How much electricity do you use in a day?

Cardew

moonrakerz wrote: »

My TV isn't thermostatically controlled, nor my kettle, nor my lights, nor the Dyson, ...............

What is the point of knowing that your freezer uses so many Watts per day to 4 decimal places, what are you going to do to save energy, pull the plug out at night ?

Joking apart, my point was that most people haven't got a clue about how much electricity different gadgets use. Look at the plate, it will tell you that an electric cooker uses 10 times as much power as a TV. It will also tell you that switching off the electric towel rail in the bathroom is a much better idea than turning the TV off at the wall; but people have been brainwashed into believing that if no appliance had a standby button the planet would be saved !

Couldn't agree more about brainwashing and standby consumption. Almost the first thing people say on this forum when they talk about how frugal they are with electricity is "I never leave my TV on standby".

With the Gizmo(love that word) I demonstrated to my daughter that one boiling of a kettle(which she insists on filling to the brim) uses more electricity(0.22kWh) than a TV(which she never leaves on standby) in 366 hours if left on standby permanantly - it uses 0.6 Watts.

Actually a 'Gizmo' is probably most at its most effective with a fridge or freezer because if the seal has gone or another fault developed, it will start using a lot more electricity. Or even to decide if it might be cost effective to get a new higher rated appliance. It would be difficult to detect otherwise.

ScoobieGirl

Cardew wrote: »

Couldn't agree more about brainwashing and standby consumption. Almost the first thing people say on this forum when they talk about how frugal they are with electricity is "I never leave my TV on standby".

With the Gizmo(love that word) I demonstrated to my daughter that one boiling of a kettle(which she insists on filling to the brim) uses more electricity(0.22kWh) than a TV(which she never leaves on standby) in 366 hours if left on standby permanantly - it uses 0.6 Watts.

I was I victim of the standby brainwashing. I'll be much more aware of how much water I boil having read your post. But I think I will still switch my TV off at the wall. Even if it only saves a tiny bit that's still a saving and my TV probably isn't as efficient in standby as yours (0.6W in over 2 weeks - thats pretty good). Plus the little paranoid voice inside my head says it's safer if it's switched off

Cardew

ScoobieGirl wrote: »

I was I victim of the standby brainwashing. I'll be much more aware of how much water I boil having read your post. But I think I will still switch my TV off at the wall. Even if it only saves a tiny bit that's still a saving and my TV probably isn't as efficient in standby as yours (0.6W in over 2 weeks - thats pretty good). Plus the little paranoid voice inside my head says it's safer if it's switched off

Sorry you have misunderstood me.

0.6W is the power it is rated at on standby. Thus in 366 hours(left on standby the whole time) it uses 0.22kWh which is what it takes to boil the full kettle.

Clearly switching the TV off still saves a little, but we were just trying to put standby consumption in perspective with the real culprits that use 'serious' power.

tr3mor

Cardew wrote: »

Actually a 'Gizmo' is probably most at its most effective with a fridge or freezer because if the seal has gone or another fault developed, it will start using a lot more electricity. Or even to decide if it might be cost effective to get a new higher rated appliance. It would be difficult to detect otherwise.

A shoddy fridge freezer can cost £100 a year more to run. So this is very good advice indeed!

Cardew

ViksB wrote: »

We were using 20 units a day until we turned everything off!! Turned TV, video and aerial booster off at the wall, anything with a clock (except the alarm clock) gets turned off at the wall when we are not using it. The showers get turned off to stop the little red light shining. Any plug sockets with a red light when they were one are turned off.
Basically anything with a light or clock is off!!
Our electricity is now down to 8 units a day which is still high as the bulk of our heating is oil.
Hope this helps

I appreciate that you are trying to be helpful, but this is typical of the misleading information that gets put about.

You are claiming that by switching items off standby you are saving 12 units(12kWh) a day – that is 12,000 Watt/hours.

Even if you didn’t use your appliances at all (e.g. TV, video etc never switched on) that would mean you have a average standby consumption of 500 watts and that just isn’t feasible. In practice this would probably mean an average of 700-800 watts on standby.

Even if you left your TVs(except a Plasma), & Videos fully on with sound & picture 24/7 I doubt you would be using that much power.

As an experiment I once measured the standby consumption of the many appliances in my house. TVs, videos, PC, microwave, oven, 2 Sky boxes, and it was about 40 watts and 28 Watts of that was for the 2 Sky boxes.

Just add up the standby consumption of your appliances(TVs are typically 0.5 to 3 watts etc) and you will almost certainly have a standby consumption of less than 50 watts. Unless you have Sky Boxes 20 watts would be nearer the correct figure.

So if you are saving 12kWh a day, it certainly is not down to standby wattage that any normal house would have; and you must have some faulty equipment.

Rather than saving 12 units a day most houses would save less than a unit a day by switching everything of at the wall.

Worth having etc etc but let’s get things in perspective.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

i think i need the help of this thread.....

i havent got a clue.....

i have tried cutting back.. switching things off at night....etc.....

and we have recently had a new fridge freezer... as the other one the freezer wasnt working etc....

but i am still going through £25-£30 per week of electric tokens.....

we have coal central heating.... so during mild spells we use the imursion.. which i forget its on.... plus we have a fish house..... which as heaters.. pumps etc.....

i was thinking of changing all my light bulbs to those energy saving ones....

do they honestly make a big diff to your bill?

i do use the dryer.... so will need to get my self a clothes horse/airer......

and start re-thinking.... not only from the money point of view.. but about carbon footprint stuff....

moonrakerz

ScoobieGirl wrote: »

Plus the little paranoid voice inside my head says it's safer if it's switched off

Not paranoid, just being safer.

ScoobieGirl

Cardew wrote: »

Sorry you have misunderstood me.

0.6W is the power it is rated at on standby. Thus in 366 hours(left on standby the whole time) it uses 0.22kWh which is what it takes to boil the full kettle.

Ah yes! If I had drunk less beer :beer: and had paid more attention to the units it would have been obvious

the_optimist

Well, I've done my first two readings and was shocked that we used 14 units the first day. Slighly better the second day: 9 units.
Now I'm spending my time (or is that called energy wasting thinking:D ) where can I cut down? I have energy saving lightbulbs, switch TV etc off when not in use, only ever boil the minimum of water and only use the tumble dryer if I need to finish drying things off (which means in this weather it shoud be used less and less). Have also warned DD and DS about leaving mobile phone charger permanently plugged in.
...maybe I should unplug my alarm clock and blame mse for being late :rotfl:

tr3mor

the_optimist wrote: »

Have also warned DD and DS about leaving mobile phone charger permanently plugged in.
...maybe I should unplug my alarm clock and blame mse for being late :rotfl:

Have you read any of this thread?

Unplugging a phone charger will have virtually no effect on your daily usage.