my wife fills up the kettle before making even one drink as saves her walking over to the sink so often…. It does seem to me that the one who isn’t earning the money is less concerned about efficiency than the one who is – or is it just often a woman thing to leave things on when not needed?

I’d say it’s a woman thing, my wife does the same, also falls asleep with TV and lights on most nights, boils pans with the lid off, but she’s the main ‘breadwinner’ here.
I can’t see the fuss with the vacuum cleaner thing either. Just imagine the innovation that would be happening if they did a similar thing with car engines?

Just imagine the innovation that would be happening if they did a similar thing with car engines?

They started, see the power/fuel that your typical american car does compared to the Japanese/Euro equivalent.

Why when you can get one that works perfectly well with a smaller motor. Big power numbers are a bit of a con, design something that works well with less power and it’s all good.

Old technology high powered Hoover that could suck a golf ball through a garden hose , cheap to buy.
New wonder low powered Hoover that could suck a golf ball through a garden hose , really, it’s a Hoover , I paid less than that for my first car .

Also, energy bill £400 reduced to £200 due to the enforced sale of wonder gadgets, shareholders hands are sore from rubbing them together at the thought of having the scope to be able to put prices up.
You know we don’t sell as much so have to put our prices up and your bill is no more than it used to be, what’s your problem .

this might be interesting to some http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

You know we don’t sell as much so have to put our prices up and your bill is no more than it used to be, what’s your problem .

You know it’s a finite resource the way it’s currently being generated, you noticed that most of the gas for Europe comes from a country about to have a war with it’s neighbour. Or that coal needs to be mined from less resources….

Just imagine the innovation that would be happening if they did a similar thing with car engines?

I would say engine capacities have decreased significantly over the last 10 years with high output engines. Lots of cars with 1.6L turbo petrol (like F1) instead of 2 litre NA petrol and 1.4 and 1.6 turbo diesel instead of 1.9/2 litre turbo diesels.

The question is whether these engines will last as long if you are factoring in the energy of manufacturing as well as using the car but I do seem to get the impression that the powers that be (not just the manufacturers) want us to change our cars more often…..

Total EU madness.

As noted by people being interviewed the lower powered devices take longer to do the job so its hard to argue they use less power.

I predict a significant business opportunity in mail order delivery of electrical devices from countries not subject to this non-sense.

jambalaya – Member
Total EU madness.

try reading the story

Araxmas
7 MINUTES AGO
Another non-story.
The EU commissions these research initiatives all the time, the problem is that the media pick it up and jump to conclusions about things being ‘banned’.
How many times has the Daily Mail or UKIP gone on about toilet flushing, fishermen, compost, olive oil, danish pasteries .etc being banned? It is all bunk that is caused by them rushing to conclusions.

I might start a business in transformer home appliances.

ie a robot with a 2kw motor that just happens to be transformable into a working vacuum cleaner.

Sell them in the toy isle to avoid suspicion.

My first one will be called “Suckatron”.

It’s an efficiency drive.
Why have a high powered device when a lower powered more efficient device can do the same job.
It’s the same with cars. Smaller engines that give the same performance as bigger engines did 15-20 years ago but are much more efficient.
It should force manufacturers to provide the consumer with a lower powered more efficient product, not just a lower powered one.
If it saves energy doing the same job then surely that’s got to be a good thing?

saving energy or using a lower powered device to do the same job is not the same as saving energy or limiting the rated power.

making the hoover suck more per watt is a good thing.
making the hoover have a maximum upper rated wattage is only good for “encouraging” the designers to make motors/fans that turn more of the electrical energy in to suck

There are other advantages of lower powered devices in that cables can be thinner (less copper and plastic), transmissions (belts, gears etc) can be down rated, structure lighter weight so less material and so on.

In which case andyl, is there an argument for a low voltage circuit in many houses?

that one was discussed on another thread a couple of months back

And I bet if a kettle had even a teeny bit of insulation, it would reduce energy.

However, I also am of the opinion that they really should stop faffing round the issue, and just expect all houses to meet a certain level of energy use within the next two decades, that is significantly lower than at present.

DO NOT make the energy companies responsible for it. At present, much of our energy policy is based on asking them to reduce what they sell.

