I've recently invested in an Owl Power meter to give me a rough idea of our "base" electrical load & to enable me to get a rough idea of the impact of improvements.

So far it's motivated me to replace some 50W GU10's with Megaman CFL replacements, although annoyingly the kitchen ceiling fire hoods prevent their use in that application (bulb too tall) - any alternative recommendations ?

Interestingly though, I still have a nightime base draw of around 250W & I want to minimise this further. Wherever convenient I turn off at the socket / switch, but sometimes it's difficult to do so. The only practical thing I can come up with is to use some timer switches where getting to the switch / plug is a pain.

The question is - How much electricity does a timer switch use? Anyone know? No point in using them if I lose overall

I have one of these (and an Owl) http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=38343 this would let you measure single loads to see if the timer takes more or less than the appliance. Remote controlled sockets are also useful for some things where the switch is inaccessible. I have a digital 7 day plug in timer and two different electro-mechanical plug in timers and they all measure a 1W each, so as long as you are switching significantly more than this (say 3W), you will be saving. Remember that 1W costs about £1 per year to leave switched on, so it all adds up.

When I first got an Owl, I went round and switched everything off - even the burglar alarm - to decide what we could live without and ended up with a base load of 150W. This still isn't good enough really, but it's a start.

Good luck,
Brian.

If you are trying to sort out your smaller loads then make sure your meter can read them properly. Many are useless below about 10W, which is the range for all your standby kit and random devices. Test the maplins one on a 1W load before buying. One meter known to measure small loads properly is the one Navitron sell, and I can confirm it works fine down to 0.2W

Thanks Wookey, I'll take a look

http://www.smartpowershop.co.uk/ have some good devices on their site for helping to check electrical useage and then hopefully work out what appliances etc are using the most.