HUGE electricity bill

macman

jull wrote: »

Well I just went to the npower site and they can save me MINUS £157.48.

As I said, I wish I stayed in your ballpark.

Try using a comp site then, not just nPower tariffs.

kbrumann

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

The only things I can think of are:

Computer is never turned off
electric oven is on at least once a day
kettle is boiled several times a day.
Washing machine does at least 2 loads a day
Dishwasher is run once a day

If the dish washer, washing machine and fridge are modern energy efficient devices I wouldn't worry much about them.

Some hints:
- Turn standby items like computers, tv, receivers etc off when not in use.
- Replace incandescent light bulbs with modern LEDs.
- Prepare a pot of tee or coffee once and leave it in a thermo.

As a household of four we consume about 15 kw/h per day or 3.75 kw/h per person per day in electricity. What is you consumption?

Cardew

jull wrote: »

You and I will just have to agree to differ then.

I still say that if I pay £600 for 4200 kWh of electricity then 1 kWh of electricity is 14.28571428571429 pence.

How much electricity did you use in the past year and what did it cost? Not tier 1 or tier 2 prices, just the amount and the cost.



.

Let us get this absolutely clear and find out why you disagree with me.

I said

e.g. if your computer is using, say, 500kWh pa and you replace it with a computer that uses 200kWh pa, then your savings are 300kWh @ the Tier 2 price NOT 300kWh @ the combined price

So taking your case:

You use 4,200kWh pa. Your tier 2 price is 11.34p/kWh and your combined price(taking into account the 900 Tier 1 units) is 14.29p/kWh

If you save 300kWh pa with the new computer you will now be using 3,900kWh pa and will have saved 300 x 11.34p = £34.02

You will NOT have saved 300 x 14.29p = £42.87

Surely you can appreciate that is correct, or if you think I am mistaken - please explain why!

What I use and pay each year is totally irrelevant. As long as I use all my Tier 1 allocation, any savings I make, or indeed any extra consumption, will be at my Tier 2 rate.

chris1973

In the hall I have a five light (each 40w) chandelier and my kids tend to leave it on all night, particularly if they go to bed after me (they're teenagers). Bathroom has a three (each 30w) light fixture, and kitchen has two three light spots, but I use halogen bulbs in that one. Kids also leave everything like Wii, phone chargers etc plugged in and turned on even when not in use - I have told and told them but they don't listen, however I realise now I am going to have to be tougher with them.

You seriously need to look at changing your lighting over to low energy ones. The five light chandelier alone will use 1 unit of Electricity for every 5 hours it is left running, doesn't sound a lot but its far more relevant than going grey over worrying about standby items!

You have teenagers, great!, hand them five energy saving replacement bulbs and a ladder and tell 'em to change them over - problem solved. With 9W energy saving candle bulbs your light will be using a total of 45W as opposed to 200W - not as good as turning it off, but better than what you currently have!. i'm guessing you dont do needlepoint or other close intensity work in your hallway so any small reduction in light output will not be detrimental.

Better still, in all areas like hallways, replace your conventional light switch with a time-lag one, this will automatically switch off the lights after a preset period, meaning they cannot be accidentally left on all night. They generally directly replace conventional wall switches, and will take a competant (with electrics) person about 10 minutes to changeover. They are expensive to buy on the high street but i've seen them go for as little as £7 on Ebay.

Six lights in the Kitchen will also use a lot of power. These halogen 'energy savers' dont really save all that much energy and are often just 42W instead of 60W in the case of R80 lamps. Even at 42W six of them will still consume 252W of power.

Just running your hall lights and kitchen lights together has nearly the potential for consuming one unit of Electricity every 2 hours!

Suggest you look at alternative lighting in the Kitchen, or at least replacing the Reflector spotlights with 'proper' energy saving ones, even if you just mix and match, and have 4 energy savers and 2 halogens will help, and maintain a very usable light output.

What other lighting do you use? as it does seem that it makes up a big part of your non white goods usage!.

Any of those horrible energy guzzling recessed halogen lights in the household?

