mending things

Inspired by the success of my bridged energy monitor which enables me to publish to and access data from the web, I decided to also get an IAM. CurrentCost is a household energy monitor, which uses wireless technology to communicate with an inductive 'clamp' installed around the mains electricity cable in my meter box (see other currentCost post). Recently the bridge enables the display to post data to the web. The IAM is a small unit resembling an electrical plug with a socket on the back. Basically you unplug a piece of equipment in your house, plug it into the IAM and plug the IAM into the wall socket. What it does is enable you to monitor individual appliances in your household using the CurrentCost display, in addition to the whole household. My Display supports up to 9 IAMs in addition to the primary function of displaying the total household consumption. I've always been a bit mystified as to why my background usage never falls much below 300 watts. Even while...

I just got a 'bridge' for my current Cost CC128 device enabling me to publish data to dashboard etc. Early days but here is my currentusage Works well, and meant that I could monitor my household energy use from abroad while on holiday ! The currentcost dashboard at my.currentcost.com has a mobile browser version which worked on my Android phone.

So in my previous blog I outlined how it's easy to log your consumption, how to convert everything to the same units (KwH) and a site - imeasure - which makes this a lot easier. If you do all of the above , or even some of it, you will see how much energy you use per week. Over time you may see trends, probably connected to the seasons. My household gas usage drops in the summer and rises in the winter - pretty predictable stuff. I'm going to park oil, as I don't have any experience of using heating oil, but much of what I describe will be similar for gas & oil. Separating the consumption of gas , in my case for central heating (CH) and hot water (HW), from electricty for a moment, it's worth thinking about what determines how much is used. for gas, it's used by a boiler. the boiler heats water in a heat exchanger which is pumped through the house, and diverted either through a coil in a how water tank (HW) or through radiators in the house. This is referred in...

A common theme across this blog is reducing my household energy consumption. You will see this in my threads on lighting, computers, gadgets etc. As I see it there are 3 reasons to do this : 1) to save money - lower bills 2) to reduce my impact on the environment - CO2 3) to reduce my impact on non-renewable energy sources (gas, oil, coal, nuclear - they all have to be mined in some form or other. While I have Green interests, I also use a lot of energy in my household, through gas & electricity consumption, and I sometimes feel I am the environmental equivalent of a Champagne Socialis t . I have computers, TV's and all the modern trappings which I'm reluctant to give up. My house is part old and part new. It's a long way from a super insulated eco-home, so I have to be pragmatic. I will never get my consumption down to super low levels, but I want to try and reduce it as much as possible. Measure it How much energy brings me to the first issue in saving energy which i...

If you have read my other blogs about GU10 mains voltage halogen lighting, you will know that I have mostly replaced these bulbs with LED equivalents. they cost more, but last longer, are cooler and use a fraction of the energy. a halogen bulb is typically either 35 or 50 watts. most LED bulbs are 3 watts. While the bulbs in my house are predominantly GU10 mains halogens, I do have a couple of MR16 bulbs. These are a different type of halogen that operate from a 12volt supply. I should mention at this point that I don't have any dimmer switches in my house. Now some mains voltage GU10 LED bulbs are dimable (always check first). MR16 bulbs have two pin connectors rather than the lugs found on GU10 bulbs. GU10's use a push and twist method of connecting to the socket. the MR16 simply push in place with metal clips also gripping the edge of the bin base. They use a separate power supply , either a transformer (old type ) or a switch mode power supply(newer) to convert 250v ...

I've got a Dyson DC14 vacuum cleaner. See my other posting on general servicing. of late I've noticed that the beater function often does not engage. The beater is the rotating bar of brushes that agitates the carpet. Most upright vacuum cleaners have this feature. on the Dyson it is enabled by rotating a large purple dial on the front left of the suction assembly. The idea is that you disable it for vacuming hard floors, but enable it for carpets. Even turning it forward did not always engage the beater/brush bar. I decided to take the cleaner apart to see what might be the problem. First I needed to remove the lower plate. This is held in place by 3 twist fastenings which can be undone with a coin. Once the plate is removed you can see the brush beater bar. You can see that the beater brush device gets en-wrapped with hair, string and anything that is long and thin. I routinely run a sharp knife along the edge to cut through all the hair and string to easily remo...

Things have moved on since my previous blog regarding GU10 halogen bulbs. To recap, 10 years ago we had our house extended and rewired. We had 40 recessed halogen light fittings installed, the type which runs from 240V main voltage (GU10) not the 12v system (MR16). While the light is good, and the reliability of the bulbs has improved, they still use a lot of electricity (50 or 35 watt types) and get very hot. In my previous blog I explored the options which were available including first generation LED bulbs and Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL) in the GU10 size. That was two years ago , and at that time LED bulbs were not up to the job and CFL's , typically Megaman variety seemed the best alternative. These consumed only 11 watts and give pretty good light from a few minutes after turn on. I posted a few follow-ups as I tried a few next generation LED bulbs and this post picks up at that point. In my utility room I had 4 of the Megaman brand CFL GU10 bulbs and these seemed to be t...