Energy saving meter

Reg'stoy

Anybody know of any bricks and mortar shops that sell energy saving meters, checked on-line and prices seem to in and around 60 euro including postage. Would like to compare prices etc and avoid the wait of delivery.

hick

depends what yer looking for really, I looked into it before just never got round to getting one

http://www.ecostore.ie/acatalog/Contact_Us.html

I was going to get the watson, it's more expensive but it looks cool :cool:

saibhne

Try Ecologics - will get an owl monitor it to you in a few days -
cost 48.50 all in.
http://ecologics.ie/online-store/energy-saving-devices-2/

Capt'n Midnight

or you could wait until Lidl / Aldi have them for a teener

Reg'stoy

Thanks folks bought the one from Ecologics, quick and easy with the safety of payment through paypal.

Will report back on delivery times and how good the product is (same one as the sister has and she swears by it) etc in case anyone else was thinking of getting one.

hick

look forward to hearing how you get on with it!

robtri

forgive my ignorance, but how do they work?? i know they tell you how much power your using... but how does it help you cut down

Macha

robtri wrote: »

forgive my ignorance, but how do they work?? i know they tell you how much power your using... but how does it help you cut down

The installation of meters displaying real-time energy consumption and cost has shown to reduce consumption by up to 30%. Humans are funny creatures.

saibhne

robtri wrote: »

forgive my ignorance, but how do they work?? i know they tell you how much power your using... but how does it help you cut down

Simply by knowing where and when your energy is being used you can change your inefficient appliances and your behaviour (turn out lights, turn off appliances overnight..) and save.

It works.. We managed to figure out that the light bulbs we used in work were a big electricty user - by eliminating the bulbs that weren't necessary we dropped the light energy demand from 18 Kwh to 11 Kwh a day saving us about Euro 350 a year.. and we are only a three room office.

S.

Reg'stoy

Meter arrived this morning (12th) so no fault on delivery time. Well packaged and comes with batteries included.

Opened it and instructions to assemble are easy enough, as in just insert batteries, so again no big hassle. Should point out that like myself a lots of peoples meter boxes are probably outside their home or if your lucky enough to have a garage, it might be there. So security of the box could be an issue as two of the parts are located here.

Anyway my box has a door unlike some of my neighbours and I have the triangular key to open it, so fingers crossed mine should be secure enough. I don't know if it (sensor) can be fitted inside your fuse box maybe some one here might know (will e-mail company and ask).

Instructions say fit sensor to red wire, eek no red wire in my meter box but it does say wire should be on the furthest right and it is the live wire, so found it handy enough.

Sensor does not fit securely to my cable, might be fact that house was built at height of the boom when it was done quickly with what ever cable lying around been used.
(Maybe the sensor should't clasp the cable merely fit around it, not clear in instructions but unit still works anyway)

Setting up the energy usage meter unit is finicky enough, I for instance am with bord gais as my electric provider and we're on the urban 24hr rate so only the one tariff, and so I don't know if my time settings on the tariff 1 setting on the unit is correct (asks for a start time, so entered 00.00). Will continue to mess around with it, as I'm still trying to figure out some of the readings.

Immediate thing once up and running was just how quickly power usage jumped, spent best part of an hour going round house switching on and off stuff . Can see a lot of "did you switch off the light upstairs", "well the meter says you didn't" going on.

Hopefully switching off stuff will become habit thanks to the meter and if that happens its well worth it's price. Will try to make contact with the company and maybe get a talk through on the settings so as to take full advantage of it. Will give it a week and report back.

robtri

saibhne wrote: »

Simply by knowing where and when your energy is being used you can change your inefficient appliances and your behaviour (turn out lights, turn off appliances overnight..) and save.

It works.. We managed to figure out that the light bulbs we used in work were a big electricty user - by eliminating the bulbs that weren't necessary we dropped the light energy demand from 18 Kwh to 11 Kwh a day saving us about Euro 350 a year.. and we are only a three room office.

S.

i am sure they work wuite well, a lot of people say so... I just cant get my head around them.... if a light is on in a room i am not using ...i turn it off, liewise, turn of tv and other electrical items at sockets, not on standby... don't need a meter to tell me to do that..

in relation to your office, by reducing your light are yous ure you are still compliant with current H&S to provide the correct minimum brightness??

Pembily

Best of luck installing and using it!!! Energy managment of GMIT is my Thesis so would love to hear how you get on!!! Also my dad says leaving phone chargers plugged without a phone is grand as is leaving the TV on standby...

