Best electrical smart meter to get?

BenEadir

Hi lads,

I want to get a device which will allow me to monitor and help me to reduce my electricity consumption. I've a house of kids who seem to be forever consuming electricity via xBox, TV's and computers etc as well as lights left on etc.

Is this the best/most appropriate device to get so I can track usage over time and perhaps set and compare usage targets etc? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Owl-Connectivity-CM160-Wireless-Electricity/dp/B0041H6VXI/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Cheers,

Ben

2011

In my opinion, yes.

BenEadir

2011 wrote: »

In my opinion, yes.

Thanks 2011, that'll do for me.

Cheers,

Ben

.G.

I have that exact one,great device. I'd recommend too.

BenEadir

superg wrote: »

I have that exact one,great device. I'd reccommend too.

Good, I already ordered one from Amazon!

Ben

BenEadir

Guys,

I got the Owl + USB and am ready to install it but I'm not much of a DIY'er, especially when it comes to electricity

Would someone mind telling me which cable I'm supposed to clip the sensor to in the photo below?



Thanks for your help.

Ben

.G.

The red one

2011

The red cable, or the black or either of the 2 grey cables (the singles) would do fine. Personally I would go for one of the grey singles as they have plenty of slack.

BenEadir

2011 wrote: »

The red cable, or the black or either of the 2 grey cables (the singles) would do fine. Personally I would go for one of the grey singles as they have plenty of slack.

I tried it on both grey cables and it seems to work. I'm confused that it cab work on more than one wire. Are several wires bringing power into the metre or is that a stupid question? I just don't understand how up to 4 wires can track my usage.

Confused.com :-|

Ben

2011

The current drawn by the house is supplied by one of the grey single cables, this connects to the red core of the T & E downstream of the ESB meter. The same current then returns on the black core of the same T & E which connects to the other grey single cable. At any given time a current of the same magnitude can be measured at any of these 4 points. I hope this makes sense

BenEadir

2011 wrote: »

The current drawn by the house is supplied by one of the grey single cables, this connects to the red core of the T & E downstream of the ESB meter. The same current then returns on the black core of the same T & E which connects to the other grey single cable. At any given time a current of the same magnitude can be measured at any of these 4 points. I hope this makes sense

Didn't understand a single word of that but I appreciate the fact you tried. I'm a total cretin when it comes to electrical and plumbing

Ben

2011

BenThere wrote: »

Didn't understand a single word of that but I appreciate the fact you tried. I'm a total cretin when it comes to electrical and plumbing

Ben

Not to worry, install it on either of the grey single cables and if it provides a reading you are sorted.

Basically current in = current out, and any of the 4 cables metioned above are either bringing current in or out.

BenEadir

So,

I've had the Owl installed around 24 hours. The minimum hourly cost I've observed at 7am this morning before anyone got up so no kettles, ovens, TV's etc on was 14c per hour and the max I observed was also this morning when breakfast was underway so grill on, lights on, TV on etc was 70c per hour. It's just under 15c now. I'm the only one home so no TV's, no washing machine, tumble dryer, oven etc.

My Airtricity bill from Oct 23 to Dec 22 was €608 which implies an average hourly rate (€608 / 61 days / 24) of 41.5c per hour. I've a 2,000 square foot house with 3 adults and 2 kids living in it. Our central heating, hot water and (non oven) cooking are supplied by natural gas which for the period Oct 17 to Dec 10 was €250. That's €850 for two months which seems mad expensive to me. Last year we used a total of 13,800 kWh electricity. Don't know how much gas we used.

Some things I would appreciate your help with:-

1. Any special tips for reducing the amount of electric units we use? (Already turning off all electricals like TV's, computers etc rather than just letting them "sleep")

2. My 12 month deals with Airtricity and Flogas ended in mid December. Airtricity moved me from Home Elec Saver 24hr where the unit cost was 14.25c to SmartSaver Std 24hr with a unit cost of 16.46c. My next Flogas bill will probably show them changing me from my 12 month deal which is 4.5c per kWh + carbon tax of 0.37c per kWh to something higher also. IS Bonkers.ie the best place to find out where I should be moving to next to take advantge of new customer discount etc?

3. What average cost per hour should I be aiming for with my electricity consumption given current rates and my circumstances i.e. house size, using gas for heating and cooking etc?

4. Is there an option to get a more modern meter which would allow me to take advantage of "NightSaver" rates and if so is it worth getting?

BTW, here's a shot of how I ended up fitting the sensor



And here's one of the display unit.



