Fair enough, but a 'dumb' meter would been just as able to tell you that you were using much more electricity during the night period than you would have expected.
Kind Regards, John
Why does one need a smart meter to turn down central heating?
- Thread starter ericmark
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Kind Regards, John
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I don't see how knowing about when individual people use energy is of any value to them - what matters to those who generate and distribute electricity is how the pattern of total usage (across all users) varies during the day/night - and they obviously know that 'from their end'.
Kind Regards, John
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Agreed if I had been suspicious of using excess energy over night but I wasn’t.
There are a few adverts and 'advertorials' about at the moment, along the lines of:
www.walesonline.co.uk
They bother me a little!
If we ignore the water and cooking part of my gas usage ( I believe only a few modern boilers condense when producing hot water), to get the full efficiency savings, the system has to be well set-up - and judging by the posts on the C/H forum, this is rarely the case (especially when the systems are installed by the 'Boiler Slingers'!).
So, even if we accept a 20% saving in my gas usage, and even with this years high prices, my gas bill was less than £600.
This would still take a good few years to reach the break-even point on the new boiler and installation costs.
I know this calculation is very dependant on circumstances, but it seems to be portrayed in the adverts as guaranteed savings. I wonder if the adverts work?
How you could save more than 20% on your gas bill
A British Gas expert engineer explains how having an efficient boiler can help you heat your home without spending more than you need
www.walesonline.co.uk
They bother me a little!
If we ignore the water and cooking part of my gas usage ( I believe only a few modern boilers condense when producing hot water), to get the full efficiency savings, the system has to be well set-up - and judging by the posts on the C/H forum, this is rarely the case (especially when the systems are installed by the 'Boiler Slingers'!).
So, even if we accept a 20% saving in my gas usage, and even with this years high prices, my gas bill was less than £600.
This would still take a good few years to reach the break-even point on the new boiler and installation costs.
I know this calculation is very dependant on circumstances, but it seems to be portrayed in the adverts as guaranteed savings. I wonder if the adverts work?
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Again, fair enough. However, I would think that most people would notice that their electricity bills were higher than they would have expected, and would therefore have investigated what part of the day/night was responsible for the excessive usage.
However, as has been pointed out, yours is a fairly exceptional case, since the metering brought to your attention something that was 'wrong', resulting in excessive usage. That is not the situation for the vast majority of consumers.
Kind Regards, John
Once again - smart meters are being introduced on the orders of the Government; NOT the suppliers.
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@RandomGrinch I have to agree with you, if the advert said 10% that may be true, but they get around it with the word "could" and I am sure they can find a case somewhere.
I never worried about my central heating in the old house, it worked, so why worry, however I had to go and look after my mother, the house was designed with 4 solid fuel fires, with doors on every room, which my mother would always close.
So the first thing was there was a massive bay window which caught the morning sun, and I walked into the room and the heat hit me, 32ºC so attempt one was a mobile wireless thermostat which could be placed in the living room. This failed, the thermostat its self failed not the idea, but it was pointed out to me, it should not have mattered what the thermostats that turned boiler on/off did, the TRV's should have stopped rooms over heating.
The central heating was reasonably modern, fitted after 2000, not sure what year, it was a government grant thing, fitted by government selected installers, who should have set it all up A1 to start with, however I found so many errors.
1) The power shower was now pumping direct from main water supply, I found that one early and had it swapped for thermostatic shower, it should have rung alarm bells, but I assumed fitted by experts, they know what they are doing.
2) The hall thermostat had anti hysteresis software build in,
this means as it approaches the target temperature it uses a mark/space ratio to stop it over shooting, however every time the boiler is switched off, when it turns back on again, it does so at full output, so this thermostat was defeating the boilers own anti hysteresis system and the gaining of latent heat.
3) There was no TRV in the hall where the wall thermostat was, mother was in a wheel chair, so only outside door she could use was the front door into the hall, so if lock shield set to re-heat hall fast, rest of house gets cold, and is set to heat slow, hall never warms up and thermostat never turns off. The adding of a TRV in the hall transformed the heating.
4) All lock shield valves had been left wide open.
My second attempt was to fit two thermostats, one in living room, and one in hall, but it was the fitting of the TRV in the hall which transformed the system. Also went to electronic heads on the TRV's which helped set it all up, but new owners did not want them, and once set up, found the mechanical TRV heads worked well.
The intention had always been to fit Nest in mothers house, but the electronic TRV's worked that well, we never bothered with Nest until we moved to this house, as since Nest was claimed to work with the TRV heads we had, seemed prudent to fit Nest Gen 3, what a mistake. Seems support had been removed when Google took over Nest.
I tried to work out what does what, and found this web site but it still says Nest works with Energenie MiHome TRV's so clearly out of date.
But the other thing was speed, the TRV was set at 7 am to 20ºC but it was 11 am before it had actually reached 20ºC, so it was set to 22ºC at 7am and then 20ºC at 8 am, and this worked, however it means any idea of geofencing simply will not work.
