Electric Ireland [esb] vs Airtricity

rosco p coltrane

Re: People looking for a monitor for a Tenner.

Go to ebay.co.uk, not .ie nor .com, you want ebay.co.uk.

Just search "Electricity Monitor".

You'll see loads of "British Gas" ones, they're fine as British Gas like An Bord Gais here, are supplying electricity too. There's the "OWL" brand, (this is the one that Airtricity was/is giving out free to new customers, its just rebadged).

Then there's "Eaga", which is the one i have, its fine although not as good as the British Gas one, (i say not as good as the british gas one as it will have a room temperature graph and other bits showing on the lcd screen,) but essentially they do the same job - telling you how much electricity you're using.

when your attaching the transmitter to your meter cable (this is a very straight forward job - there'll be instructions - serioulsy a dog with a mallet up its jacksy could do it!!), and your meter box is outside your house, put it in a ziplock bag to protect it from moisture - doesn't overheat or anything like that).

You'll see most of the sellers don't have a price for shipping to ireland and may even say it in their post, but if you put in a bid and ebay excepts your bid - your in.

So lets say you make a bid on a monitor for 2.49, and it has 4 days before the auction finishes, place your cheap bid, ebay accepts it (if ebay says "Your bid is not acceptable as the seller does not post to your country" - just go to the next listing until you get a listing that will accept your bid) and you then send the seller a message asking what the postage is for ireland, they'll get back to you - most private ebay sellers will just charge you postage at cost. Keep an eye on the listing.. There's no harm having a few bids on different monitors at the same time. Worse case scenario you win two for less than the price of a few pints.

Good luck, and let us know how you get on, just looking on ebay.co.uk now there are over 110 units for sale. If you want to find out more on a particular model, just google it.

rosco p coltrane

vibe666 wrote: »

you could just get one of those limescale removing tablets/sachets, no scrubbing required at all and they are very cheap.

just half fill the kettle, boil it and drop in the tablet/sachet and leave it to do it's work. then empty it out, re-fill and re-boil with fresh water, throw that out and you're don, sparkling clean new kettle.

Tried that, you'd have to leave the tablet steep for a few days, no way near as effective as vinegar.

Vinegar eats limescale.

clint_silver

rosco p coltrane wrote: »

Tried that, you'd have to leave the tablet steep for a few days, no way near as effective as vinegar.

Vinegar eats limescale.

Try the aldi or lidl (cant remember which one stock it) W5 limescale remover. Industrial stuff and you most certainly do not have to wait days or even over night.

Tried the vinegar method once, and yes it works but must have had to boil the kettle 4-5 times before the smell went which left me questioning the energy saving element* of the process.


*see what I done there.

flyguy

Not sure if someone posted this already but there are websites that do all this stuff for you: http://www.moneyguideireland.com/electricity-and-gas-cheapest-combined-prices.html or http://www.bonkers.ie/compare-gas-electricity-prices/dual-fuel/
Easier than calculating it all yourself...

pa990

rosco p coltrane wrote: »

Oh, and another thing.

Next time you approach your kettle, take the lid off - look at the element inside, if its caked with limescale, it will take your kettle alot longer to boil.

You can try and chip away the limescale, or an easier way is to buy a cheap bottle of vinegar, fill the kettle up just to submerge the element, leave it over night(leave a note on it !!!!), next morning the limescale will come off with a little scrubbing, rinse the bejaysus out of it, and your kettle will boil miles quicker.

Kettles eat alot of juice

The Cheapest option is to get a tub of Citric Acid from your local pharmacy.

Put in a few spoons of this to a full kettle, boil it, and go to bed.
The following morn, rinse out the kettle, and it will be spotless.

banchang

OK enough household tips.

Back on topic, I switched to Airtricity in June 2010 for both gas & electric.

Bonkers.ie now tells me that I can save Eur335 per annum by switching my gas to Flogas, & my electricity to Bord Gais.

Go figure.

Jesus Wept

I honestly have no idea who I should be with at this stage and my head is melted.

Low gas user, medium electricity user, apartment.

Sick of how many price levels there are and how you are charged more the longer you are a customer - nice incentive.

travis1976

Hi Guys,
does anyone using one of the Owl meters know what the average kw/h is on their house? Mine is between 400w and 660w, that's no cooker. no heaters, no immersion etc. Our bills are huge and am trying to get to the bottom of it. My neighbour seems to use 1/2 the amount of electricity that we use. Same house, similar appliance usage.... I'm in a bad way to get to the bottom of it.

clint_silver

travis1976 wrote: »

Hi Guys,
does anyone using one of the Owl meters know what the average kw/h is on their house? Mine is between 400w and 660w, that's no cooker. no heaters, no immersion etc. Our bills are huge and am trying to get to the bottom of it. My neighbour seems to use 1/2 the amount of electricity that we use. Same house, similar appliance usage.... I'm in a bad way to get to the bottom of it.

youve trial and error to go round switching things off. get partner/another body to look at the monitor and go round swithing on/off everything in the house til you find it.
if you cant find the culprit using switches and plugs, go to fuseboard and start taking out fuses til you get it.
biggest saving I found was replacing a load of 50w downlighters (must have had 18-20 around the house) with LEDs. costly to replace at first but real savings started after 5-6 months.

thebuzz

Bord Gais are the best aren't they?

clint_silver

thebuzz wrote: »

Bord Gais are the best aren't they?

why? for what?

assuming you use the same amount of electricity no matter what providor youre with, who ever gives the cheapest bills for those units should be the best. customer service plays a part with some people so a bill of 5-6 euro cheaper over 200 euro is not worth the hassle of dealing with poor customer service for some people.

