New Toys for the Eco-Boy

Yesterday I got two new toys in the post from the Centre for Alternative Technology. The first measures the current, voltage or wattage drawn by any device with a plug and costs £28. This is great for measuring the difference between the energy consumed when an appliance is 'on', when it's on 'standby' and the leakage into adaptors. Unfortunately it has an irritating design flaw - the screen gets obscured by the appliance's power cord and often requires a torch to read anyway.


The second is a meter which measures a house's total energy consumption. It consists of a sensor which clips around the live wire and plugs into a transmitter (bottom left in the pic). The display unit (bottom right) is wireless so you can put it anywhere in the house or carry it around as you try to find where all that energy is leaking. This cost about £80.


Expect a rash of posts relating to energy consumption in coming weeks!