All electric place, high usage?

Doom_and_Gloom

We live in a 1 bed place of simular size to our last place but this place is all electic unlike our last place that had gas for the hob, hot water and heating. At our last place we were averaging around 5 units a day, maybe 6 in winter, which we didn't think was that bad.
Well we did a reading yesterday and then today at the same time we did another one and it looks like we used over 10 units :eek:.

We have basically got the same electicals that we had our last place. Although we have switched our freeveiw box for an old sky box (we don't have sky we use it as freeveiw). We haven't had the radiators on as they are all off by the plug and it is way too hot for heating. I'm just worried that it already looks like such a high use and we aren't even needing to have the heating on, the lights on for longer as shorter days etc.


There are only 2 of us, our usage shouldn't be this high.

• 1 undercounter fridge
• 1 5ft freezer
• Washing machine
• Kettle
• Toaster
• Breadmaker
• Coffee maker
• Slow cooker
• Food steamer
• High power blender
• Microwave
• Oven and 4 hobs
• 2 laptops
• 2 mobiles
• 1 TV
• Sky box
• X-box
• Hoover - rarely used as only the bedroom has carpet :T.
• All lightbulbs are energy saver apart from the one in the bathroom
• Hot water is obviously heated by electic - baths/showers, washing up.
• Radiators - off from plugs as not winter!

Obviously all of these are never on at the same time. When things are not being used they are switched off by the plug. We don't leave lights on either.
From what I know we have the same tariff day or night as there is only one meter counter.

The last time we lived in an all electric place there were 5 of us in a 3 bedroom flat (moved in when I was nearly 17, moved out when I was nearly 19. I am 22 now). I'm very sure the average usage was 10 units a day. How can 2 people in a 1 bed place be using the same amount of units that 5 people did in a 3 bed place? I am so confused and if this really is our usage we are going to be spendig way more than what we have bugeted for electricity :eek:.

Can anyone help me figure out why our usage seems so high?

Swipe

At least 3 units (or more) of the 10 will be for hot water (immersion heater assuming you have one or an electric shower)

SailorSam

You should get one of those monitors to check your usage.
If you can see just how much some things are to run you can start to cut back on them.

Doom_and_Gloom

I think we have an immersion heater but I believe we had one at the place where there were 5 of us in the all electric place. How can 2 people be using the same units that 5 people did? This is what I am really confused about. If we were averaging 5-6 units at out last 1 bed place that had gas as well shouldn't our usage at most be 8-9 units not 10+?
I'm not trying to be argumentative I'm just very confused as you can imagine.

Swipe

Maybe the immersion heater is permanently on all day rather than set to timed overnight, definitely worth checking that.

Premier_2

You appear to have taken a 1 day snapshot.

Hopefully between the two of you you didn't use all of the above in 24 hours :eek:

You either need to remember what you used or take an average over say the week.
The problem is if yesterday you did 2 loads of washing and had roast dinner and baked a cake then your daily will be relatively high.

Doom_and_Gloom

SailorSam we don't have an energy monitor - expencive little things from what I know!
We do however keep a check on what we have on. Right now there is:

• Fridge
• Freezer
• Washing machine
• 1 laptop
• Oven clock (can't turn it off from what we know)

If it is an immursion heater for the water I suppose that would be working basicall all/all the time?

Everything else is off by the plug! No lights are on as it isn't dark enough (we don't turn them on at the moment until 8/9pm).

Premier_2

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

... How can 2 people be using the same units that 5 people did? ...

All of the above, with perhaps the exception of the laptops and mobiles where there may have been 5 instead of 2, all use the same whether there are 2 people or 5 people in the house.
(Ok the kettle may be on longer whilst it heats 5 cups worth of water instead of 2)

Laptops don't use much and mobiles very little. It's the things that heat up that consume most, like the oven, immersion, the toaster, the breadmaker, the coffeemaker, the kettle, the food steamer, the microwave, ...etc.

Doom_and_Gloom

Premier wrote: »

You appear to have taken a 1 day snapshot.

Hopefully between the two of you you didn't use all of the above in 24 hours :eek:.

We were curious (sp?) as to what we were using so yes it is only 1 day however we will be doing this for a week minimum.
No we didn't have all those electricals on yesterday! I said in my post obviously they are never on at the same time - I was just listing the electicals we do have (my partner does have some tools that he uses that I haven't listed mind but he certainly didn't use them yesterday and I have a sewing machine but that wasn't used yesterday either).

Premier wrote: »

You either need to remember what you used or take an average over say the week.
The problem is if yesterday you did 2 loads of washing and had roast dinner and baked a cake then your daily will be relatively high.

Yesterday was probably a low usage day. Didn't use the oven or hob, didn't use the washing machine, watched the TV for a bit (had the sky box on for that), watched a film via the x-box, charged our phones over night, had the lights on for a few hours, was on the laptop for 6-ish hours (I'm usually on it for most of my waking hours but I was like that at our last place also), partner was on his laptop for around 2 hours, 1 bath, 1 wash, 1 lot of washing up, a couple of kettle boils (only ever use the amount of water we need, use a flask to keep the water hot so less kettle boils needed), toaster used twice. I think that was about it. Could that kind of usage really add up to the units used?

Doom_and_Gloom

Premier wrote: »

All of the above, with perhaps the exception of the laptops and mobiles where there may have been 5 instead of 2, all use the same whether there are 2 people or 5 people in the house.
(Ok the kettle may be on longer whilst it heats 5 cups worth of water instead of 2)

Laptops don't use much and mobiles very little. It's the things that heat up that consume most, like the oven, immersion, the toaster, the breadmaker, the coffeemaker, the kettle, the food steamer, the microwave, ...etc.

Just to say we had 2 undercounter fidges, 1 tall fridge/freezer and the 5ft freezer when there were 5 of us. 1 fridge and 1 5ft freezer would not have been enough :rotfl:. There were 2 TV's that got used (1 main one though), hair straiteners (used by short haired guys :rotfl:), people hardly ever ate the same thing due to different scheduals (sp?) so oven and/or hobs was on a lot, washing machine was nearly always on the go, several showers worth a day then etc.

This is why I am so confused.

Doom_and_Gloom

Swipe wrote: »

Maybe the immersion heater is permanently on all day rather than set to timed overnight, definitely worth checking that.

How do we check that? We have no idea where that would be! If that is the reason and we can put it on a timer that would help a lot. What would it look like?