Smart Meters

Sounds like they might keep the house a bit warmer in winter then.

 

Good news Pete, we now have perfect fridges complete with wifi internet access http://www.samsung.com/us/topic/apps-on-your-fridge but the only problem is that some people are advocating that they get turned off during football matches at half time.

 

More the analogy: *Anything* about football which encroaches into my world is enough to raise my red flag (possibly PTSD from when I was made to be a goal post )

 

I've only just read through this thread and have already got an issue with these meters. I have to store medicine in my fridge at a constant and particular temperature. If the temperature rises or falls above or below that strict temperature it's rendered useless. I don't think the NHS or the company that supplies the medicine are going to be very happy if this happens as it amounts to thousands of pounds lost.

 

I doubt you would We have two scenarios where we use it:

The original hot water tank in this house had a gravity loop - towel rails in bathrooms dragged the hot water round the circuit; this meant that when you ran the hot tap in the furthest bathroom from the tank there was hot water straight away ... and also that huge amounts of fuel were wasted heating the hot water just to have towel rails hot 24/7 and hot water instantly available at every tap I put an X10 switch in each bathroom and replaced the gravity circuit with a pump. If I want hot water I press the button and wait a couple of minutes (rather than running the hot tap to "waste" until hot water arrives)

The second is perhaps a more common situation. We knocked a new doorway through a wall. The light switch was on the opposite side of the room. Replaced the original light switch with an X10 one, and put a remote switch by the new door (actually its wireless, but for longer distances could be "signal" by linking into the nearest power cable). No chasing in of cables across the room nor redecorating.

That would be fine, surely? - i.e. your choice. Power company will have to reward people who use "remote control" settings in order to get people to use them. We have Ecconomy-7 electricity and as such our electricity is cheaper at night, so we put our dishwasher, washing machine, phone chargers etc. on at night, either on a timer or using the Delay setting on the dishwasher, and they use cheaper electricity. ("Cheaper" is one thing, personally I am keen to be green so if it spreads the usage for the power company that's fine by me)

I suppose the day may come where it becomes compulsory to use some sort of remote-controlled ON for devices such as that, but if it is optional then its up to the individual.

Similar to the dashboard-spy that insurance companies are offering. My daughter (late teens) is saving £1,000 a year on insurance having fitted one of those. I suspect that folk of our generation don't feel the need, and maybe the gain to insurance companies is so small that they will never bother to require them for older drivers (well "statistically more safe" drivers, whatever group that encompasses). or maybe it will become compulsory? and then I will have to drive at 30 through the ridiculous village speed limits we have around here which often encompass half a mile or more of cornfields and are flouted as a consequence ...

Progress is like that. Generally heading in the right direction, with cockups along the way. Airplane travel statistically very safe, but still programming errors in Auto Pilot cause plane crashes now & again ...

Each time we buy a new car I find the gadgetry that has been added a major turn off, it seems to be not fully thought through and probably added my Marketing in the belief that it gives them an edge over the competition. I need to be concentrating on driving, not trying to absorb complex information from the dashboard that is not critical to driving - cycling through a long menu to select which mode I want the dashboard to show, for example.

That really annoys me. I see it in two guises: industrial process using power inefficiently - hopefully companies are reasonably motivated to upgrade those because there are savings to be made (on fuel). Secondly, lights etc. left on, heating turned up. Things people would never (I presume?!) do at home they don't think twice about at work.

Technology creeping in here too - "occupancy sensors" in offices, or the loo, so that when you leave your office the lights go out, computer screen etc. turned off. I would much prefer to have a switch by the door that I can flick off, but many people in offices don't bother ... so technology being used instead, but compared to a switch I think it is "just one more thing to go wrong"

Sure, it was an analogy There are others - Coronation Street, Eastenders, Casualty ... and as an alternative to a Kettle I imagine that a significant number of people start cooking a meal when a major TV program ends. Also the "peak times" when large parts of the nation are cooking meals etc?

Not producing power at night though when most kettle boiling in the interval occurs. Hopefully a storage solution for electricity will be forthcoming ... currently I believe water is pumped uphill to "store" excess electricity.

I'd like to see the building regs. for new buildings made far more demanding - insulation levels, air tightness, power generation, and so on. Housing stock is going to be there for hundreds of years, I think it is disappointing that the bar is currently set so low.

I heard that yesterday Wind Power generation overtook Nuclear for the first time ... although they went on to say that an unusually large amount of Nuclear was off for maintenance, and we had gale force winds across most of the country

 

I can see the concern, but I am assuming that any device that is offered to the public will have to be good enough for people to want to use it.

Fridges and freezers cycle - they are not on all the time. I don't know how often they cycle, but perhaps not coming on for 10 minutes longer, or boosting for a bit before a high energy requirement event, would make no appreciable difference to temperature (they are inherently well insulated). The device would have to be "smart" though - so that if temperature fell to a critical level it would come on regardless.

Do you have to take any special steps for your fridge to ensure that it is at a constant temperature? I wondering if it would need an alarm, and whether it needs to be the type of fridge which does not have auto-defrost (which I presume reduces the temperature considerable during that cycle?)

Its seems to me to be rubbish that fridges are fitted with a control dial which is numbered 1-to-5 - surely a dial where I can select a specific temperature would be much more useful?

 

I have a plug in energy meter thing. I think it records the total time that the device was on (as well as how much power it has used). I might plug that into my fridge to see what percentage of the time it is on. I ought to get a fridge thermometer too ... we just set ours on "3" and assume that is right!!

 

Good news about Power Storage

The debate drones on here ... I think that Chest Freezer is more economical. Mrs K says that stuff gets buried at the bottom (true I am sure ), and therefore it is useless. However, our Upright freezer has drawers, and although labelled as to desirable contents in practice the draw you need is full, so the thing gets stuffed into any draw that isn't full ... and then forgotten about.

Maybe there is a better solution? (either to the Filing & Finding issue, or to the Chest vs Upright one)

 

I can't seeing those horrid solar panels stuck on people's rooves and we won't be having any any time soon so hope they don't start to add them to new builds which will but up the cost of the house by a few thousand when being bought plus the inverter only lasts for so long then has to be replaced and at my time of life can't go through all that hassle and expense having them fitted.Would much rather my thousands on quiet a few holidays