We finally have our home energy use where we want it!

[BailOut]

Originally Posted by CTScott

I started with a device from http://www.theenergydetective.com/index.html.

Their system has one set of sensors that clamp on the input wires to your electrical panel. It then transmits the data through the house wiring to their receiver unit.

That's a great tool for measuring the overall electricity usage for your home, but there's a much cheaper and easier way to get individual device measurements:

The Kill-A-Watt

That's what I used to audit our home, then waited for each month's power bill to see how our all-in per day and per month kWh usage was measuring up.

[CTScott]

Originally Posted by BailOut

That's a great tool for measuring the overall electricity usage for your home, but there's a much cheaper and easier way to get individual device measurements:

The Kill-A-Watt

That's what I used to audit our home, then waited for each month's power bill to see how our all-in per day and per month kWh usage was measuring up.

Agreed.

I got totally carried away with it and built my own system, based on the T.E.D. technology where I can measure the current draw on every circuit in our panels.

[Lafiro]

Originally Posted by CTScott

Agreed.

I got totally carried away with it and built my own system, based on the T.E.D. technology where I can measure the current draw on every circuit in our panels.

Please explain how you managed that please. Maybe a picture and how much all the equipment ended up costing you. Thanks

[CTScott]

Originally Posted by Lafiro

Please explain how you managed that please. Maybe a picture and how much all the equipment ended up costing you. Thanks

It's all behind my breaker panel, but I used 12 sets of their clip on current sensors (pictured below) fed into a circuit board which rectifies the low voltage AC signal from the probes into DC and then feeds them into ADCs of an array of microcontrollers. Each sensor can measure the current flow of one wire, so two are required for each 220 volt circuit and one for each 110 volt circuit. By the time all was said and done I dropped about $1000 on the project.



http://www.theenergydetective.com/store/accessories/


Here are some links to some similar DIYprojects:
http://jarv.org/pwrmon.shtml


http://blog.makezine.com/archive/200...sage_moni.html