With the electricity companies increasing their prices all the time I took the bull by the horns in my house to try and stabilise my electricity usage.
I purchased the Owl Energy Monitor
It was really easy to connect up. Firstly I clipped the block around the red/brown thick cable before it went into my consumer unit. (Be careful when messing out in your electricity box as there are obviously high voltages.) Anyway, I put the batteries into both the sender (The bit next to your consumer unit) and the receiver (The display).
I synced them together following the instruction supplied. I then needed to take a look at my latest electricity bill to find out how much I was paying for each kWh. It is shown on your bill – if you don’t have one the suppliers website will help out.
I also changed the price to £ and off it went. I could have set an alarm when the unit goes above a set amount but I didn’t want to do that – I was too excited to see the reading!
So I sat back and waited for the Owl to tell me how much I was coughing out for powering the stuff in my house….
35.8p per hour was the first reading – WHAT, OH MY GOODNESS, I didn’t need to be a mathematical genius to work out 75.8p x 24 hours = £8.59 a day!!! So I rushed around the house turning everything off. OK it got it down to about 2.3p per hour but I was sitting there in the dark!
It was fascinating to see just how expensive it was to run everyday electrical items like a tumble dryer, dish washer and Sky box. I could see straight away the money pouring out of my pockets to the electricity company!
After a month or so I had really reduced my electricity consumption. Basically by only using high energy usage items when I really need too, if it’s sunny, put the washing on the line, turn the LCD TV off at the switch and not leave it in standby, that sort of thing.
I am averaging at about 5.3 pence an hour as I write this blog and I have had a nice fat credit to my electricity bill. I paid for the unit in about 2 months and have already reduced the bill by about 40% – all because of the Owl.
It sits on the kitchen work surface reminding me. Shall I tell you what made the biggest difference? The electric kettle! OK, it was a high tech fast boiling one but it didn’t half show on the Owl! So that went into the loft for storage and I purchased a gas powered kettle – ok it takes longer to boil but is SO much cheaper in the long run, now where is my cuppa tea….
Guest post written by Jonathan Cecil.