Drayton Wiser claim there TRV heads have algorithms to stop this, so they can be set to time you want room at 20ºC rather than work out yourself when heating needs to go on.
However try finding out what does what is a nightmare, my Nest turns off central heating, well down to 17ºC when I leave the house with my wife, i.e. both phones not at home, but we have to remember to manually turn it back up, as it never turns it back up in time for us to return to a warm house.
It seems some systems you can set the distance, but not Nest, and try finding out which are which.
Hive has a max temperature of 22ºC after which demands for heat stops working, so to work with TRV's the Hive wall thermostat needs to be placed in a room kept cool, like the hall, but number of times it is fitted in the main room!
But it is not so much what they will or will not do, but the way the adverts miss lead. OK I think we all know clapping hands will not turn lights on/off once a smart meter is fitted, I have to say hey google turn on landing lights for landing lights to come on, and it is the Nest Mini and the zigbee hub, internet, and smart relay which do that, not a smart meter.
Not got a smart meter so don't know what they can do, so if I say hey google how much power am I using now, will it tell me, the smart plug in energy monitors will, so I would hope it would also work with smart meter, but would not hold my breath.
I never worried about my central heating in the old house, it worked, so why worry, however I had to go and look after my mother, the house was designed with 4 solid fuel fires, with doors on every room, which my mother would always close.
So the first thing was there was a massive bay window which caught the morning sun, and I walked into the room and the heat hit me, 32ºC so attempt one was a mobile wireless thermostat which could be placed in the living room. This failed, the thermostat its self failed not the idea, but it was pointed out to me, it should not have mattered what the thermostats that turned boiler on/off did, the TRV's should have stopped rooms over heating.
The central heating was reasonably modern, fitted after 2000, not sure what year, it was a government grant thing, fitted by government selected installers, who should have set it all up A1 to start with, however I found so many errors.
1) The power shower was now pumping direct from main water supply, I found that one early and had it swapped for thermostatic shower, it should have rung alarm bells, but I assumed fitted by experts, they know what they are doing.
2) The hall thermostat had anti hysteresis software build in,
this means as it approaches the target temperature it uses a mark/space ratio to stop it over shooting, however every time the boiler is switched off, when it turns back on again, it does so at full output, so this thermostat was defeating the boilers own anti hysteresis system and the gaining of latent heat.3) There was no TRV in the hall where the wall thermostat was, mother was in a wheel chair, so only outside door she could use was the front door into the hall, so if lock shield set to re-heat hall fast, rest of house gets cold, and is set to heat slow, hall never warms up and thermostat never turns off. The adding of a TRV in the hall transformed the heating.
4) All lock shield valves had been left wide open.
My second attempt was to fit two thermostats, one in living room, and one in hall, but it was the fitting of the TRV in the hall which transformed the system. Also went to electronic heads on the TRV's which helped set it all up, but new owners did not want them, and once set up, found the mechanical TRV heads worked well.
The intention had always been to fit Nest in mothers house, but the electronic TRV's worked that well, we never bothered with Nest until we moved to this house, as since Nest was claimed to work with the TRV heads we had, seemed prudent to fit Nest Gen 3, what a mistake. Seems support had been removed when Google took over Nest.
I tried to work out what does what, and found this web site but it still says Nest works with Energenie MiHome TRV's so clearly out of date.
But the other thing was speed, the TRV was set at 7 am to 20ºC but it was 11 am before it had actually reached 20ºC, so it was set to 22ºC at 7am and then 20ºC at 8 am, and this worked, however it means any idea of geofencing simply will not work.
Drayton Wiser claim there TRV heads have algorithms to stop this, so they can be set to time you want room at 20ºC rather than work out yourself when heating needs to go on.
However try finding out what does what is a nightmare, my Nest turns off central heating, well down to 17ºC when I leave the house with my wife, i.e. both phones not at home, but we have to remember to manually turn it back up, as it never turns it back up in time for us to return to a warm house.
It seems some systems you can set the distance, but not Nest, and try finding out which are which.
Hive has a max temperature of 22ºC after which demands for heat stops working, so to work with TRV's the Hive wall thermostat needs to be placed in a room kept cool, like the hall, but number of times it is fitted in the main room!
But it is not so much what they will or will not do, but the way the adverts miss lead. OK I think we all know clapping hands will not turn lights on/off once a smart meter is fitted, I have to say hey google turn on landing lights for landing lights to come on, and it is the Nest Mini and the zigbee hub, internet, and smart relay which do that, not a smart meter.
Not got a smart meter so don't know what they can do, so if I say hey google how much power am I using now, will it tell me, the smart plug in energy monitors will, so I would hope it would also work with smart meter, but would not hold my breath.
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The UK is a net gas importer. The less that's used, the less that needs to be imported. Would take a drastic drop-off in gas usage to become self-sufficient, however.
Short to medium term for most people - it won't.
For the few that are trialling it it now, and later when many more have it, it enables moving consumption of electricity to the times at which it is most advantageous, including things switching off at times of low generation/high demand, and things being switched on and used at times of excess generation/low demand.
