Please help me to cut my electricity use from 9kWH to 7kWh per day.

thriftyscotslass

In February 2009, our electricity useage was on average 15kWh per day. Making changes, I managed to reduce this to on average 9kWH per day. I would now like to try to knock another 2kWH off our daily electricity usage.

Here are our details:

Me, dh, ds (18, autism), dd (15)
1970s mid-terrace house, 3 bedrooms
Two adults (me and ds) at home most of the day.
Heat and hot water produced by gas.

No tumble-drier - clothes dried on line or airer.
Washing machine on at 30 degrees; towels & bedding at 60
No dish-washer - dishes washed and dried by hand.
Lightbulbs - all energy saving.
Majority of appliances switched off at wall when not in use, nothing left on stand-by.
Kettle - minimum water boiled at all times
Cooker - water for veggies pre-boiled; correct pan-size used; veggies covered and temp turned down to simmer.
Freezer - pulled away from wall and kept full
Fridge - full at start of week but empties towards end

Ds
LCD tv; lap-top; PS3 & X-Box

Dd
LCD tv; lap-top; hair-dryer; straighteners; mobile phone charger

The kids are good at turning stuff off but don't think I could get them to reduce their usage

Me and dh
Lap-top; hair-dryer; electric alarm clock; electric tooth-brush

Bathroom
Electric pump for shower - shower doesn't work without it.

Front room
CRT tv; Sky box; dvd player; stereo

Kitchen
Hoover; iron; microwave; slow cooker; hand-mixer; bread-maker; toaster; kettle; washing machine (energy efficient); fridge-freezer (9 years old); cooker with fan-oven (Tricity Princess 20+ years old :eek:)

My gut feeling is that I need to make more use of my microwave and slow-cooker. The kettle seems to take a hammering too - always being boiled for cups of tea; to cook veggies; to cook /wash rice and pasta; for hot water bottles in winter.

Any tips or advice would be gratefully received.

Many thanks, Thriftyxxx

Cardew

Stay off the internet!

thriftyscotslass

:rotfl:

forgotmyname

3 TV's all on at the same time and half the time on the same channel? Have family TV time.

Have a 2 hour switch everything off & play a board game event every week.

Energy efficient washing machine? Cold water only? How can heating cold water be energy efficient
when i have hot water in the tank ready to use? Only efficient for the manufacturer who uses less parts.
Give me a hot & cold system every day, Take in hot water if its not hot enough it heats it. Simple.

Do you have a hot water storage tank? Turn the thermostat down a bit, Ours was set to 80 degrees when we moved in.
I dropped it down to 65.., I think it needs to be 60+ to avoid bad bacteria forming? Save a bit of gas maybe not much electric
depends if the pump runs to prime it?

Sky box will cost you £11 a year in standby? Old figure maybe?

I think a freezer works best full but a fridge works best empty?


Thought about buying a usage monitor? About £15 quite useful when you buy something thats
rated at 60watts and actually consumed over 150 watts.
Would cost me double to run each year.



PS.. Energy efficient light bulbs are not equal, I tested some 11w ones that used 25w, Another brand used 15w
light output looked the same.
Cheap ones seem to need replacing more often, Or maybe we use them more in our house with tiny heat efficient
windows.
Unless its a glorious sunny winter sky we have to put the lights on.

moonrakerz

forgotmyname wrote: »

Thought about buying a usage monitor? About £15 quite useful when you buy something thats rated at 60watts and actually consumed over 150 watts.

Waste of money !

If you buy something that is rated at 60W and it appears to use 150W it is almost certainly the monitor that is giving an incorrect reading - the lower the current, the more inaccurate these things are.

Ben84

9 kW a day average for a house with four people is very good.

However, if you want to use less then I'd suspect you're using most of this electric for cooking? I've managed to cut down my cooker use a lot by using up the space in the oven and baking two or three things at once, then just keeping them in the fridge and reheating later in the week. It saves time too.

I'm not too sure about microwave cookery, it doesn't always come out as nice as I'd like, but some things like rice work really well in the microwave.