Patridge bantam chicken poorly foot?

[abwsco]

Just wondered if anyone had one and if so what make and would you recommend it. I was thinking along the lines of the ones shown in the Eon advert. Thanks

[Olly]

Yes!

 

I asked about this a while ago - see here and as a result I bought an OWL monitor.

 

I haven't seen the Eon advert so I don't know what that's like. I find mine really good - before I go to bed I check and if it's not on the lowest figure, I go off and see what I've left switched on! It really makes me conscious of what I have got turned on.

[Lesley]

Whereabouts do you need to plug it in Olly? - all our electrics apart from the fuse board, are in a building half way down a long drive

[abwsco]

Thanks Olly Off for a read of it.

 

We already have energy saving bulbs wherever we can, go round turning things off but with two teenagers in the house I thought it might help show them how much it's costing when they leave things on. Thought I could then give them a bill Have done that with the phone before and they now THINK before they use it.

[Helly Welly]

We have an Electrisave monitor. Part of it clips onto the cable that goes into the electric meter. The receiver can be put anywhere in the house. You can set it to give you your usage as kw/hour, greenhouse gas emmisions in tonnes or pence per hour, which is what we use. It's definately made a difference to us, and is useful to make sure everything is turned off at night. And i know that the fridge uses 3.2 pence per hour!

[abwsco]

Thanks Helen. I think that's the one I've seen on Eon.

[Olly]

sorry, been offline for a bit. The OWL monitor also clips on to your incomeing cable and then the monitor can be anywhere in the house I tend to keep it on the landing so I can have a quick check before I go to bed.

[Milly]

We switched to Scottish Hydro recently on a green tariff and they give you a monitor free. The transmitter clips onto one of the cables in the electricity meter box (it's outside) and then you plug the monitor in somewhere convenient in the house. Not sure if it would work if your meter box was a long way down a drive though!

 

It's quite addictive - it shows how much you are using/cost per day/cost per month. Then you go round turning things off and the price drops. There is a warning that you shouldn't turn off essential heating and lighting but it does make you more careful about how much electricity you are using. We have only had it a couple of weeks so I don't know when the novelty will wear off.

 

Milly

[Lesley]

Thanks - I'd better have a good look at them....

[missuscluck]

http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/2867_7248.htm?WT.mc_id=2008-09-19-11-25

 

Just seen this on my Aldi weekly special buys e mail.

 

I think Ill go and get one.

[Snowy]

That looks brilliant! Are the Sunday specials only on the Sunday, or will they still be in store next day (if there are any left!)? I won't be able to get in on Sunday, but will be there Monday

[abwsco]

That looks brilliant! Are the Sunday specials only on the Sunday, or will they still be in store next day (if there are any left!)? I won't be able to get in on Sunday, but will be there Monday

 

If there are any left they should be on sale on the Monday BUT they do tend to have limited stocks of the specials. Well they do at our one anyway.

[Shirl]

I have one of the electricity monitors and don't think the one sold in Aldi will be nearly as good. The Aldi one is more for measuring the elctricity useage of an individual appliance rather than being able to see what you are using as a whole. I'm not sure why you would need to monitor individual items. Surely if you need to use something then you use it and if not don't ? Actually to plug my lads' computers into it would be good so I could say your pc costs £x an hour which I can do with mine but the Aldi one is a cheaper way of doing it.

 

Sorry rambling again

[Snowy]

I thought that Shirl - too cheap for it to be one of the 'measure everything' kind. Useful to measure other things though in the meantime

[Ain't Nobody Here]

This is the one I got from Hydro-electric (after changing to the Better Plan)

 

 

It's a real eye-opener how much things like kettles and irons cost .

[abwsco]

This is the one I got from Hydro-electric (after changing to the Better Plan)

 

 

It's a real eye-opener how much things like kettles and irons cost .

 

Kettles yes, but what's an iron

[Ain't Nobody Here]

[Guest]

My electric shower set the alarm off!

[Shirl]

Sounds like a good reason to dump the iron to me Think I still have to use the shower though.

[redhotchick]

I bought an OWL monitor and I am finding turning things off very addictive!

I paid just over £30. My intention is to share it around my family and get us all saving money, sorry, I meant saving the planet.

I never realised that the boiler used quite a bit of electricity when the central heating is on.

I've identified a bulb that I thought was low energy but seems to use rather a lot, and I have turned everything that was left on stand by off.

It has to make a difference!

The only downside is that it doesn't record information, just displays the current usage.

[Olly]

I think it's brilliant - although I still have to do the sums to work out if my energy consumption has gone down, it makes me go round the house turning off things. The amount used by the 'spotlight' type fitting in the bathroom was a real shock - I'm going to replace it with something that takes low energy bulbs.

 

I'm guessing you've got an OWL or similar, redhotchick - although they don't record usage, I like the fact that they're also a thermometer and a humidity gauge. I carry mine around the house checking the temperature in different rooms too!

[redhotchick]

It is an OWL monitor. I wasn't sure about the temperature and humidity, is the reading for the room that the display unit is in rather than the cupboard where the transmitter is?

 

Olly - Look for LED lights to replace the spotlights in the bathroom. That could be another thread in itself, I'd be interested to know if anyone has made this swap already.

[abwsco]

Just thought I'd do an update even though summer is on it's way so we shouldn't be using as much electric!

 

Having got an Owl monitor and told the teenage DD's and their friends to keep checking it, it was a pleasant surprise to find that we have cut our usage. Even better is that our electric DD has been cut by £20 per month even though the cost of electric has gone up.

[cloud]

We has a shock at the begining of April when our electric bill arrived and EON had put up our payments to £99 per month.

 

So began an economy drive. I started taking readings of our electric meter to see how much we saved from day to day as we didn't have any other way to measure it.

 

Here are the results...

 

That first drop from 19kWhr per day down to 8kWhr was due to switching of all the things in the house we generally left on standby.

 

It crept up a little after that, but only a little. Then towards the end of the month (day 28) I changed the Freezer temperature from -23C to -18C and I think that saved nearly another 1kWhr.

 

We seem to be creeping up again. I think that's us being complacent and lazy. We're forgetting to turn off the TV at night sometimes, or leaving the broadband modem on while we are at work.

 

Just submitted our latest reading to EON and they send us a bill. They've not only cut our monthly payment down by nearly £40 per month, and they're returning £130

 

We now have an energy meter, so I'm hoping we can find what's taking the 7kWhr and cut the bill down even more!

[carrie]

After receiving our electricity bill I am considering buying a monitor. Have looked at OWL and Efergy they are both similar prices but Efergy can link to PC to give detailed charts etc.

 

How are you all getting on with your meters and have they saved you money and cut bills?

 

Were there any electrical items that have surprised you?

 

We got a woodburner last year and have dramatically cut our gas bill so this is the next step.