Milage may vary as they say.

Wineman

banchang wrote: »

OK enough household tips.

Back on topic, I switched to Airtricity in June 2010 for both gas & electric.

Bonkers.ie now tells me that I can save Eur335 per annum by switching my gas to Flogas, & my electricity to Bord Gais.

Go figure.

I rang Airtricity yesterday after being on Bonkers.ie and asked about a deal and they gave me 16% off gas and electricity for a year with no minimum contract which brought their rates more or less in line with Flogas and Bord Gais - decided to try the same thing with Sky TV and they gave me 50% off my bill!:D

thebuzz

clint_silver wrote: »

why? for what?

assuming you use the same amount of electricity no matter what providor youre with, who ever gives the cheapest bills for those units should be the best.

Yes, price is what I'm on about, don't they work out cheaper than the other 2? Read a comparison thing somewhere here before.

Jesus Wept

clint_silver wrote: »

why? for what?

assuming you use the same amount of electricity no matter what providor youre with, who ever gives the cheapest bills for those units should be the best. customer service plays a part with some people so a bill of 5-6 euro cheaper over 200 euro is not worth the hassle of dealing with poor customer service for some people.

Milage may vary as they say.

If you have one bill, sure. If you have both electricty and gas then there aer duel fuel prices with some companies (not flogas) then it depends on how much of each you use. There are also different standing charges.

rosco p coltrane

clint_silver wrote: »

youve trial and error to go round switching things off. get partner/another body to look at the monitor and go round swithing on/off everything in the house til you find it.
if you cant find the culprit using switches and plugs, go to fuseboard and start taking out fuses til you get it.
biggest saving I found was replacing a load of 50w downlighters (must have had 18-20 around the house) with LEDs. costly to replace at first but real savings started after 5-6 months.

Go along with this advice - the "Owl" meter is fairly instant, as in you turn something off the meter tells you straight away - i have an "Eaga" on and it takes about 30secs to tell the difference on the monitor.

Turn your fridge to 3, if its at 5 or 6, and just trawl through your electricity points in your house.

Let us know though - sharing is caring/saving.

dodzy

rosco p coltrane wrote: »

Go along with this advice - the "Owl" meter is fairly instant, as in you turn something off the meter tells you straight away - i have an "Eaga" on and it takes about 30secs to tell the difference on the monitor.

Turn your fridge to 3, if its at 5 or 6, and just trawl through your electricity points in your house.

Let us know though - sharing is caring/saving.

The owl takes approx 12secs to update.

banchang

Wineman wrote: »

I rang Airtricity yesterday after being on Bonkers.ie and asked about a deal and they gave me 16% off gas and electricity for a year with no minimum contract which brought their rates more or less in line with Flogas and Bord Gais - decided to try the same thing with Sky TV and they gave me 50% off my bill!:D

Were you previously with Airtricity ?

I am an existing Airtricity customer for gas & elec, & they would only give me an 8% discount on my gas & elec - & this only represents a 4% increase in discount from the existing 4% discount which I dropped to after my initial 12 month discount ran out.

groom

banchang wrote: »

OK enough household tips.

Back on topic, I switched to Airtricity in June 2010 for both gas & electric.

Bonkers.ie now tells me that I can save Eur335 per annum by switching my gas to Flogas, & my electricity to Bord Gais.

Go figure.

Airtricity will probably improve your bill if you ask them
tell them the best offer from somewhere else and see what they say. The advantage of staying with them would be that you wouldnt be committing to any minimum term

thecons

Would anyone have any idea how much it costs me to use my immersion - say if it's on for about 3 hours?

Davy

thecons wrote: »

Would anyone have any idea how much it costs me to use my immersion - say if it's on for about 3 hours?

https://www.electricireland.ie/ei/residential-energy-services/reduce-your-costs/appliance-calculators.jsp

thecons

Davy wrote: »

https://www.electricireland.ie/ei/residential-energy-services/reduce-your-costs/appliance-calculators.jsp

Thanks for that Davy! It's costing me 11.03 if used once a week, over a 2 month period. I'd hate to admit how often it is used...!

green123

Davy wrote: »

https://www.electricireland.ie/ei/residential-energy-services/reduce-your-costs/appliance-calculators.jsp

thecons wrote: »

Thanks for that Davy! It's costing me 11.03 if used once a week, over a 2 month period. I'd hate to admit how often it is used...!

I don't think that calculator is useful for calculating the cost of the immersion.

That calculator is showing how much it costs to heat a full tank from cold to hot.
Most people only use the immersion for maybe 15 or 30 mins to heat part of a tank.
Or in a lot of cases there is some lukewarm water already in the tank, so i don't think that calculator is accurate at all for immersions

clint_silver

green123 wrote: »

I don't think that calculator is useful for calculating the cost of the immersion.

That calculator is showing how much it costs to heat a full tank from cold to hot.
Most people only use the immersion for maybe 15 or 30 mins to heat part of a tank.
Or in a lot of cases there is some lukewarm water already in the tank, so i don't think that calculator is accurate at all for immersions

Id go along with this.

most immersions are 3kw. I'll guess thats what mine is.

I have it timed for 30 minutes every morning.

I have a full 12% discount with Electric ireland so Im charged@ 14.93 cents per kw.

60 days billing.

.1493 cents per kw * 3kw * .5hr * 60 days = 13.437 euro over the 2 months.

note: thats ex vat and daily charges but for the sake of maths Im happy I know what its costing me.