If anyone spots anything wrong with my set up please let me know!!

Regards,

Ben

BenEadir

2011 wrote: »

Not to worry, install it on either of the grey single cables and if it provides a reading you are sorted.

Basically current in = current out, and any of the 4 cables metioned above are either bringing current in or out.

Thanks 2011, when you put it as simple as that I actually understand it

Cheers,

Ben

ted1

Ben,

Its easier it you talk in kWh. people pay different prices. kWh is the denominator.

your bill does indeed appear high. However your with Airtricty and I take any bill from them with a pinch of salt as from my professional opinion they are pretty hopeless. Have they used actual meter readings or estimates to generate your bill?

Lighting accounts for 40% of domestic bills, you should look at changing out all your lamps/bulbs. the initial cost is high but the payback is in months not years.

Bonkers.ie is a good price comparison site to use to find the best supplier.

Unless you have storage heaters or use over 3kwh during the night period then the night period doesn't offer any saving ( these figures may have changed in the last year)

2011

BenThere wrote: »

The minimum hourly cost I've observed at 7am this morning before anyone got up so no kettles, ovens, TV's etc on was 14c per hour

That is very high.
I would not accept that in my home.

My Airtricity bill from Oct 23 to Dec 22 was €608

That is crazy! Was the bill estimated or did you submit readings?

1. Any special tips for reducing the amount of electric units we use? (Already turning off all electricals like TV's, computers etc rather than just letting them "sleep")

Big consumers of electricity include:
Immersion
Oven(s)
Tumble dryer

Modern computers and TVs consume very little power.

A few things to look at:
1) In terms of energy efficiency how are your appliances (AA or AAA) ?
2) As already suggested what type of lighting are you using? Multiple 50W down lighters will add up quite quickly. Have you considered / do you have LED lighting?
3) I found that it is much more cost effective to have lots of clothes and not use a tumble dryer.
4) Don’t use an immersion! It is cheaper to heat water with gas.
5) Avoid using electric heaters.
6) Try to identify why your home is consuming a minimum of 14c per hour. This seems very high to me.
7) How many fridges & freezers do you have?

IS Bonkers.ie the best place to find out where I should be moving to next to take advantge of new customer discount etc?

Yes.
To get the best deal you need to change supplier regularly.

3. What average cost per hour should I be aiming for with my electricity consumption given current rates and my circumstances i.e. house size, using gas for heating and cooking etc?

Hard to say.
My combined energy bill (gas & electricity) is about €140.
This is for a 4 bed house with 2 people living in it.

4. Is there an option to get a more modern meter which would allow me to take advantage of "NightSaver" rates and if so is it worth getting?

Only if you can change your usage around to suit. For example use the washing machine, dishwasher, tumble dryer etc. at off peak times.

BTW, here's a shot of how I ended up fitting the sensor

Looks good.

2011

ted1 wrote: »

Lighting accounts for 40% of domestic bills

40% is seems very high to me.
I would think that it is well under 10% in my own home.

BenEadir

Thanks 2011,

2011 wrote: »

That is very high.
I would not accept that in my home.

That is crazy! Was the bill estimated or did you submit readings?

Getting the Owl is my first step towards diagnosing what's costing so much and dealing with it so I concur, I DO NOT accept that my usage should be this high!!

The bill was estimated but having checked the meter shortly after the bill arrived the estimate was pretty close to being correct so for the purposes of this discussion we can take it that the bill was accurate to within 3% or so by my calculation.

2011 wrote: »

Big consumers of electricity include:
Immersion
Oven(s)
Tumble dryer

Modern computers and TVs consume very little power. .

- Don't use the emersion except in an emergency
- The oven gets used a good bit, every second day or so for about an hour e.g. roast chicken, fish pie etc.
- The tumble dryer is probably a major contributor. It gets used every day. I need to address that somehow.

2011 wrote: »

