We used one for a few months earlier in the year, but didn't find it made any difference to our usage. I suppose because the sort of thing he describes (bathroom lights left on) doesn't really happen in our house. I can see it would be good for families not all of whose members are very aware, though.
For someone who already is conscious of energy usage this is really just a shiny toy. More important is to do an audit of items used/left on standby/switched off on a regular (say annually) basis. It's easy to slip just a bit at a time without noticing.
Case in point acquired tank of tropical fish in 2008; weekly energy consumption for light and filter approx 2 kWh per week maintaining temperature in summer approx 0.2kWh per week rising to maximum of 9 kWh per week in Dec 08/Jan 09(insulating back and sides of tank in Jan 08 reduced maximum to 6.63 kWh during winter of 09/10; normal winter heating usage around 4 kWh per week.
Accepted increased usage as consequence. This masked the slippage in other usage until audit revealed several low wattage 'stand by' loads which we'd stated to leave on without realising. Reverting to practice of full shutdown of these loads dropped about 3kWh per week from average consumption.
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(Anonymous) 2010-08-25 09:14 pm (UTC)(link)Case in point acquired tank of tropical fish in 2008; weekly energy consumption for light and filter approx 2 kWh per week maintaining temperature in summer approx 0.2kWh per week rising to maximum of 9 kWh per week in Dec 08/Jan 09(insulating back and sides of tank in Jan 08 reduced maximum to 6.63 kWh during winter of 09/10; normal winter heating usage around 4 kWh per week.
Accepted increased usage as consequence. This masked the slippage in other usage until audit revealed several low wattage 'stand by' loads which we'd stated to leave on without realising. Reverting to practice of full shutdown of these loads dropped about 3kWh per week from average consumption.