You are correct, I use cup boiler kettles, but not to save money, but to make my coffee quicker, it is clear turning heating down, or showering for less time, will save money, it does not need a smart meter to tell them.
I was given a meter by Scottish Power which showed total power used, I watched it for a few weeks, but I very soon lost interest, it was simply impossible to work out what was using power with everything lumped together, and even using plug in monitors, most stuff it was just as easy to read the label. Some odd things like Sky+ box did use more than I expected, but when I tried to work out which washing cycle to use with washing machine and dish washer, there were too many variables to work anything out.
Using a shorter cycle seems good, until the point where some thing is not clean and needs washing a second time, when it costs more with a second batch of soap etc.
Central heating in this house is either on or off, but in mothers old house the boiler could modulate (turn down) and as long as the boiler was allowed to modulate as it was designed to do, it would use less gas, but the controls fitted defeated the boilers built in controls by turning the whole boiler off/on, and each time the wall thermostat did that the boiler reverted to maximum output and stopped gaining the latent heat.
This is a big problem as the boiler is heating the house OK, but not in an economic way, and it is very hard working out what is going on without some sort of meter, we want something like a clamp on ammeter with works with gas, however it seems the smart gas meter only refreshes every ½ hour which is rather useless.
There are some devices which can save energy, a good example is the induction hob, and the heat pump, but electric costs more than gas or oil, so they need to use just a third of the power of a gas device before they save money, having timed the boiling of a kettle full of water on gas and with electric likely the induction hob does save money, but not the heat pump, although fitting all fan assisted radiators and having a heat pump which works in both directions could be a good idea with globule warming, so we can cool the home in summer as well as heat in winter, but most the heat pumps being fitted are not reversible, and fan assisted radiators are not being fitted, so rather a waste of money.
But in my own house my main living room does get too hot in summer, but the easiest and cheapest method is simply not using the main living room on hot summer days, and use the smaller rooms which don't catch the summer sun.
The same in winter, being able to select which rooms are heated, clearly saves energy, but this means keeping internal doors closed, and having some insulation between rooms, and having radiators big enough to be able to use the output of the boiler. The theory is good, only heat rooms as required, and when the home has been unoccupied for a time, like every one out at work, reheating room at a time so heated in the order they are used, but in practice the radiators are not big enough, does not matter if I heat just living room, or whole house, still takes 2 hours to heat living room as radiators not big enough.
Last house had a 4.5 kW gas fire, a 3.5 kW Myson fan assisted radiator and a 4 kW conventional radiator in the living room, and there was no need for geofencing as could heat room from cold in ¼ to ½ an hour, but this house, takes more like 2 hours to heat from cold, so OK last week when on holiday in Blackpool I could turn on heating 2 hours before I got home to mid Wales, but I don't really go on enough holidays to be worth having telemetry on the central heating, and as far as geofencing goes, I am nearly home before it auto switches on, so rather useless.
What has really made my house warmer is getting rid of the engineered wood floors and fitting thick carpets, plus swapping a patio door where the double glazed units had blown. And this has likely reduced the amount of oil used.
I have only just swapped my vented tumble dryer for a heat pump type, not been using it long enough to say if any saving, but I suspect it is saving energy, as runs for about same amount of time as the 1 kW vented model, and the heat pump seems to cycle on/off, so unlike the vented it's no running all the time, plus now window closed in the utility room, so kitchen now warmer, as wife would not always close door.
Likely washing cloths is the main area where savings can be made, but my wife will not let me wear same cloths for a week even if it does save money.
