My Energy use Diary

setmefree2 · 4 November 2008 at 10:01AM

Hi all:hello:

I read our meters Saturday morning the 1st of November.

ELECTRICITY
For the Qtr to Dec our electricity average use in the past has been 21 kwh per day and it was 14 kwh per day on 1st Nov, so that's a third down:jI think is because we switched off our freezer & extra fridge but also because it is warmish I am still line drying:D

GAS
For the Qtr to Dec our gas average use in the past has been 66kwh per day and it was 44 kwh per day on 1st Nov, so that's also a third down:j. I think that this is because overall it was a reasonably mild October.

This is early in this qtr so I do expect things to get worse:o - especially if it gets cold and I have to up our CH and TD use. On the plus side half term is over so the kids are back at school:D

Good Luck Everyone

SMF2

cw18 · 4 November 2008 at 10:51AM

just off to read my meters.....

I could be a while, as I'm probably going to collapse in horror at how much we've used this week with the heating being on, and on, and on, and ......... :eek:

cw18 · 4 November 2008 at 11:42AM

Ok, meters read, picked myself up off the path at the side of the house, back in, back out to re-read the gas one, picked myself back up again, and have now entered the readings into imeasure (and my own spreadsheet, which is a NSC tariff and includes VAT)

This is the first week we've had our heating on properly (was on for one day in last weeks figures, and 1 day in my second week on i-measure), and my gas has gone up from an average of 8.1kWh/day last week to (tried not to collapse in shock again while typing this) 27.8kWh/day :eek:

In my first 5 weeks of using imeasure we used a total of 262kWh, but we've just used 194kWh in one week !!!!

Yet we've gone back up from a 'C' rating (last week) to a 'B' (same as end of week 4)

On a positive side I'd expected the electricity to hike up as well, due to the C/H pump and needing the lights more since the clock change -- but our daily average has actually fallen by 1.3kWh/day, and is the lowest (by 0.4kWh/day) we've been in 6 weeks

Last week you spent:

£6.58 on gas (s/sheet figure = £7.21)
£8.64 on electricity (s/sheet figure = £8.05)

Total you have spent on energy since starting imeasure (6 weeks ago):

£15.51 on gas (s/sheet figure = £19.58)
£55.92 on electricity (s/sheet figure = £51.32)

Carbon emissions Kg CO2
........................Last week......Last Month
Per Person...........25 (43)...........19 (32)
Per Household......76 (113)..........57 (83)

Gas use as kWh
........................Last week......Last Month
Per Person...........63 (138).........28 (90)
Per Household.....188 (361).........83 (231)

Electricity use as kWh
........................Last week......Last Month
Per Person...........24 (28)..........26 (25)
Per Household......72 (77)..........77 (69)

cw18 · 4 November 2008 at 11:56AM

Magentasue wrote: »

suidreams From what you say, it would seem something is wrong but are you sure about the 38kwh a day last year? Sounds really low to me - whereas 48kwh for not much heating sounds reasonable. There are several threads about gas use running on the Gas and Elec board - may be worth checking out as lots of people are posting their usage.

just had a look back through my spreadsheet......

of the historial figures I've managed to work into some semblance of order, the highest daily average we've ever has was from 24/11/06 to 16/2/07 -- at a time I didn't think twice about the heating being on when 'cool', and DH and I were both around the house most of the time (as we are now). My daily average then (for a large 4 bed-detached) was 38.2kWh -- so not far off the same as suidreams was last winter.

Last year I had a bill in December which splits the periods differently, but from 6/10/07-11/12/07 we averaged 20.7kWh/day and from then until 4/3/08 the average went up to 34.3kWh (with three of at home full time more or less right through from late October, and still not thinking twice about boosting the heating). So we're still much the same (though actually slightly lower) than suiddreams.

HaushinkaGreenDay · 4 November 2008 at 1:18PM

SuiDreams wrote: »

Just rather concerned that our gas usage was 38KWH, for the highest useage period of last year and this will have been heating for 2-3 hours on a morning and about 6 hours on an evening and probably only had it on for 1-2 hours a day max over the las week (actually about 6 days) and we've used 48KWH. Could there be something wrong with the boiler?

Hi Suidreams,

When was the last time your boiler was serviced? It's possible it's not working as efficiently as before. Also, it was very cold in the last week(s) of October compared to the average (and last year) which can affect gas usage considerably.

Another thought, the calorific value of the gas supply fluctuates all the time, and might just be that it was lower during the period you mention. If you're using a standard CV such as 40.1 and it was actually less, this will result in a higher kWh in your conversion calculation.

Hope this helps!

Haushinka

HaushinkaGreenDay · 4 November 2008 at 1:23PM

A_fiend_for_life wrote: »

I had a similar problem when the thermostat for an immersion heater was replaced. The corgi / niceic engineer replaced a 17'' thermostat with an 11'' thermostat and turned the temperature on the thermostat from 60C to 90C to compensate...
...It meant when you ran the bath you got scolding hot water that quickly resulted in a cold bath by the time you'd filled it to a reasonable level. Don't know how wide spread this practice is but very nasty if you have kids. I'd recommend checking the water temperature if you have this kind of job done.

quote]

You know, I had a similar problem in my previous rented property. Thermostat on immersion went, resulting in boiling water in hot water tank. I was blamed for leaving immersion on for 1hr30m!!!!

