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My bills seem pretty high, so thinking about getting a electricity monitor to see when i'm spending and perhaps bring it down.
The Geo Minim on Amazon is about £30 and seems to be well reviewed.
Does anyone have any thoughts on accuracy or anything else?
You get one of those (or similar) for free if you have a smart meter fitted.
I used an Owl monitor for a couple of years; I came to the conclusion (aided by a smart meter for the last month or so of that) that unless you're using lots of electricity all the time the ones that work by a clamp around the meter tails are pretty hopelessly inaccurate; ours overestimated our power consumption by nearly a third. The Owl didn't read below about 120w unless you started turning circuits off at the consumer unit (even circuits with nothing on them); if the house is only using 30-40w overnight or when nobody was in that adds up to a pretty big difference.
A smart meter, or a plug-in thing to test individual appliances, would be a much more useful option.
I'm not sure you really care about absolute accuracy, you are just wanting to find a number so you can bring it down. The owl device worked ok for me but beware that clamp meters don't really work if your current is out of phase with your voltage which will happen with motors (washing machine) and older electronics but heating devices and newer electronics should be fine. It's ok for an indicative number though
A plug in thing is likely to be better but not so easy to use
If you have delta 3 phase wiring in your house (as I unfortunately did) then clamp devices aren't going to work properly for the whole house and you just have to work on one phase at a time
Mine drove me insane, I developed a pathological obsession to bring the numbers down, My wife threw it away in the end as she was fearful of hypothermia.
I have the slightly posher geo one. If I was getting another, i'd get the cheaper model. It's def reduced my electricity useage (not hard!) - you can calibrate my one as well (not that i've got round to it yet).
How high are your bills? How big is your house, how many people live there? And is the heating, and hot water, on gas?
You could try your local library. Mine loans clip on meters out, just like books!
As a general rule of thumb, if its switched on at the wall the it uses electricity. The warmer/hotter it gets, the more electricity is uses.
To reduce your consumption, you just need to turn things off when you're not using them. Turn everything off and your consumption will probably drop like a stone.
I've one you can have for £10 posted...
It was good to drill down what the hell was costing us so much when we first moved in (the old boiler, the spotlights, tumble drier and coffee machine!)
Drop me an email.
We have one but to be honest it’s made shit all difference to our usage. We already are pretty careful but with an Aga chewing gas and a room full of snakes eating electricity I know why our bills are hideous and short of culling the snakes (not happening) or ditching the Aga (which we’ve become really quite fond of) I can’t see things changing.
Switch to LED lamps, get a meter and stick it somewhere you look at quite often eg near tv or computer and watch the dial move, shows how much power cooker /washing machine/tumble drier use.
If you really want to cut the bills, you're better off switching providers.
Though they'll force a smart meter on you anyway and you'll get a silly monitor.
Beware the smart meters. The cost of them has to be paid back at some point, i.e. with higher bills. Also, they're an open door to peak charging and worse, now knowing exactly what you use and when.
Plus the majority are still pushing out redundant technology smart meters that are incompatible with the new data network that all providers share, which means on switching you'll need another new meter. Unless you can convince them to install the new meters that they're reluctant to do (to use up old stock, and knowing the older ones make you less likely to switch if it's going to be more hassle).
Simple usage check though, just have someone watching the numbers on the meter, switch everything off then see what happens as each switches on.
p.s. do you have halogen lamps? That's what whacks my bill up. Set of uplighters in the living room. Halogen each one, so that was 300W bulbs in each as supplied, burning all night each day.
Thanks. Only got round to reading this now. Good advice. Thx. Not sure I want a smart meter, seem constantly to be in dispute with the utilities company over last 12 months and god forbid they will get the power to turn me off remotely; also worried about Mr Putin switching me off etc.
Get a Verv - £250 and will tell you what you consume on everything electrical in your house and only requires 1 clamp.
How do these things work though? How can they tell you what is using what power?
Or is it just a case of you go around the house switching stuff off to find out what is the big user, which is surly just common sense anyhow?