Get my hands on an energy monitor that works?

[growingthings]

Okay so the Electricity company bods want to put up my Direct Debit payments (again..)

We don't run a lot of appliances Fridge Freezer, Water Heater, and thats about it for the permanently switched on stuff.

The house is heated by wood, all our light bulbs are energy saving, we never leave them on etc...in short we are doing all the things that we can think off to reduce our energy usage. And according to the table on the side of our quarterly bill we haven't reduced it but it has stayed the same so some more careful monitoring is evidently needed.

I should stress that they only want to put it up to cover an increasing debit caused by a shortfall in the payments, our actual usage according to the nice man on the phone, bearing in mind the increase in electricity costs; has only gone up by £5 a month which is good. But you know how it is when you are told that you need to pay more, when in your mind and according to their helpful little graph you aren't actually using any more electricity! I want to know what is happening to it!

So do any of you Ishers out there use an energy monitor, which one is it and how well does it work for you? I don't actually know anyone in the 'real' world that owns one so I have nothing to go on and I would like to make an informed decision if I possibly can.

Sorry about the ramble, I can't keep it concise just of late you know how it is

Cheers Lorna x

[Odsox]

I got one some time ago and it's proved very useful.
Mine came from Maplin and cost £9.99 but they do several different ones here .. http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?menuno=69631

[Odsox]

We have pretty much the same problem as you Lorna.
We are concious of conserving electricity without being too paranoid about it, just doing obvious things like switching lights off when you leave the room, putting the computer into hibernation instead of leaving it on all day and our power usage has been reasonably predictable, until this last bill.
But in the last two months (our bills are two monthly) our meter reading has shot up by 200 units and I don't know why.
For the last week I have been monitoring all our appliances and reading the meter myself and everything is normal as far as I can see. If I multiply our last week's readings by 8, it comes nowhere near our 2 month bill, in fact it's just about exactly 200 units less and almost exactly the same as the bill for November 2007.
So I'm mystified, but something obviously used an extra 200 kilowatts and is not doing it now.

[Green Aura]

Are they estimated bills Tony?

Our winter bills are always higher because of the anticipated extra use from central heating etc.

Otherwise, make sure you've not got someone living in a van at the bottom of your drive using up free electricity

[Odsox]

It was an estimated reading Maggie but I went and read the meter myself as soon as it arrived, so it is definitely correct.
Because of that I made a list of all our meter readings for every two monthly period since 2004 and they are all fairly constant, less in summer more in winter, but this one is a lot more.
The only difference is we bought a dishwasher about two months ago that I instantly blamed, but when I put the energy monitor on it and ran it through a couple of cycles, it used nothing like the rogue 200 units. It did however show that the "eco" setting uses significantly less power and still cleans the dishes OK.

[Millymollymandy]

Oooh another Odsox mystery like your mysterious dying veggies. Hope you solve it soon!

[Odsox]

It'll be 'the little people' for sure

You could well be right, or actually "little fingers" to be more precise.

We have a couple of storage radiators and one was using a lot more electricity than the other. When I looked I found "someone" had turned all the controls to full whack.
That was almost certainly 5 year old little fingers.
Several years back I got accused of leaving an electric cooker switched on several times when I finished with it ... silly old sod going doolally and forgetful. Then the accuser spotted No 1 granddaughter playing with the controls.
I didn't get an apology though.

[TheGoodEarth]

I use the efergy and find it really useful for monitoring power use. Stick it on your wall and you can't help but look at it when you walk past. Boil the kettle and put on the elctric oven and you'll have kittens at the amount of elec you use.

http://www.efergy.com/elite.html

It updates itself every 6 seconds so you can walk around the house turning things of and after 6 seconds you see your consumption drop.

The Gvmnt were supposed to be giving these out for free but as usual are dragging their heels.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6550361.stm

Some energy co's will give you one if you switch. Just google it.

[brett53]

yes agree the efergy is very good - and yep look at it frequently , British gas is currently giving (?? ) a monitor away if you sign up to their latest on line scheme apparently

this site may be of interest to those considering getting a monitor http://www.electricity-monitor.com/ener ... -i-26.html

hope this helps

[fruitcake]

I bought OH an owl for xmas to try and 'encourage' better practice in our house... According to the wee monitor it says we've spent £42 on leccy since xmas when we plugged it in I think the owl was about £30 and I got it off @m@zon - friends recomended it saying that they v quickly recovered the cost of purchase

[crowsashes]

i was given one by southern electric when i complained they couldnt do me a better deal and put me on the best deal they had it works brilliantly, and have noticed the recent change in usage following xmas and having an extra body about! so im at the moment ramming it down a certain throat about saving money etc cos i pay the bills !!

it has helped to cut my usage down and i know if somethings on that shouldnt be! average daily usage for me is about 50p excluding using my washing machine. although i really need to get rid of my electric cooker and get a more efficent one as it uses an awful lot

id ask your electric company if they do them to help you keep on track of your bills you may be lucky and get one sent out

[growingthings]

id ask your electric company if they do them to help you keep on track of your bills you may be lucky and get one sent out

I didn't think of that they are a 'green' energy supplier, we get our lekky from the local wind farm, so you would hope that they would be open to an idea like that wouldn't you!?