Energy monitors

[SunshineAndBlueSkies]

are they any good, do they make you save money and if so can you recommend me one?

We got one of the "whole house" ones, which you put round an electricity pipe near the meter, and has a little box with a screen which shows the readings going up and down when someone takes a shower.

It was quite fun at first, going round turning things on and off to see what made a difference - it certainly taught us that some of our lights were very expensive to run and we're gradually moving to low energy bulbs on the worst ones.

We also got one of the plug in kind - that's useful to see how much something like your fridge takes over a day or a week, because you can't really tell from the main one - it keeps clicking on and off during the day so you don't get as much of a feel for what it is using unless you use the plug in kind.

I can't remember either of the brands I'm afraid!

Hi, what do you mean the whole house one 'clicks on and off'
Is the plug in one just for one appliance?

Sorry I didn't put that very well. I mean the fridge keeps clicking on and off during the day, so watching the whole house monitor for a few minutes doesn't give you any idea what something like the fridge might be using at other times. But with something like a light, if it's on it's using power all the time so if you turn it on or off you'll see the whole house monitor change.

The plug in one just goes into the socket and then you plug the appliance into it, so you would just use it for one appliance at a time. But if you do that for a day or two, you know how much it uses on a typical day so you can then move it to another appliance to find out how much that one uses. So you just need the one and move it around.

Ah right. Thanks