Energy meters/monitors

Alloneword

I'm trying to work out how much various things cost to run in my home, espicially when cooking meals in an electric oven as i'm mulling over the idea of buying one of those microwaves that cook as well.

So does anyone have any experience of these things, how good are they at telling you how much in £'s something costs to run, plus are they easy to fit.

All1

maas

I bought the efergy elite classic. Very easy to install (you simply clip the transmitter on the wire next to the meter). Theres's then a setup to go through on the monitor itself where you input your tariff details (unit cost etc).

It then records and reports your daily usage, storing it by week and by month.

When you first set it up its at its most useful, as you can simply go around the house switching appliances on and the monitor will display how much its costing you.

There's a slight delay when switching an appliance on to it being recorded by the monitor (the transmitter sends data to the monitor every 5 seconds). SO for example the monitor would show 5p a hour at the moment for me, if I switched the kettle on, within a couple of seconds it will show 48p until a couple of seconds after I turn it off indicating it would cost roughly 43p a hour for the kettle - one of the most expensive thing I've found in the house). That knowledge in itself forces me to be more efficient with the kettle so I'm no longer just filling it to the top for 1 coffee (twice the boiling time).

In terms of accuracy they're not 100% especially at very low usage but I find them atleast giving me a good idea what everything is costing. I never realised how much having the lights on was costing me. Everything is LED now!

I've cut my electricity bill by almost 30% by better managing my usage with the help of the monitor.

Personally I found it really useful.

leeruddecology

I have one of these already fitted into my flat. My runs at the mains, andnot per an individual plug socket. So, it’s a matter of turning everything offwithin reason and then switching the item I want to see working.

I find it really useful. For example, I can see at the moment with one light(energy saving bulb) on and my tv and sky box is costing 2.855p to run per anhour. Put the oven on and it will jump to about 30p per hour.

But, of course an oven doesn’t need to run at full heat for that whole hour,or 30 minutes if say cooking something. Because, once it’s at the temperatureit will just run the fan in the oven, which costs pennies.

I love my power usage monitor thing. But, it was free as the flat came withit. Would I buy one, I am not sure... are they expensive?

You can in theory work out the cost of using appliances by looking at thewattage and then the kWh.

I have a Panasonic microwave which has an oven etc. I likethe conventional oven more. But, I must say I try and do a few things at once,which helps keeps the cost down per item. The microwave isn’t as big.

I also switched to LED lights because I realised halogen bulbs was expensive. I save about 80% of energy use, although they do cost more. After a year of average use I then start to see real savings when considering the higher cost of buying the LED.

[Deleted User]

Best bet is to to ditch these crude energy monitors and request a smart meter from your supplier which is super accurate , has all your tariff details and gives you exact hourly/weekly /monthly costs in hard cash and kwhrs

leeruddecology

are these smart meters free?

I have an owl, I don't know if Eon supplied it? But, I can input the energy rates and times, and it tells me my energy use for any given time, average day rate, week and month and so on.

[Deleted User]

They are supposed to be partly funded by the customer as they cost quite a bit more than a standard meter, over £200 .I have smart meters and havent noticed any extra costs to my bills/green energy tax. Smarts are wired in direct to the mains and I would have thought they would be much more accurate than the Owl. The one I tried a few years back was pretty poor and a waste of money

[Deleted User]

maas wrote: »

cost roughly 43p a hour for the kettle - one of the most expensive thing I've found in the house

This is a good example of why it's a dodgy idea putting energy monitors in the hands of people who don't understand the difference between energy and power. You could boil about 40 cups of coffee a day for the cost of running a typical A++ fridge and freezer.

The kettle is high power, but it's only on for a few minutes at a time, and the energy you pay for is power multiplied by time. Confusing energy with power is like confusing distance with speed. The other trap for the unwary is that if you measure an appliance with a thermostat such as fridges, freezers, ovens, immersion heaters etc. you won't get the correct answer unless you average the measurement over a sufficient time period for the stat to cycle on and off several times.

maas

jack_pott wrote: »

This is a good example of why it's a dodgy idea putting energy monitors in the hands of people who don't understand the difference between energy and power. You could boil about 40 cups of coffee a day for the cost of running a typical A++ fridge and freezer.

Thats true. Its the same when I put the vacuum cleaner on. Of course its not going to be on for 24 hours a day. The kettle is probably on for 1 hour a day.

Its the same with the toaster. Having the toaster, kettle and microwave all on at the same time for breakfast shows over £1 an hour. Breakfast only takes 10 minutes to cook.

But it highlights that only filling the kettle to 1 cup each time saves me £50 a year. Thats an adjustment I cant make with the fridge/freezer which just uses power all day regardless.

Terry98

jack_pott wrote: »

This is a good example of why it's a dodgy idea putting energy monitors in the hands of people who don't understand the difference between energy and power. You could boil about 40 cups of coffee a day for the cost of running a typical A++ fridge and freezer.

The kettle is high power, but it's only on for a few minutes at a time, and the energy you pay for is power multiplied by time. Confusing energy with power is like confusing distance with speed. The other trap for the unwary is that if you measure an appliance with a thermostat such as fridges, freezers, ovens, immersion heaters etc. you won't get the correct answer unless you average the measurement over a sufficient time period for the stat to cycle on and off several times.

The kettle is high power so is the immersion heater and I bet quite a few people leave immersion heaters on for longer than necessary.

A smart meter/monitor will quite easily show anyone how much each appliance costs as the poster pointed out with the kettle example.

jbuchanangb

I have an OWL monitor, and I keep it set in the Energy display mode, showing KwH. I would find it tedious to reprogramme it for the actual unit price for the energy, but it does have that feature. It can even report greenhouse gas emission attributable to the energy being used.

It's all very well suggesting smart meters, but that would be on the wall in my garage where I wouldn't be able to see it, whereas the OWL device is portable, it can sit on my desk, or I can take it around to where I want to use it.

As I sit here my house is consuming at rate of 0.435 Kw/h I would soon know if the oven, kettle, vacuum cleaner etc were to be switched on.

Terry98

jbuchanangb wrote: »

It's all very well suggesting smart meters, but that would be on the wall in my garage where I wouldn't be able to see it, whereas the OWL device is portable, it can sit on my desk, or I can take it around to where I want to use it.

No you can have it anywhere you like.

This is what they gave to me when they fitted our smart meters
http://www.freedomtosave.com.au/index.php?q=pipit-500/

The utility supplier then programmes your tariff into the system and you can then instantly see what you are using and how much it is costing you without you having to input anything!