You mean turn down the oven so it uses less power overall? Not going to be much good for the intended use - cooking.
Or make sure things are switched off when not in use? Do you really need a smart meter to tell you that will save money?
Saw an ad on Facebook for an IIRC 600 watt heater which claimed to be cheap to run - and showed it heating an average room.
Loads of comments saying this was rubbish - so perhaps many aren't quite as gullible as we might think.
Nope, I don't mean that. ;-)
Yup, I do mean that (sort of thing).
Do *I*? No. Do other people, *obviously* YES.
Have you never heard parents / husbands (typically) complaining of having to go round the house, turning off lights etc? If you had something that 'reminded' people of the current usage, they might bother ... or those who have no idea of the running cost of stuff might learn that it all helps or what helps most / easiest?
Like, how many people know the overall running cost of their car / mile? If they just pop up to the shops and back, what that actually costs them? That cost is pretty obvious when you are sitting in the back of a cab.
It's all about being able to 'manage what you can measure' and for many, the realisation of what consumes what only happens when they see it live in front of them (well, till the novelty wears off at least). ;-)
Cheers, T i m
Erm, we currently have 1 x 600W oil filled rad in here and the room is
20 DegC. I'm not saying it's cheaper to run than a 2kW heater of course but if both are on all the time it would be. ;-)Cheers, T i m
I heard at the bus stop last week,
"I find the buses confusing. That's why I take a taxi everywhere".
Owain
I was bothered the other week by a couple of lights being left on repeatedly. Did the mental arithmetic & discovered it's costing 1/8th p per hour. Now I don't care.
NT
Since we've gone to LED lighting throughout, I figure that leaving the lights on in every part of the house except the bathrooms for 16 hours a day would only be around £80 per year! I'm still not going to be leaving them all on, but I am not going to obsess about making sure we all keep turning them off.
SteveW
Is it going to make a difference to those who leave things on? Usually in that case kids etc who don't pay the bills.
If a 2kW heater was on all the time, the room would be a lot hotter. ;-)
<rolls eyes, especially 'at the bus stop'> ;-)
Cheers, T i m
There you go, you have measured it and now you can manage it. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
But not just 80 pounds a year Steve, you also have to add in the life consumed on the lamps themselves?
No, sure, but there maybe are things you sill wouldn't leave on
*unnecessarily* because you know doing so would be a waste (and it all adds up)?Like, my fileserver 'sleeps' as soon as the last client disconnects, dropping from 25 to 2.5 watts or so. Whilst if it didn't it would still be affordable, add that to the rarely-used-tv left on standby and printers / PC's / laptops that *could* be left on overnight but aren't ... and 'every little helps' as they say. ;-)
In this case I was mainly talking about a pair of lamps taking 720 V
48W and so now they could also leave them on all the time if they wanted without it costing quite a bit! (for just lights etc).Cheers, T i m
She was explaining to her friend why she wasn't going by bus when her friend at the bus stop was.
Owain
Is it? It all depends on the individual case(s). Could it? Yes, it could.
No, but if the billpayer has a better idea themself then they could 'show' in a very visual / easy_to_understand way, why the *household* might enjoy a bit of consumption vigilance.
Put up a speed camera warning sign or camera and 'most people' will check their speed to make sure they are under the limit when they might not have checked otherwse.
If you are sitting in the lounge in the evening and see the electricity cost clocking up at a noticable rate, you might be more likely to go round and make sure things that aren't being used (lights, games consoles, TV's) are turned off than if it wasn't obvious.
Isn't part of this Smart Meter thing to try to get the national electricity consumption down by getting people to waste less (with the carrot being you save money)?
The lady with the 720W lamps has a SM and remote display and it was a very easy 'sell' to get her to invest in replacement LED lamps. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
Ah, no, what if it was leaking loads of heat? The point being a 600W heater doing little could only waste 600W/h. ;-)
We have this issue at Mums. She likes to put one of those tube heaters in her lean-to during the winter to protect her plants. The thing is, even when the nights are zub zero, the days can be pretty warm and so the heater is only wasting money. So I've stuck an old oil filled rad round there with a thermostat and so should be able to set the stat to a level that means it only kicks in when it's needed? The issue will be what percentage of the winter a 600W rad would be on compared with a 60W tube on 24/7 and if it would save her any money?
Cheers, T i m
You may find the oil filled heater stat only controls the heater body temp.
Ah, that isn't quite so crazy then (assuming they weren't supposed to be traveling together to the same destination etc). ;-)
But she is a bit right ... if you aren't a regular bus user then the timetables can be a bit of a matrix, especially if you are trying to use them on 'unusual' days (bank holidays etc).
Whilst holidaying up in North Wales a few years back (motorcycle camping) we would use public transport for our trips out to save having to bother with leathers and parking etc.
We had to wait a few mins for a bus to arrive and when it did (only about 5 mins late), the driver explained that the bus should have been driven to him but wasn't so he had to drive to the depot and collect it himself and was very sorry for the delay. ;-)
I'm not sure you could get a London bus driver to wait outside the campsite while you ran to your tent, dropped some stuff off and ran back to the bus again ... <weg>
The Mrs has her free bus pass but I don't yet (toy boy) so I can't remind myself why I have generally preferred to be on a motorbike (even in the rain) than sat on a bus in London ...
Cheers, T i m
Whilst I'm sure there us some interrelationship between the rad and it's stat. With this one they have tried to isolate it as much as possible by mounting it on the plastic end cover that is vertically vented.
I did consider an external plug / stat but happened to have this old rad so ...
The thing is, I'm not sure what the goal really is? If it's to ensure the leanto *never* goes below a certain temperature (say 0 DegC) then I'm not sure the 60W tube would ever do it, even if left on 24/7, whereas the rad in 600 or even 2kW mode would stand more of a chance?
Cheers, T i m
Smart meters don't tell you which appliances are using the electricity.
The sort of people who would go round turning things off are the sort of people who would go round doing so anyway.
you could have put a plug-in thermostat on the tube heater - we did.
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