Avoid using Gas and Electricity

robsmum_2

Thank you for the above information. Our washing machine is AAA rated and is cold fill, so that a 30% -is 30%.
Our dishwasher is also AA rated, we can't get good results on economy wash even with good tablets, like Finish - the water is just too hard!
The lowest we can go is Normal which is 50% but better than 65% or 70%.
We do both shower rather than bath and I agree about the big saving there.
The builder's tip about airing the place is a good one - I work mornings but once I am home open the patio door in the living room(no window in there),we open the bedroom window slightly all day, opening the front door sadly doesn't make any difference - just lets the heat out! The way the house is postioned prevents us getting a through breeze - you should try it in the summer!:eek:
Thought about it today and realized that the kettle is one of our worst offenders and is on a lot! Going to try the flask tip for at least duriing the day when am in alone.
Thanks for the tips.

foxgloves

I've been looking a lot at energy consumption recently as our monthly payments went up to £83 per month for electricity & £70 per month for gas (npower). It's partly because they estimated a bill & cut our payments right down, but when I read the meters, they were a long way out, so I sent in the real readings & they should have increased the payments to somewhere in the middle, but they didn't bother and then at the next bill, they shot up to this. That's for 2 people in a modest 1930s house, out a lot of the time at work and pretty good on the whole at putting on an extra layer, switching stuff off, using night-time economy 7 for washing machine & breadmaker, etc. Have been taking readings for various activities. Tried an eco shower. i.e You get in, get wet, turn it off. Then you wash, then you turn it back on & quickly rinse & jump out. That took 7 units (the red gas units which my partner says are '100ths'). Next time I showered, I had a full 'water on all the time' shower & it took 67 of the same units. I couldn't believe the difference. Am going to try it again in case it was a mistake in my calculations. If not, I'll be having a lot more 'eco showers'! I am DETERMINED that those npower payments are going to come down or that they have to refund me, the robdogs! We are being sooooooo stingy with energy, and enjoying it! Much better for the environment too.

nothappy1

Hope this mild weather carrys on for a bit longer saving loads on heating .
OH lost job so got to keep heat off ,found loads of useful tips on here it's been a great help.Hopefully I wont curcome and put heat on can't stand being cold

ginnyknit

I am on economy 7 and since we had a shower put in I have not been putting the hot water tank on every night. However to my disgust I have found that if I put it on for an hour in the night it heats up the water as well as if I have it on for the usual 5 hours! I wish I had worked that out years ago. I have one storage heater on low at the moment and thats working out well.

Rebekah24

So far so good, been a few days now with all storage heaters off.

My boyfriend was moaning about how cold it was...lol Socks, and lots of layers

Hopefully the readings will reflect it

pagangirl

My useful tip - if you will be out all day, switch EVERYTHING off at the wall - only thing left on here is the fridge freezer - even the radio alarm gets switched off - seems to have worked as meters got read last week - July - Oct - Electric £40.63/Gas £9.55 - really pleased with summer bill - no heat on here yet - was out in t-shirt and sandals today, didn't even need a jacket, hoping weather stays mild for another few weeks !

Will NEVER go on Direct Debit for fuel bills, have heard too many horror stories about increases in payment amounts. I use a spreadsheet, take weekly readings, so now know where I'm up to with bills and can budget accordingly - best thing I ever did.

Don't have choice to use shower, landlord won't put one in, so have a shallow bath (call it more of a paddle)!!!!

ixwood

Showers aren't necessarily cheaper than baths. If the shower is electric (or even worse a power shower) and the bath running off a gas boiler, then the shower may even cost more.

It's better/easier just to boil the amount for water needed, rather than boiling too much and then filling flasks up with it.

To the person that said that if it's on standby, it's on and using the same amount of power, that's not the case. Standby uses much less power usually (a couple of watts or so). Especially with modern appliances, which are being designed with efficiency more in mind.

People always go on about standby, but really it's a very small % of the total consumption. A appliance using 2w on standy would cost 0.02p per hour if you're paying 12p per kwH.

It's the things that use or produce heat that typically make up the majority of the bill/usage and provide the greatest opportunities for reducing consumption. Kettles, Immersion heaters, electric showers/water heaters, heating, tumble driers etc.

rumncoke

I have been monitoring our consumption since last December. Not had heating on much so far due to the mild weather, however I was a little concerned that our gas reading each week was creeping up. 2 weeks ago we used half as many units as during the really cold snap last year. (or so I thought)

Suddenly realised yesterday that we had meter changed in May & are now on a metric one. Once I had converted all the previous units used to metric on my spreadsheet our consumption didn't look so bad.

We will also be having cavity wall insulation in a couple of weeks so hopefully that will reduce consumption even more.

Generally it is just me in the house during day time & I refuse to turn heating on unless thermostat drops below 16. Lots of layers & busy anyway so don't really notice cold. Just have to make sure temp is back up to 18 by the time DH is home from work.

rumncoke

foxgloves wrote: »

Have been taking readings for various activities. Tried an eco shower. i.e You get in, get wet, turn it off. Then you wash, then you turn it back on & quickly rinse & jump out. That took 7 units (the red gas units which my partner says are '100ths'). Next time I showered, I had a full 'water on all the time' shower & it took 67 of the same units. I couldn't believe the difference. .

Think I will have to try that. With 3 of us having showers every day (DD is 13 & can be standing in shower for 10 minutes)

rosekitten

ixwood wrote: »

Showers aren't necessarily cheaper than baths. If the shower is electric (or even worse a power shower) and the bath running off a gas boiler, then the shower may even cost more.

It's better/easier just to boil the amount for water needed, rather than boiling too much and then filling flasks up with it.

To the person that said that if it's on standby, it's on and using the same amount of power, that's not the case. Standby uses much less power usually (a couple of watts or so). Especially with modern appliances, which are being designed with efficiency more in mind.

People always go on about standby, but really it's a very small % of the total consumption. A appliance using 2w on standy would cost 0.02p per hour if you're paying 12p per kwH.

It's the things that use or produce heat that typically make up the majority of the bill/usage and provide the greatest opportunities for reducing consumption. Kettles, Immersion heaters, electric showers/water heaters, heating, tumble driers etc.

in theory 0.02 on stand by does not sound too
bad equate this to

3 televisions
3 digi boxes
3 dvd players
2 stereo`s
4 phone chargers
2 ipod touches
1 Wii
1 psp2


and thats just what comes to mind
there are probbly other things as well.
when you have kids they have no
comprehension or see any importance
of this stuff sat hours on end mostly on
stand by 24 hours a day.I know that that
lot and all the other things we have insisted on
brought our electric down massivly.

if its not on stand by its costing us
nothing which is better than an
average of 0.02p an item

Would rather have the saving in my purse
than on our electric bill


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