Our electric bills seem to be twice the norm for our house.
We don’t want a smart meter but need something to measure our minute by minute consumption.
Anyone used an energy monitor?
Any recommendations?
Just curious as to how you've worked out what the 'norm' is and how you know yours is twice as much.
Energy monitors will tell you the 'what' but they wont tell you the 'why'. You have to work the 'why'out for yourself which means looking at the history and trying to remember what it was you were doing.
The instantaneous read out can be helpful once you've worked out what your 'norm' is because it can help notify you that something above the 'norm' is happening. Then you can go looking for what's causing it.
I just read my meter once a week and enter it into a spreadsheet. I've been doing this for years so can compare the current week with previous weeks and years. Also it shows me the average and maximum per week as well as the total for the year. I can compare my readings with what the energy company is billing me and use my readings going forward for when I renew the contract.
One of the insidious things is the many appliances and devices some people have that are left on standby. Small amounts in themselves but they can all add up to a large amount of unecessary power wastage. TVs, PCs, Laptops, Tablets, Smartphones. Radios, Smart Speakers, Security Lights - even Energy Monitors
It may help to do an audit of your electrical appliances and note what you have and when and how you use them, especially the how.
For example
- Boiling a full kettle every time is more wasteful than filling it with just what you need.
- Do you use an immersions heater and is it always on ?
- Do you leave lights on when not needed and are they LED lights?
- Do you have Electric Fires?
- Are your white goods - fridge, freezer, washing machine etc - low energy appliances.
- Do you have friends and family to stay as this will push usage up.
And so on...