I have become obsessed

maryb

some of the earlier posts talked about reading the electric meter every day. I have just bought a power monitor from maplins for about £24. It's the sort you plug you appliance into and it works out how much electricity you have used. I know it doesn't seem very OS to spend that much money to work out the exact usage - though it's certainly obsessive - but the real reason is I have two twenty year old freezers and I want to work out the maths as to whether I should replace them with A rated new ones. It would probably save a lot of electricity but I want to work out how much.

It's also partly a green thing - but I always find it hard to decide whether it's actually better for the environment to keep old appliances going (all that metal and plastic which doesn't get recycled) even if they use more electricity. What do other people think?

Anyway after I've done the freezers I'll work out how much the breadmaker costs in electricity and post it on here if anyone's interested.

Sweet_Pea_2

When I was younger and still living at home my mom had to go onto benefits for a while. One of the first things she did was take a reading of her gas and electricity meters each week and work out roughly how much the bill should be so she didnt have any nasty surprises when they came. She still does this now 25 years later, I guess once you get into moneysaving habits they are pretty hard to break.

jo_b_2

Al_Mac wrote:

Good points MaryB, might have been expensive, can you lend it to others :beer:

You can always offer your old appliances to other people through freecycle if you join a local group.