When he replaced it, I asked for it to be set at 60 degrees but he set it to 55 and refused to turn it up. Now I have a chronic illness that leaves me susceptable to viral/bacterial infection, so 60 is the absolute min to prevent bacterial growth - i.e. legionella and its peers. So I turned it up myself.

Same plumber is now telling me off for using the TRVs - apparently I should just keep them all on a high setting and not turn unused rooms down a notch or two.

So what's the point of the TRVs then??!!

Honestly, sometimes I wonder how some 'professionals' manage to pass their qualifications...

cw18 · 4 November 2008 at 1:33PM

HaushinkaGreenDay wrote: »

Another thought, the calorific value of the gas supply fluctuates all the time, and might just be that it was lower during the period you mention. If you're using a standard CV such as 40.1 and it was actually less, this will result in a higher kWh in your conversion calculation.

Before anyone says it, I know I can be a geek with information I keep......

Assuming all gas providers use the same calorific values, my bill dated 5/10/2007 shows, 40.4, bill dates 11/12/2007 shows 40.1, bill dated 4/2/2008 shows 40.0, and my latest bill which is dated 20/10/2008 is back at 40.1 -- so not much difference to 12 months ago.

The lowest figure I have (5/10/2007 being the oldest one I've managed to retrive this info for) was 39.9 on the bill dated 2/5/2008 (and the highest is the 40.4 on the 5/10/2007 bill) -- so my gut reaction is that this doesn't change/hasn't changed sufficiently enough to make a huge difference to anyone's kWh calculations

Penny2myName · 4 November 2008 at 2:26PM

You chose to compare your household with (All users/All housetypes) - to change your comparison go into your user detail settings.
Your results are being compared with the averages of 195 households.
Carbon emissions Kg CO2
Last week Last Month Last Quarter Per person 26 (43) 32 (32) 0 (25) Per household 104 (114) 129 (84) 0 (63) Gas use as kWh
Last week Last Month Last Quarter Per Person 108 (138) 115 (90) 0 (59) Per Household 432 (362) 460 (232) 0 (147) Electricity use as kWh
Last week Last Month Last Quarter Per Person 7 (28) 16 (25) 0 (24) Per Household 28 (77) 65 (69) 0 (64)

Your Results in Detail

You have been taking readings for 7 weeks

Since you started measuring your total household -
Energy use is 3,320 kWh (Gas: 2,880kWh | Electricity: 440kWh)
Carbon emissions are 823 Kg CO2 (Gas: 593 Kg CO2 | Electricity: 230 Kg CO2)
Money Spent

How has my energy spend been calculated?
Last week you spent:

£15.12 on gas:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: Argg and I was away 29th-4th Nov (just got back}heating set for 3 hours a day for animals, 1 in morning 2 in evening.
£3.36 on electricity

Total you have spent on energy since starting imeasure (7 weeks ago):

£100.82 on gas
£52.80 on electricity

HaushinkaGreenDay · 4 November 2008 at 2:27PM

cw18 wrote: »

Before anyone says it, I know I can be a geek with information I keep......

Assuming all gas providers use the same calorific values, my bill dated 5/10/2007 shows, 40.4, bill dates 11/12/2007 shows 40.1, bill dated 4/2/2008 shows 40.0, and my latest bill which is dated 20/10/2008 is back at 40.1 -- so not much difference to 12 months ago.

The lowest figure I have (5/10/2007 being the oldest one I've managed to retrive this info for) was 39.9 on the bill dated 2/5/2008 (and the highest is the 40.4 on the 5/10/2007 bill) -- so my gut reaction is that this doesn't change/hasn't changed sufficiently enough to make a huge difference to anyone's kWh calculations

Hi cw18,

It doesn't if you take the figures quoted on your bills, as the energy suppliers quote the average for the period and are allowed to be 0.4 out.

The CV readings are taken daily by the National Grid (used to be Transco), and they can vary significantly (http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/ukgasdata/services/calval/calval.asp).

Obviously this won't affect readings vastly, but in combination with other factors eg outside temp, boiler working slightly less efficiently etc etc can affect kWh usage somewhat. Sorry, I should've said that in my previous post!

Also, {geek alert lol} the CV can vary from region to region and therefore all gas providers don't necessarily use the same CV; though when I was with ScottishGas they never changed the CV on any of their bills, despite it fluctuating considerably during the time I was with them

. They denied any knowledge of the CV changing when queried! Conversely, nPower have several different CVs on my latest bill.

However, I think the most probable reason for Suiddreams' increased usage is the cold snap we had recently, that was below the monthly average

(my usage shot up for about 3 days too - almost double that of the rest of Oct).

Haushinka

Little_Mama · 4 November 2008 at 3:42PM

lingojingo wrote: »

So did we, and also less in Oct than June!!! Wonder what we were doing It certainly wasn't heating!

I have to confess that mine probably was a bit of CH and the tumble drier as May wasn't particularly nice weatherwise (if I recall correctly)

.

It won't be like that in May 2009! The CH curfew is going to be strictly enforced from the clocks going forward, so that's last week in March for me. OMG I'm wishing my life away based on heating bills! :rotfl:

LM

My Energy use Diary

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