Thanks

quinnthebin

Pembily wrote: »

Best of luck installing and using it!!! Energy managment of GMIT is my Thesis so would love to hear how you get on!!! Also my dad says leaving phone chargers plugged without a phone is grand as is leaving the TV on standby...

Thanks

From an energy perspective leaving the TV on standby is definitely not 'grand' - something you will no doubt substantiate through the research work involved in your thesis.

Print an extra copy when your finished and give it to your dad

A device for TVs:
http://www.nigelsecostore.com/acatalog/PowerSafer.html

And one for other equipment as well:
http://www.standby-saver.co.uk/contact

hick

quinnthebin wrote: »

From an energy perspective leaving the TV on standby is definitely not 'grand' - something you will no doubt substantiate through the research work involved in your thesis.

Print an extra copy when your finished and give it to your dad

A device for TVs:
http://www.nigelsecostore.com/acatalog/PowerSafer.html

And one for other equipment as well:
http://www.standby-saver.co.uk/contact

It may not be ideal to leave your TV on standy but it certainly not as bad as it used to be, new TV's consume less than 0.15w/h
Taking an average of 16hours a day standby time over a year that works out at 876w, or €0.12 (based on current ESB tarrifs) A standard kettle uses more than that a day and a 3 tier 50w halogen spot in your kitchen uses the same in about just shy of 7 hours.

yes if every house is doing it then of course it builds up to massive numbers... then don't bother with the power savers in the link above they just run standby at a low level also, how do you think they power everthing back on when you point the remote at the tv again. Only way to use less is turn it off at the switch as I guarantee that devices on those links are not using much less than 0.15w

quinnthebin

hick wrote: »

It may not be ideal to leave your TV on standy but it certainly not as bad as it used to be, new TV's consume less than 0.15w/h
Taking an average of 16hours a day standby time over a year that works out at 876w, or €0.12 (based on current ESB tarrifs) A standard kettle uses more than that a day and a 3 tier 50w halogen spot in your kitchen uses the same in about just shy of 7 hours.

yes if every house is doing it then of course it builds up to massive numbers... then don't bother with the power savers in the link above they just run standby at a low level also, how do you think they power everthing back on when you point the remote at the tv again. Only way to use less is turn it off at the switch as I guarantee that devices on those links are not using much less than 0.15w

Absolutely agree - it's worse - quote from website http://www.nigelsecostore.com/acatalog/PowerSafer.html reveals "PowerSafer itself consumes less than 0.3 Watts of electricity" which according to your figures is double that which the latest energy efficient TVs use in standby mode. Guess I should have been more specific - it depends to a large extent on the energy rating of your TV - unfortunately I have an older model so I try to avoid using standby. Thanks for pointing this out hick.

paddym355

I have one of the energy meetings from www.diykyoto.com for about a year now... am very happy with it. It is colour coded so you can tell how your energy use is at a glance. You can also connect it to a PC once a month and download your energy stats, and then compare these online if you know anyone else with one.
Quite expensive, but I am quite impressed with it anyway.

Reg'stoy

Was in contact with Ecologics and got answers to all of my queries. They say that the sensor is better off been fitted in your meter box, so you will need to get your hand on a triangular key, I presume this goes for all types of meters.

The sensor itself senses the magnetic field on the live cable so does not need to clasp this wire, which by the way only needs to be red in England (it's home market) ours only need to be grey but should be identified as live and as the intructions say be on the right.

I asked them if they had any reported problems with interference with other wireless equipment in the home (I've had none at all) and they said no problems have ever been reported.

Now my one tariff question was a D'oh moment for me, just enter one tariff and leave the time at the default setting. Up to 5 tariffs can be entered so those of you on day and night tariffs will be able to see their savings, must see about a night tariff at home.

The display once you get used to cycling through it is very informative. You can display the cost/power usage/green house gases in the home and this can be broken down into the daily/weekly/quarterly/annual rates and within these settings you can see the previous days/weeks.... etc which is very handy.

There is a room temperature display on the unit which can be handy if you want to keep an eye on your heating bills.

There are some real eye openers already as to the biggest power users, George Foreman, Kettle and Iron. The big surprise for me was the amount of power the spot lights a lot of us have fitted in our kitchens use and the difference between normal bulbs and the new long life. Will have to get rid of the dimmer lights in the house as you can't fit the long life bulbs to them.

Even at this stage I know it will cause us to make savings, so for €48.50 delivered I consider it money well spent.

OutlawPete

Reg'stoy wrote: »

There are some real eye openers already as to the biggest power users, George Foreman, Kettle and Iron. .

Ahh, but this type of Kettle is very green

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=63971290&postcount=50

Reg'stoy

Just wondering how she fills it, on second thoughts no I'm not.