Eventually this will mostly be automated, and does not involve people being disconnected, despite what doom-monger newspapers and other clueless media emporiums have claimed.
A typical example is water heating - switching off a hot water cylinder for 15 minutes won't be noticed by anyone as the water in it will still be hot, but in moderate to large numbers it's a very substantial drop in demand. Likewise switching some on when there is excess generation is a way to use that generation rather than wasting it. Similar principles apply to fridges, freezers, some types of space heating, electric vehicles and so on. Some of this can be done with existing devices, some will require devices which have built in communications so their load can be varied rather than just switching them on or off.
The gas thing is because there is a large spike in electricity demand between about 4.30pm and 7.30pm every day, and in almost every case that spike in demand has to be met with expensive additional gas generation.
Removing that demand spike by shifting some loads earlier or later would remove the need for that very expensive few hours of generation.
The same applies even when gas is gone - a large spike in demand for a few hours will always be the most expensive electricity, as whatever provides it has to be kept available all the time, even though it's only used for a few hours each day.
Most of those adverts are either a selection of carefully chosen facts with plenty missing, or just blatant lies.They bother me a little!How you could save more than 20% on your gas bill
A British Gas expert engineer explains how having an efficient boiler can help you heat your home without spending more than you need
Condensing boilers have been mandatory since 2005, so anything in the last 18 years won't be significantly worse than a new one.
Even before that, most boilers were not the E rated and worse that certain box slingers like to claim.
Unless someone has a boiler which is 30+ years old, the savings from a new boiler will never cover the cost of the new boiler.
Even then, if the boiler is working, significant savings can be made from replacing the controls for a few £100s, rather than replacing the boiler.
"Britain becoming self-sufficient for gas" is surely a national concept, which has no meaning in relation to individual 'people'?
If the water were 'still hot' (as hot as the users wanted it to be), won't the thermostats probably already have turned off their heaters' energy usage? The laws of physics being what they are, wouldn't a "substantial drop in [energy] demand" have to be associated with a "substantial drop in the temperature of hot water that people had"?
Kind Regards, John
Any reply is meaningless.
Probably, just as is the suggestion that Britain being self-sufficient for gas could be true for 'some people', but not others, and almost as difficult to understand as the suggestion that people could use less energy for water heating without ending up, on average, with water which was less hot - and we all (should!) know that having a lower hot water temp would result in less energy usage
Kind Regards, John
I quite like my smart meter, its currently saving me lots of money. I'm on the Octopus tracker tariff which as of February requires those switching to it to have a smart meter. Today I am paying 5.03p Kwh for gas and 20.99p Kwh for electric (price cap in my area is 10.23p gas and 32.72p electric) so its saving me a considerable amount of money. On windy days when there is abundant power from the windfarms there are noticeable drops in the electricity unit costs.
I'm currently weighing up whether or not to make the switch to an air source heat pump from a gas boiler whilst there is government funding available*. There are already systems out there that can control a heat pump to get your house up to temperature whilst minimising the cost of the electricity used through the use of flexible time of day electricity tariffs. A major way they accomplish this is to heat up the house slightly beyond your desired temperature whilst electric costs are low, then turn off during the highest cost periods and use the stored heat built up in the entire fabric of the house as a kind of storage heater. There's also the ability to control the time at which hot water is heated to make sure the cheapest period for electricity is used, hot water in a tank can stay hot enough for quite a long time.
* I'm sure there will be much naysaying on the practicality and affordability of heat pumps. In my case I have already got a heating system that is capable of getting my house warm enough using a flow temperature of just 40C when its -3C outside (I got to test it this winter), which means I would be able to install a heat pump and run it at a high efficiency. I don't need to re-pipe my house and I only had to up-size a couple of radiators to achieve this (admittedly when I put in a new heating system from scratch 11 years ago I oversized my radiators to squeeze better efficiency from the gas boiler so already had a good starting point). I would need to install a hot water cylinder at the same time, but that's not a deal breaker for me.
I'm currently weighing up whether or not to make the switch to an air source heat pump from a gas boiler whilst there is government funding available*. There are already systems out there that can control a heat pump to get your house up to temperature whilst minimising the cost of the electricity used through the use of flexible time of day electricity tariffs. A major way they accomplish this is to heat up the house slightly beyond your desired temperature whilst electric costs are low, then turn off during the highest cost periods and use the stored heat built up in the entire fabric of the house as a kind of storage heater. There's also the ability to control the time at which hot water is heated to make sure the cheapest period for electricity is used, hot water in a tank can stay hot enough for quite a long time.
* I'm sure there will be much naysaying on the practicality and affordability of heat pumps. In my case I have already got a heating system that is capable of getting my house warm enough using a flow temperature of just 40C when its -3C outside (I got to test it this winter), which means I would be able to install a heat pump and run it at a high efficiency. I don't need to re-pipe my house and I only had to up-size a couple of radiators to achieve this (admittedly when I put in a new heating system from scratch 11 years ago I oversized my radiators to squeeze better efficiency from the gas boiler so already had a good starting point). I would need to install a hot water cylinder at the same time, but that's not a deal breaker for me.
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