TriggerHappy
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- Jamie
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In February I bought a new flat and I've been surprised by how much energy I'm using.
I suppose I'll start with a brief summary of where I live. It's a new build flat (2006), 3 bedrooms, 2 occupants. We live on the first floor with a flat above me, below me and to one side of me. 3 of the four sides are exposed to the outside. Despite that, since we moved in the flat has been incredibly warm and we've only resorted to switching the heating on 4 or 5 evenings, otherwise it's off entirely.
It's an electricity only property that's fitted with an Eco 7 meter. The hot water is heated by an unvented immersion heater that has 2 thermostatic heating elements. The upper is wired to a wall switch whilst the lower is wired to a switch that, when I had a plumber out to repair the immersion heater, has no current entering at all at the time (6pm) so we concluded it must be wired to work exclusively overnight.
In the 10 weeks between taking meter readings I've used 1157 kW/h during the day and 715 kW/h at night. That's a lot more than I'd like! Not only that but the immersion heater broke and required specialist parts to be ordered so for 8 days of those 10 weeks it was off entirely.
We both work 5 days a week during the day so no one is home for much of the day. We each shower first thing in the morning and my housemate likes her evening shower as well. Currently we've been leaving the immersion heater on 24/7 but that's going to have to change. We're usually in bed shortly after 10pm and I'm the first one up at 7 so I suppose besides the immersion heater, fridge and phone chargers there shouldn't be anything else consuming electricity overnight.
Does anyone have experience of home energy monitors and if so what are your thoughts?
I'm currently looking at two options.
Number 1:
http://www.theowl.com/index.php/energy-monitors/standalone-monitors/owl-usb/
Number 2:
http://www.theowl.com/index.php/energy-monitors/remote-monitoring/intuition-e/
The latter would be handy to see what's going on when we're away from the property, whilst the former would be permanently on display so I could monitor changes at a glance rather than opening an app or webpage.
I suppose I'll start with a brief summary of where I live. It's a new build flat (2006), 3 bedrooms, 2 occupants. We live on the first floor with a flat above me, below me and to one side of me. 3 of the four sides are exposed to the outside. Despite that, since we moved in the flat has been incredibly warm and we've only resorted to switching the heating on 4 or 5 evenings, otherwise it's off entirely.
It's an electricity only property that's fitted with an Eco 7 meter. The hot water is heated by an unvented immersion heater that has 2 thermostatic heating elements. The upper is wired to a wall switch whilst the lower is wired to a switch that, when I had a plumber out to repair the immersion heater, has no current entering at all at the time (6pm) so we concluded it must be wired to work exclusively overnight.
In the 10 weeks between taking meter readings I've used 1157 kW/h during the day and 715 kW/h at night. That's a lot more than I'd like! Not only that but the immersion heater broke and required specialist parts to be ordered so for 8 days of those 10 weeks it was off entirely.
We both work 5 days a week during the day so no one is home for much of the day. We each shower first thing in the morning and my housemate likes her evening shower as well. Currently we've been leaving the immersion heater on 24/7 but that's going to have to change. We're usually in bed shortly after 10pm and I'm the first one up at 7 so I suppose besides the immersion heater, fridge and phone chargers there shouldn't be anything else consuming electricity overnight.
Does anyone have experience of home energy monitors and if so what are your thoughts?
I'm currently looking at two options.
Number 1:
http://www.theowl.com/index.php/energy-monitors/standalone-monitors/owl-usb/
Number 2:
http://www.theowl.com/index.php/energy-monitors/remote-monitoring/intuition-e/
The latter would be handy to see what's going on when we're away from the property, whilst the former would be permanently on display so I could monitor changes at a glance rather than opening an app or webpage.
