Electricity monitors

[MrsSantosisbored]

Just borrowed one from the council - they are trying to encourage people to buy them. But it seems from the diagrams that my fuse box and electricity meter have to be nearby - they are far apart - one in the porch - one in a cupboard under the stairs. I assume this means I can't use this

It's called an Owl Electricity Monitor - no helplines in the instructions

does this help

If you can't get it to hook up you can get plug in monitors where you plug the monitor into the socket then your computer or whatever into the monitor IYSWIM and it shows you how much it uses - and you can find out things like that our printer uses nearly as much power when turned off but on at the wall as it does when actually printing ...
They cost about £15 I think, called a "Plug in Power monitor" IIRC.

We got one from British Gas - it just had to be on one of the big cables that come out of the fuse box, didn't have to be near the meter.

We've also got one of the plug-in kind - it's useful because you can see what each thing is causing, without having to switch things on and off and watch the dial on the main one.

I've just read the instructions in the link - that does sound the same as mine. You just have to find the cable which goes into your fusebox, it doesn't matter if the meter is near, so long as you can tell it s that cable.

Hi,

i sell something like this (not trying to sell to you though), the owl is similar i think, these things are soooo good. It should come in 2 parts, one should be the display box showing you what you use, the other peice should go round (clip) to the grey cable where ever your electricity meter is (in your case under the stairs) now my instructions read: find the feed cable(CABLE 4)it is the live cable exiting from the meter to the fuse box. You should connect the sensor cable to cable 4 (cable 4 will always be on the right had end of the meter. You should check what the transmission range is (mine is 40-70 metres)so unless you have a massive house you should be ok from the porch to the stairs, if i can be of any other help here please get in cintact, now is such a good time of year to get one of these meters as we plug so much in xmas lights and stuff so you can see what everything is costing. hope i helped

Thanks - had to take it back as it was only a short loan but will investigate some alternatives.