How much does it cost you in electricity to run your computer?

A.Penny.Saved

The_Fear wrote: »

Can someone tell me how you post replies with a comment highlighted please? As I'm on a money-saving mission, I've a feeling I'll be sticking around.

Click the cartoon style orange quote cloud to tick it for all the posts you wish to quote and then click the quote "" button. You can then edit them as required using any required tags as listed by esuhl.

For the power saving light bulbs, a 15 watt is meant to be equivalent to a 60 watt filament bulb and a 20 watt is mean to be equivalent to a 100 watt filament light bulb. I'm not sure what a 23 watt is equivalent to except for a lot of light.

JamesK10

The_Fear wrote: »

Thanks again for all your replies. In answer to some:

1. Yes I did set the unit price on the Maplin power meter (and yes, that is the gadget I am referring to).
2. Regarding wasting heat, just to reiterate: during the coldest winter months, I really had no choice. Please bear in mind the lack of natural daylight - without keeping the heating on (and I had it on a very low setting), a) my clothes took four days to dry and b) I would return to a flat that was so cold that it took 6-8 hours to warm up each night. So I'd be shivering all night, and it would just about be warm enough by the time I was ready to go to bed. I'm not happy about wasting so much heat and electricity (not to mention the environmental effect) and have addressed the issue of ill-fitting windows with my managing agent.
3. If anyone has any bright ideas on how I would prove exactly how much heat is escaping from these windows to the builder they send, I'd love to hear them.
4 . Stupidly, I also have a convector heater. But because it's ugly and gets in the way of everything, I didn't use it all winter. I am using it now!! It heats the room up marvellously. I even get too warm (the oil filled radiator never had that effect). However. Within 15 - 45 minutes of turning it off, the room returns to nearing-outside temperatures. The room is not holding the heat at all.
5. EoN have me on a standard pre-pay charge of 13.2p per unit plus a 30.3p per day standing charge. Electricity consumption seems to have gone down considerably in the last few days (whether that's because they took me off the Economy 7 charge which they found was wrong for me, or because I'm being tighter with heating and/or using the convector rather than the oil-filled is anyone's guess).
6. I'm switching my account to British Gas, which according to uSwitch and the like, will be saving me at least £90.00 a year. Additionally, I only have to be with them before 28 days before they'll switch me to a direct debit account and will not charge for a new meter (unlike EoN and Scottish Power who both insist on a year on pre-pay before changing meter - or you can do it sooner with SP if you want to pay £43 for a meter). I have used 2840 units over a 193 day period. Finally;
7. This will reduce the chances of meeting the man of my dreams whilst covered in soap suds - what a shame.

Welcome to MSE

I highlighted the comment about the convector heater because windows aside this is partly how electric heat works sadly, it doesn't linger like gas, and does have to be constantly on, even at minimum settings, to keep the cold edge off a room. Once switched off, if the air isn't getting pulled through the heater's convection element to be kept warm, you freeze; otherwise there's Halogen bulb heaters which won't warm the surrounding air until the objects directly in front of it are sufficiently warm for the heat to spread around the room. Overnight Halogen is fine and dries my clothing two days faster than normal but it can be bright like daylight, which some people can't get on with.

Have you lifted up the convector to see the label of its maximum output? Because the Argos value convector's 2kw for £20, I bought one to replace a decade-old 3kw that had died. Its splitter switch can give you 750W to keep the heat ticking over (50W less than my halogen models) or 1.25 if you need a little more, or flick two switches for the maximum. I do only heat one room at a time with each type of heater though; there is no central heating in the entire place - like you say, once the builder sorts the windows out, if you're still there next winter it might not be so bad.

Some people have a downer on electric heating full stop; the only time I had a massively above average bill was when I was using my shower all the time on top of the heating so returned to baths. Hopefully the slightly warmer run-up to Christmas helped you out after the corrections EoN applied.

You're switching, so you'll have to start again whatever happens to see the new results. Keep us posted and good luck!

Notmyrealname

esuhl wrote: »

I have an energy meter.

Good. There are too many people who add up the total draw of the hardware in their computer (35W for motherboard, 65W for CPU etc etc) and then think that is what it draws from the mains, completely ignoring the fact that its a switch mode PSU running off 240V.