Phantom Power and saving money

Netizen · Fri 18 Jul, 2008 12.39

Can anyone recommend an el cheapo energy monitor plug type thing? I'm concious of the fact that if having one would save me less than a few percent on our annual spend then it's not worth shelling out £40 on one. I know there's loads on ebay but I don't want to buy some crap like you'd get off the bloke at the market what sells batteries and that.

marksi · Fri 18 Jul, 2008 17.04

Netizen wrote:Can anyone recommend an el cheapo energy monitor plug type thing? I'm concious of the fact that if having one would save me less than a few percent on our annual spend then it's not worth shelling out £40 on one. I know there's loads on ebay but I don't want to buy some crap like you'd get off the bloke at the market what sells batteries and that.

OWL Energy Meter, B&Q, £30.

Netizen · Fri 18 Jul, 2008 21.40

Is it significantly better than a £10 ebay one though? Maybe I should stress that I can be an incredibly cheap person at times

marksi · Fri 18 Jul, 2008 22.20

Netizen wrote:Is it significantly better than a £10 ebay one though? Maybe I should stress that I can be an incredibly cheap person at times

From a quick look at the items on eBay, the £10ish ones are a completely different product. I have one of those too, but that's a plug-in meter that will only measure the usage of whatever is plugged into it. In that sense it will give you a reasonably accurate indication of the amount of power used, but won't display that in any practical way for saving energy.

The likes of the OWL meter from B&Q (other hardware and electrical stores are available) can be programmed with the cost of a unit of electricity. A wireless sensor wraps around the cable leaving your main electricity meter in the house, and this detects from the cable how much power is being consumed by the entire house at any given moment. It updates every 6 seconds and the resulting total is then visible on the LCD display. I have that in the kitchen so it's always on view.

As an example, at the moment I can see that I am using 6.4pence per hour of electricity. It makes it instantly visible in an easy to understand format the cost of each appliance as you turn it on or off.

Netizen · Fri 18 Jul, 2008 22.38

Sold! That's much better than having to get the calculator out and no doubt getting it wrong. It appeals to both the geek and the miser in me.

scottishtv · Fri 18 Jul, 2008 23.10

Gavin Scott wrote:This page shows you the ones I'm talking about - and if you are concerned about the overall length of the lamp body, the smaller 7w ones would be the ones for you:
http://www.megamanuk.com/products/product.php?sid=2
You shouldn't be looking at more than £5-7 per lamp. Seems a lot but they last for years.
They should be available from good lighting retailers - maybe try John Lewis.

Could you recommend a 'good lighting retailer' in our fine city, as I've got seven of these little lights around the flat (all in completely internal rooms with no windows) and could do with getting them a bit more efficient.

I love this forum for little things like this - I didn't even know these types of bulbs existed until I clicked on here - never mind how to tell the good 'uns from the bad.

m-in-m · Sun 27 Jul, 2008 15.26

marksi wrote:
Netizen wrote:Is it significantly better than a £10 ebay one though? Maybe I should stress that I can be an incredibly cheap person at times
From a quick look at the items on eBay, the £10ish ones are a completely different product. I have one of those too, but that's a plug-in meter that will only measure the usage of whatever is plugged into it. In that sense it will give you a reasonably accurate indication of the amount of power used, but won't display that in any practical way for saving energy.

The likes of the OWL meter from B&Q (other hardware and electrical stores are available) can be programmed with the cost of a unit of electricity. A wireless sensor wraps around the cable leaving your main electricity meter in the house, and this detects from the cable how much power is being consumed by the entire house at any given moment. It updates every 6 seconds and the resulting total is then visible on the LCD display. I have that in the kitchen so it's always on view.

As an example, at the moment I can see that I am using 6.4pence per hour of electricity. It makes it instantly visible in an easy to understand format the cost of each appliance as you turn it on or off.

One question on these. Presumably these use electricity constantly as well?

marksi · Sun 27 Jul, 2008 17.35

No, they are battery powered. Mine's on rechargeables, and only needs swapping with freshly charged ones every 4 months or so.

m-in-m · Sun 27 Jul, 2008 19.35

Ah ok, thanks for that. Might get one myself, and see how bad one or two things really are.

Nini · Sun 27 Jul, 2008 20.56

Strange, I thought I had posted something fairly cheeky about these devices running on mystical objects called batteries but no, clearly I hadn't. Continue.

Pete · Sat 14 Mar, 2009 15.54

I decided against those CFL halogens btw, decided they were just too long. However I discovered Ikea sold 35w GU10s for far cheaper than elsewhere so I bought those and have replaced each 50w as they have inevitably blown in sequence.

What I actually wanted to talk about however, is the Daily Mail, and it's odd new hate campaign against the evils of CFL bulbs.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... perts.html

Now I can understand those who moan about them taking ages to warm up. The new ones are much quicker but the older ones were slow and a lot of the freebie ones that get sent out tended to be of the older type.

What I am wondering about however is the insistence that they cause everyone to die. Now afai understand, they're just mini versions of the tubes that have been used in shops, offices, garages and everywhere for the last 20 years.

How come its only now, since the EU got involved, that these bizzare health conditions are being claimed about. Is there any truth in them or is the mail just spouting shit?