A few things to look at:
1) In terms of energy efficiency how are your appliances (AA or AAA) ? - I've no idea.
2) As already suggested what type of lighting are you using? Multiple 50W down lighters will add up quite quickly. Have you considered / do you have LED lighting? - The house is almost totally lit by 50w downlighters installed in 2005. See the photo below. Can these be replaced by energy efficient long life bulbs or LED's or something which eats less electricity but still gives good light? I don't want to go back to the days of those horrible white flourescent tubes though!!!
3) I found that it is much more cost effective to have lots of clothes and not use a tumble dryer. - Not if you had my wife and kids you wouldn't!!!
4) Don’t use an immersion! It is cheaper to heat water with gas. - Immersion is rarely if ever used. It's purely there as a back up in case the gas doesn't work.
5) Avoid using electric heaters. - Don't have any.
6) Try to identify why your home is consuming a minimum of 14c per hour. This seems very high to me. - The big thing I can think of is I have a 500 Litre tropical fish tank which maintains a constant 26C temperature, has an air pump working 24/7, two internal filters sucking in and blowing out water 24/7 and two flourescent tubes lit up 6 hours a day or so. Apart from that there's 3 TV's, 3 UPC boxes, a PC, two broadband routers two laptops, a tablet, two games consoles, and 5 phones many of which are charging 6-8 hours a day. I guess all that's going to consume 14c an hour??
7) How many fridges & freezers do you have?
- One US style fridge freezer and one old fashioned cabinet freezer in the shed.

I don't think I'd get much benefit from having a night meter unless the fish tank is eating up that much?? What time do the NightSaver rates kick in and how much of a discount do they typically offer? Are they only available from Electric Ireland?

Here's a photo of one of the 57 (I'm not joking, I just counted them!!!)) downlighters in my house



Ben

cast_iron

BenThere wrote: »

Here's a photo of one of the 57 (I'm not joking, I just counted them!!!)) downlighters in my house

A conservative estimate of say using just half of those lights for 6 hours a day will account for €100 of your bill. If more of those are on for longer...you can scale that up to maybe €300 very quickly.

It's definitely a huge culprit I would reckon.

Using clothes horses etc for drying clothes can help on the dryer front.
Not much you can do on the oven - you have to cook, and your use isn't too bad anyway.
Not much you can do about the fish cost either.
Nightsaver not much use as you are not heating water etc at night.

ted1

2011 wrote: »

40% is seems very high to me.
I would think that it is well under 10% in my own home.

That's the figure used by seai and others. It may be sightly out dated as based on older incandescent lamps and halogen down lighters. A 100w bulb may be on for 8 hours a day where as a 2kw kettle may only be on for 9 minutes. Then there is other lamps.

As above the OP has 57 down lighters changing these out will reduce his bill.


Ben, do these bulbs have spikey pins (MR16 fitting )in the end or do they have round chunky ends. (GU 10 fitting)?
If they are the latter then its a very easy job to swap them out for LED lamps. If they are MR16 you may need to get a sparks to swap them for you.

ted1

My misses was slow cooking a pork over three days. The grief I was giving her over the oven being on nearly swapped over to night rates then

cast_iron

ted1 wrote: »

My misses was slow cooking a pork over three days. The grief I was giving her over the oven being on nearly swapped over to night rates then

3 days:eek:! Hope it tasted good! If you swap over to nightsaver, the day rate becomes more expensive. So unless you have a decent percentage of usage at night (eg. water heating), then it's not worth changing for. The standing charge is also higher for nightsaver.

2011

BenThere wrote: »

Getting the Owl is my first step towards diagnosing what's costing so much

A very sensible move in my opinion.

- Don't use the emersion except in an emergency

Good.

- The oven gets used a good bit, every second day or so for about an hour e.g. roast chicken, fish pie etc.

We all have to eat, not much you can do to reduce oven use.
If you have a double oven perhaps you can use the smaller oven more often (if possible).

- The tumble dryer is probably a major contributor. It gets used every day. I need to address that somehow.

This would represent significant portion of your bill.
Turn on the tumble dryer and watch the price on the Owl change.
A quick calculation based on the Owl increase and you will be able to estimate how much this is costing you per bill. Remember to double whatever number of hours you are told it is on for

What about a clothes line, clothes horse, hot press?
I can understand occasional use of a tumble dryer (once every week at most) but every day is crazy.

I don't think I'd get much benefit from having a night meter unless the fish tank is eating up that much??

The fish tank will be on 24/7 so dual tariff is of little advantage for this load.

What time do the NightSaver rates kick in and how much of a discount do they typically offer? Are they only available from Electric Ireland?

Have a look at typical rates here.

1) More energy efficiency appliances cost more to buy, but they can be significantly cheaper to run. With a bit of help from Google you should be able to find out which of your appliances are least efficient. The appliances to look at includes, tumble dryers, washing machines and fridges. If any of these are particularly inefficient perhaps you should consider changing them.

Have a read of this.

2) The house is almost totally lit by 50w downlighters installed in 2005. See the photo below.

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Can these be replaced by energy efficient long life bulbs or LED's or something which eats less electricity but still gives good light?