How many large screen TV's? - are they plasma or LCD?, how many hours are they used for?.

I've mentioned before that even an Xbox (180w) on a 40" LCD TV (220w) has the potential to use upto 400W of Electricity when running together as they inevitably do, so yes its all relevant and has the potential to mount up, especially if your kids leave them on as often as they leave the lights on.

Computers only switch to power saving when they are idle, however if they are downloading all night or using 'keep alive' type software for gaming etc, it may never go to idle, so depending on the spec and type there is potential for another upto 100W here. My 22" LCD PC Monitor states a rating of 110W on the plate, so add anything upto that into the equation.....

There are other ways that save money too which many dont think of. For example watching a DVD via a games console will consume around five times the consumption of Electricity as opposed to playing it back on a cheap dedicated DVD player.

As well as the energy saving angle, you need to be tougher on your kids about switching things off on the safety angle, as any unattended device poses a fire risk. I've seen some chargers which have no internal protection whatsoever inside them.

grahamc2003

Recovering spender, As well as the other suggestiongs, a very easy, cheap and immediate part solution to cutting your bills is simply to replace your 40w bulbs with fluorescernts. Stick 8w bulbs in, and they'll even be brigther, and cost you 20% of what you currently pay. It's tempting to think they only cost 7p per hour, but if you have them on 17 hours per day (as we used too several years ago), then the cost adds up. They used to virtually give CFLs away a couple of years ago - not sure if you can still get them for 10p each or not.

Also, your kitchen halogens are likely 50w (even if low voltage, which many confuse with low power). Six used a lot of power. If you have them all on a lot of the time, you could consider swapping them for Led spots - they'll do the job if you spend about £4 each, then they'll cost 1/10th of what you spend now (which is something like 5 or 6p per hour). (only get the 5or 6w consisting of 3 or 4 power leds, not the ones with 20 or 30 non-power leds which are a very poor replacement).

The really big primary things to cut down on is any form of electric heating. If you have gas, it's not so easy to cut down substantially easinly. But watch (and cut out) any electric heaters your kids may have, immersion heaters and even the oven, which could run to 50p/hour. Another thing which people often think of as cheap heating (which isn't!) are electric slow cookers. If they are on all day (as is the idea) they'll use quite a bit of energy. Tenderising tough meat through long cooking is no longer cheap if you use electricity for it.

Edit - meant to add ... Jull - I'm glad I'm not your neighbour having you sort out my electricity bills for me!

grahamc2003

jull wrote: »

Why?

. . . . . . . . .

Because you're analysis seems to be completely ineffective. You don't seem to be able to differentiate between what is relevant, and what isn't, imo.

If you want to cut down energy use, your savings will be at your marginal - almost certainly tier two - rate. The average price per kwh (even calculated to 10 decimal places!) is not relevant, in fact, it goes up if you cut your consumption.

wannabehermit

Hi recovering, I'm not an expert by any means but I would agree with lots of what has already been said. Make your teenagers responsible for what they are leaving on. If they are earning money then they can pay for some of their usage or dock their pocket money to cover the electric bills. I'm sure if you do this your usage would go down pretty quickly .

Changing the light bulbs and the timered switch sound like good ideas, the switch will then not only save you money but save your voice as you'll no longer need to be nagging your DC to turn the lights off!

And perhaps spend out on the energy usage meters then you can see exactly where the money is going and your teenagers will be able to actually see what you are talking about and see that it is real and not you just being a nag!

Just for comparison for you, I also live in a 1930s house, 3 beds, 2 receptions, we have a fair few electrical items, 2 flat screen tellys, a couple of games consoles (DH is a pita for not turning things off), desktop running almost all day, laptop plugged in almost all day, in the evenings I often wonder if there is a ghost that goes around turning lights on for the fun of it , our bathroom light is on all night just in case the dc get up at all, in the winter we have a very old electric, oil filled radiator in the small bedroom as it gets very cold in there. I've just looked at our usage for the last year and it was 3600 kwh for the 12 months oct-sept.