appliance cost calculator

cathybird

hi there all

you lot are probably experts on this sort of stuff anyway but I've started a thread today on the Debt Free Wannabe board how to work out what your household appliances are costing you at http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=2796981&posted=1#post2796981

this is the appliance cost calculator I mention in the thread:
http://www.ukpower.co.uk/running-costs-elec.asp

if you know this stuff already please just ignore!!!!!

tawnyowls

I mentioned on the I wanna board that I was thinking of buying an Electrisave - no-one replied, so I decided to take the jump and buy it anyway. And boy, has that been an eye-opener! Good news - my PC only makes it go up by 0.05; bad news - the microwave, kettle and WM on together made it go up past 5 kw and set the alarm off! I have been flabbergasted at how much power some of my lights use up, and I am definitely going to continue filling my flask rather than boiling the kettle from now on. If anyone's interested, the site is: https://www.electrisave.co.uk. The product is expensive (£80), although I managed to get it for under £70 inc P & P on eBay. They claim people have cut their power usage by 25% and I can believe it - we have been glued to it for the last 3 days and have been switching things off right, left and centre.

Apparently, npower were giving them away free, but I think the trial has now finished. Still, might be worth contacting your electricity supplier.

Cardew

tawnyowls wrote:

I mentioned on the I wanna board that I was thinking of buying an Electrisave - no-one replied, so I decided to take the jump and buy it anyway. And boy, has that been an eye-opener! Good news - my PC only makes it go up by 0.05; bad news - the microwave, kettle and WM on together made it go up past 5 kw and set the alarm off! I have been flabbergasted at how much power some of my lights use up, and I am definitely going to continue filling my flask rather than boiling the kettle from now on. If anyone's interested, the site is: https://www.electrisave.co.uk. The product is expensive (£80), although I managed to get it for under £70 inc P & P on eBay. They claim people have cut their power usage by 25% and I can believe it - we have been glued to it for the last 3 days and have been switching things off right, left and centre.

Apparently, npower were giving them away free, but I think the trial has now finished. Still, might be worth contacting your electricity supplier.

Why buy Electrisave when you can buy exactly the same thing from Maplins for £25(it was £12) and Lidl have sold them for a fiver.

It saves you NOTHING at all. All it does it makes you aware of the power certain appliances use.

Of course if you have a kettle and a WM on together it will use a lot of electricity - but for a couple of minutes. A kettle will cost 20p or 30p an hour to use, but even if full it will cost only a penny or so to boil. A washing machine will use a lot of electricity while the heater is on - but after that very little.

To recommend paying £70 or £80 for such a device on a money saving site is a sick joke.

humfer

I'll try and find it in a bit but someone posted the formula to work out how much your appliance costs based on the rate quoted on the back of the unit/in the brochure.

manic

humfer wrote:

I'll try and find it in a bit but someone posted the formula to work out how much your appliance costs based on the rate quoted on the back of the unit/in the brochure.

With respect, I don't think that will be as accurate as actually measuring them with a device, whether the device costs £5 or £500. An example would be a fridge, the rate quoted doesn't account for how many items you have in it, how many times you open & close it etc. Also, I guess the rating on a washing machine is for the exact load of 5kg (or whatever), if you don't put in exactly 5kgs then it may use more, or less, power than stated.

By the way this is only my opinion, and not a result of any research.

Cardew

manic wrote:

With respect, I don't think that will be as accurate as actually measuring them with a device, whether the device costs £5 or £500. An example would be a fridge, the rate quoted doesn't account for how many items you have in it, how many times you open & close it etc. Also, I guess the rating on a washing machine is for the exact load of 5kg (or whatever), if you don't put in exactly 5kgs then it may use more, or less, power than stated.

By the way this is only my opinion, and not a result of any research.

There have been threads on this. The rating on the plate of an appliance is of no use at all as the majority of appliances have a thermostat. So the average power used could be a tiny fraction of its rating.

Example:
Fridgefreezer - rating say 500 watts. Thus if the compressor ran all the time and the lights inside were on, using a rating of 500 watts it would use 4,380 kWh per year. The true figure could be as low as 200 kWh per year.

manic

manic wrote:

By the way this is only my opinion, and not a result of any research.

I meant to say my own research.