- Joined
- 27 Jan 2008
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- Llanfair Caereinion, Nr Welshpool
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I have two energy meters one for the whole house, and one for plugging into sockets, the advantage compared with all other meters is it includes time, the whole house one to me is an ornament, however I have from time to time used the plug in one to test what is being used over a fixed time.
I went around plugging it into all sorts of items, but although one may find the Sky box uses a lot of power it makes little difference we still use it.
With items like the washing machine, again no real point knowing how much power it uses per wash, as it does not make a scrap of difference on which program my wife uses. I also used it on my fridge/freezer and freezer again to little point we did not unplug one as a result.
OK mothers freezer it actually highlighted it was not turning off, turned out the thermostat was faulty, but it did not read out "faulty" it needed some interpretation of the readings. Motor used 28 watt and 0.67 kWh per day so 28 x 24 = 672 so clearly it never turned off. I tried to find a thermometer to see what the temperature was, but could not find any in local shops, then my brewing thermostat arrived and it showed - 24°C so new thermostat ordered and fitted, but not really the sort of job a normal DIY guy could tattle.
I also used it to work out what size of heater I needed for my brew fridge. 18W heater used for 24 hours used 0.09 kWh so 3.7 to 4.2 watt, but since only 2 decimal points it is only an approx value.
It shows power factor, but really can’t see anyone using the information to correct the power factor? So in the main mine does very little that my clamp on multi-meter would not have also done. So though not completely useless, I really don’t use it much. I actually wrote a java script program to give average kWh and capacitor required to correct power factor, but never really used it.
Basic fact if we use something electric it costs, so only use what we need, does not need an energy meter. Or have I missed something, is there really some point testing out appliances to see how much they use?
I went around plugging it into all sorts of items, but although one may find the Sky box uses a lot of power it makes little difference we still use it.
With items like the washing machine, again no real point knowing how much power it uses per wash, as it does not make a scrap of difference on which program my wife uses. I also used it on my fridge/freezer and freezer again to little point we did not unplug one as a result.
OK mothers freezer it actually highlighted it was not turning off, turned out the thermostat was faulty, but it did not read out "faulty" it needed some interpretation of the readings. Motor used 28 watt and 0.67 kWh per day so 28 x 24 = 672 so clearly it never turned off. I tried to find a thermometer to see what the temperature was, but could not find any in local shops, then my brewing thermostat arrived and it showed - 24°C so new thermostat ordered and fitted, but not really the sort of job a normal DIY guy could tattle.
I also used it to work out what size of heater I needed for my brew fridge. 18W heater used for 24 hours used 0.09 kWh so 3.7 to 4.2 watt, but since only 2 decimal points it is only an approx value.
It shows power factor, but really can’t see anyone using the information to correct the power factor? So in the main mine does very little that my clamp on multi-meter would not have also done. So though not completely useless, I really don’t use it much. I actually wrote a java script program to give average kWh and capacitor required to correct power factor, but never really used it.
Basic fact if we use something electric it costs, so only use what we need, does not need an energy meter. Or have I missed something, is there really some point testing out appliances to see how much they use?