the Kwh that it uses?? also, some reviews for different models are saying that the memory is wiped if there's a power cut.

basically, we want to know how much this unit uses in electricity exactly and to be able to track it. so, say we put the unit on tomorrow and it runs for 18 hours, then the next day he turns it off, then the next day turns it on again; after say a month we can look at the moniotor and say, right we have used x amount of hours of electric at x £s per kwh.

i know i'm not making much sense! but any help would be appriciated.

thanks

x

p.s - he had looked at a "kill a watt" model, however after researching, i think this is more for the america market so isn't accurate for our voltage and tings.

Is the airconditioning unit one that plugs in?
If so, lots available. I think I got mine from Aldi, but places like Maplins sell them too. Usually they have a battery in to give you the display.

If not a plug in unit, then it's a bit more complicated. He could use an Owl type (other makes are available) and just plug it over the supply cable.

Or he could go the whole hog, and install a secondary meter. That could cover all the electricity used in the garage. e.g. for lighting, power tools (for repair to the car), etc.

matelodave

There are plenty of plug-in monitors about but if you want to do it properly you could wire in one of these http://www.test-meter.co.uk/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=1062&utm_source=GoogleBase&utm_medium=organic&gclid=CIDig-bqvrkCFQTHtAod6w4AYQ.

A proper electricity meter will store it's reading when the power fails and it will be more accurate that an owl or similar - it's also a lot cheaper at only £24

olivia84

ahhh thanks people. we went for a maplin own make one with batteries. i would love a whole new supply from the street to the garage just so it has nothing to do with MIL at all! we'll take a note of what it uses and repay her every month xx