how to cut electric

domestic_goddess

I pay £66 per month in a 3 bed house. This is for 2adults and 2 children and I have no gas so everything is electric. I even have electric storage heaters and most of the time I forget to turn my emersion off. Saving money on my electricity bill is next on my list!!!!

Bearing in mind how much i pay and how much i use i think you are def paying too much!?!?

garret1

my bills are also too high so we did the self meter test and sat like eejits with a torch watching the spinny thing go round as we switched things on and off. by far the biggest culprit was the kettle so a hob top one is on are list. we are gradually replacing light bulbs with low energy and I now only wash after 11pm and before 8am when it is cheaper. if I have to tumble dry I stick to the cheap times too.

taplady

This is a really interesting thread! I didn't realise an electric kettle used a lot of power!
We live in a 3 bed semi and there are 4 of us.We use electric to cook but gas to heat and for the hot water.We pay £10 a week on a smart card which is more expensive I know but it gives me peace of mind that we'llnever owe them money!
I have found that it's the tumble dryer that uses the most electric in our house so I ration its use to just emergencies!We aklso have the energy saving lightbulbs in 4 rooms but leave a light on all night on the landing for DS2 who hates the dark and one in the kitchen for the dogs:o also leave the radio on for them 24/7:o
DS1 keeps leaving his TV on standby but I turn it off as soon as I can.
Thanks for some useful ideas folks!

all_hours

the kettle makes the wheel spin round fast but you only use it for short periods. thats why its a good idea to only boil as much water as you need, rather than fill it to the top. would one of those camping boiler things that you stick in a cup of water to heat it up work out cheaper. or boiling the water in a cup in the microwave?

oops_a_daisy

earwig wrote:

hi no i dont use economy bulbs i didnt think they made much differnce i will buy some today kids are little and tv dvd player is strictly only firday saterday nights for one hour if they have been good which we turn on and off i cant switch providers as i would have to pay my outstanding bill of 178.00 electric and 122.00 gas first

I think the above is the reason for the higher weekly payments - you are not only paying for the electricity that you use now but are also clearing off the arrears. I am in the same situation with gas and electric arrears because they didnt put up my monthly direct debit but did put the prices up !

tesuhoha

is anyone watching the tv all the time. having it on from 8 till 11 sounds excessive. maybe if you switched it off when no one was watching it would make quite a difference.

wishingonastar_3

Money_Saver wrote:

Does an item use electric say kettle if its still plugged in switched on but not actually boiling water? Surley it cant be ?

i'm on a meter, when we first went on it, i tried various items unplugged and plugged in to see what used up electric fatster than others, and i found that the consumption did go up just by having things plugged in and switched on at the wall, not by much, but i figured all bits of things plugged in and switched on would add up.

jitsuguy

Hi guys,

You might find the following site a little help. I am trying to find the others but having a few problems as I'm not in my office at the moment where all the links are!

http://www.energywatch.org.uk/help_and_advice/energysmart/index.asp

Plus the future of energy meters if were lucky enough!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4754109.stm

Why can't we have them now?!?

Jitsuguy

fizzel81

we pay 45 per month for elec and 45 per month for elec thats a 3 bed house the gas heats the water etc the elec for everything else i know i use to much as we have tank on for about 5 hours a day (otherwise i find i run out of hot water) and i must admit i regulary use a tumble dryer i must do 2 loads of washing a day computer and tv are always on (im shocking myself now) in a way i can see why my bills are so high, i guess im wastefull

Ragtimeplayer

My electric bill has always been around the £120 mark in winter. This months winter bill was a shocking £244!

My gas is normally about £120 in winter also and this went up to £159.

I was gobsmacked when I got the electric bill and phoned them up to query it. She said electric prices had risen by 20%, fair enough but my bill should then have been about £144 not £244!

We had another bill yesterday as we have now switched from Npower to London Energy and we checked the reading with the meter and we seem to have used almost £70 of electric in a month :eek:

We turned eveything off and then switched them back on one by one. The biggest meter spinner turned out to be the computer which amazed me as I always thought they were quite low voltage.

I do have the computer on for about 12 hours a day but I have always done this anyway for at least the last 5 years so I am doubly confused :mad:

It is so irritating to not be able to find the real reason why my electric has gone up so much.

We sat down and tried to think of anything electrical we had bought in the last 4 months since our bills have gone up.

The only large purchase we can think of is our double freezer. But we also got rid of two smaller freezers at the same time so I think this would cancel it out.

I am going to try and carry on thinking of ways to cut the electric bill but its so frustrating when you know you aren't doing anything drastically different to what you have always done yet our electric bill has more than doubled!