Probably not as the losses around even a house can be huge.

I do like the idea of sockets built in transformers and 5V USB connectors though and stop supplying 5V power supplies with things (as they now do with phones).

Afaik you can already get sockets with usb sockets in

Re cars, remember a few yers back they asked manufacturers to reduce their average fleet CO2 to 140g/km. Hence bluemotion everything and small turbo petrols etc. I think manufacturers have done a lot, but perhaps not as much as the exchequer.

I might start a business in transformer home appliances.

ie a robot with a 2kw motor that just happens to be transformable into a working vacuum cleaner.

Sell them in the toy isle to avoid suspicion.

My first one will be called “Suckatron”.

Which aisle will you be selling that in again?

@mike, I have read the story. Its related to the EU banning what they have decided are “high powered” vacuums. This is the first step of 2 which will see max power in a vacuum reduced to 900 watts. I am no fan of Dyson but he’s pretty mad as his designs rely on higher powered motors.

@molgrips I think the cost of fuel has been the main driver in move to smaller car engines. We can thank the Chinese (and to a lesser extent India) for that driving up the price of oil with their increased consumption.

Which aisle will you be selling that in again?

Well you got to appeal to teenage boys 😉

Afaik you can already get sockets with usb sockets in

yeah they are quite common now. I’ve seen a few mention they shut down the usb sockets when nothing is plugged in but i wonder if that works if the cable is in but not plugged into a device? I wonder if the cheaper units do this or of they are on all the time. I would like to see regulation to make sure only the ones that power down are allowed before they get even more commonplace.

Afaik you can already get sockets with usb sockets in

[url=http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Electrical/White+Wiring+Accessories/13A+Socket+with+USB+Charger+2+Gang++USB/d190/sd2633/p38332]So you can[/url]

I’ve seen a few mention they shut down the usb sockets when nothing is plugged in but i wonder if that works if the cable is in but not plugged into a device?

is there a bs or en standard to look out for that covers this feature?

is there a bs or en standard to look out for that covers this feature?

this is what I am wondering. Hope so.

or use some kind of laser device than can spot cook the surface of you toast?

That’s pretty much what the element’s do, the ammount of energy radiated to the bread is far higher than lost through a small ammount of convection. A ban on high powered toasters would just get rid of huge 6 slice things.

As noted by people being interviewed the lower powered devices take longer to do the job so its hard to argue they use less power.

Nope, as plenty of others pointed out on the thread, what would actualy happen is people would boil less water. My kettle has a minimum line of arround 1 pint/2cups, so is actualy 2x more powerfull (or rather energy wastefull) than it needs to be most of the time when I make one cup in the time it does, and I never need to make 8 cups, so a kettle half the crossectional area, the same height with a maximum of 4 cups and a minimum of 1 would rarely be slower to boil than my current one and use half the energy most of the time.

I’m thinking rather than bin my old bulbs I should put them back into use over the winter.

You could always donate them to a blind person

a kettle half the crossectional area, the same height with a maximum of 4 cups and a minimum of 1 would rarely be slower to boil than my current one and use half the energy most of the time.

What you need is a kettle with a flat element, then. They are known as ‘one cup’ kettles and have been around for years.

Couple of thoughts on the kettles:

High detla T gives higher heat transfer coefficient so if the element operates cooler then the water will boil slower.

Kettles are poorly insulated as they need to heat up quickly and insulation would add thermal mass which needs to heat up each time the kettle is used so could actually increase the losses and further slow down boiling.

Heating up slowly means more time for losses to accumulate so a faster boil which is then used promptly is better.

smarter prediction of the boiling point in a kettle could switch off the element slightly earlier and allow the residual heat to complete the boiling (or to whatever temp is required) of the water. A billion kettles running for a couple of seconds less 8 times a day could be a significant saving. But that would add complexity and possibly introduce less robust electronics.

Regarding banning of hi power hoovers, I must say the 1200w Bosch thing i’ve got stamps all over the useless dyson thing in terms of sucking power.

Read this interesting article regarding hoovers

http://simple-living-in-suffolk.co.uk/2014/08/self-seeking-vacuum-cleaner-manufacturers-lambast-energy-efficiency-moves/