Absolutely, check out the sticky above.
This is a quick non messy job.

I changed my 50W halogen down lighters for 3W LED lamps.
Now the cost of running each of these lights is reduced by 94%

Have you any outdoor 500W halogen sensor lights or similar?

I don't want to go back to the days of those horrible white flourescent tubes though!!!

You won't have to.

3) Not if you had my wife and kids you wouldn't!!!

No comment

4) Immersion is rarely if ever used. It's purely there as a back up in case the gas doesn't work.
5) Don't have any.

Good

6) The big thing I can think of is I have a 500 Litre tropical fish tank which maintains a constant 26C temperature, has an air pump working 24/7, two internal filters sucking in and blowing out water 24/7 and two flourescent tubes lit up 6 hours a day or so.

Unplug it for a minute and calculate how much (in terms of €) the Owl drops by. I would not expect this to cost much.

Apart from that there's 3 TV's, 3 UPC boxes, PC, two broadband routers two laptops, a tablet, two games consoles, and 5 phones many of which are charging 6-8 hours a day.

All very small loads, but together they add up.

7) - One US style fridge freezer and one old fashioned cabinet freezer in the shed.

First of all remember fridges and freezers run 24/7 (although the compressor inside them switches on and off). Ensure that the doors on these units remain open for as short a time as possible.

I imagine that the US style fridge freezer is large. If this is a "G" rated device it may be costing a lot more than necessary to run. Is it located close to a heat source such as the oven or hob? If so it will be even less efficient.
Is the fridge running at a cooler temperature than necessary? Perhaps you can turn the temperature up?

What about the cabinet freezer? Do you need it on all year round? Is the shed cold? How efficient is it?

2011

ted1 wrote: »

As above the OP has 57 down lighters changing these out will reduce his bill.

Agree totally.
I did not imagine that he had that many.

.G.

Agree with the others, swapping out the lights for led's and drastically reducing the dryer usage and will slash your bill. Show the missus how much you'll save and she'll soon agree with you, especially when you agree to spend some of it on her . Buy some clothes horses and do it the old fashioned way.

BenEadir

Thanks guys,

I've been away for the last few days so will get focused on changing the 60 (I found 3 more!!) down lighters in the house over to LED's ASAP.

Any particular suggestions as to what replacement bulbs I should get and from where? Is AMazon/eBay the best place to buy or just the local electrical/lighting shop? I think there is an LED dedicated business in Stillorgan called "Dublin LED" I could try.

Ben

The Diddakoi

Do you have an electric shower ? They use a heap of electricity. We limited the shower to 5 minutes each, before kids were quite happy to have up to half hour showers, bill reduced dramatically.

BenEadir

alf66 wrote: »

Do you have an electric shower ?

Hi Alf,

Thankfully I don't have any electric showers so that's one problem I haven't got!

So, I now know that my downlighters are MR16, 50W, 12 Volt bulbs. A quick search on Amazon identified these as potentially good replacement LED's - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Himanjie-White-Light-Power-Bulbs/dp/B00BEX3B5S/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top. 10 for £30 delivered sounds very good and the reviews for them are also very good. Any reason I shouldn't go ahead and try 10 of them?

One more question. I've read that if I'm going to switch to LED's in my downlighters I may have to change my transformer. Is that correct?

Ben

2011

BenThere wrote: »

One more question. I've read that if I'm going to switch to LED's in my downlighters I may have to change my transformer. Is that correct?

That is one option.
Most people agree that a better option would be to go for the GU10 (mains voltage type). That way a transformer or LED driver is not required.

There is an excellent post on the subject from Stoner here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=75770415&postcount=1

BenEadir

2011 wrote: »

That is one option.
Most people agree that a better option would be to go for the GU10 (mains voltage type). That way a transformer or LED driver is not required.

Thanks 2011. I just read the post and he says GU10's are "in my opinion a very poor quality and potentially dangerous lamp" :eek:

I already have 60 MR16 fittings etc so I won't be replacing them in order to accommodate poorer performing (if easier to run) GU10 bulbs.

It looks like I have to go for the more expensive 7W bulbs if I want like for like replacement in terms of brightness and the ability to dim etc. They're just three times more expensive per bulb :rolleyes: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lighting-EVER-Dimmable-Halogen-Equivalent/dp/B00EC4R92W/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Ben

2011

BenThere wrote: »

I just read the post and he says GU10's are "in my opinion a very poor quality and potentially dangerous lamp" :eek:

Just to be clear, in that post Stoner is referring to halogen type GU10 lamps, not the LED type.