on 29/07/2006, Simon supposed :
Hello -

Having just received an electicity bill, I'm wondering whether anyone tried
building a power meter for an entire house? In other words, something that
would give an instantaneous digital or analogue read-out of the power being
used by the whole house, without the need to squint at the spinning dial in
the electricity company's meter (which is outside in my case).

The instrument is called a clamp meter and has been around since
(?)....

You squeeze an arm which opens the jaws and permits it to be clamped
(hence the name) around a cable. The display shows the total current
being consumed. The used to be analogue but most these days are
digital. You just clamp it around one cable only, either live or
neutral will do - but not both as the current in one would cancel out
the other.

--

Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk