your daily elec usage?

good_advice

Morning picard girl, I did a Tesco shop yesterday and was looking for the owl monitor to report back on the price. They do not seem to sell them any more. Look in your energy company's web shop?
Laugh, I notice my owl on a very low price yesterday, The lowest I had seen it Soooo took a photo with my camera just to record it! The owl was reading 0.67 pence. With the usual house phones, fridge, freezer and modem plugged in.

Today, I am trying something new! I have bought a 2kg chicken and want to try and cook it in the slow cooker.
I have cooked gammon in the slow cooker before and it was very good.

Gosh, oh has just put the Dyson hand held on to charge and the owl has shot up !!!! It just shows.....ok calm down owl has gone down again. that must of been the initial plug in.

Now you have given me reason for thought! do steam generators take more electric than my 50 grams of steam per minute iron?

I moped floors yesterday too! used a mop and bucket.
Must get that work horse active, the washing machine, nice day for line dry...

picardygirl

Crickey, i've got a handheld dyson too! Always on charge!!!!!! Hadnt even given that a thought!

2kg chicken in a slow cooker, wow, how long you cooking that for?

50 grams per minute for your iron, i need an owl to see how much its costing dont i ... the steam generators certainly kick out some powerful steam, but its only on half the time of my old standard steam iron because its so good so maybe not so bad after all

18 kw used yesterday, but was in most of day so not too surprised .... 18kw is no where near 32kw (normal average) so obviously doing something right

we've got rain forecast after lunch and i'm out shortly, so bedding is hanging all over the house (i do hate that though )

victor2

picardygirl wrote: »

Crickey, i've got a handheld dyson too! Always on charge!!!!!! Hadnt even given that a thought!

2kg chicken in a slow cooker, wow, how long you cooking that for?

50 grams per minute for your iron, i need an owl to see how much its costing dont i ... the steam generators certainly kick out some powerful steam, but its only on half the time of my old standard steam iron because its so good so maybe not so bad after all

18 kw used yesterday, but was in most of day so not too surprised .... 18kw is no where near 32kw (normal average) so obviously doing something right

we've got rain forecast after lunch and i'm out shortly, so bedding is hanging all over the house (i do hate that though )

That's where your plug in monitor comes in useful. Do some ironing with the old iron and then the new one, and monitor both. See which uses the most electricity for the same amount of work.
Similarly, see what things on charge use. Only thing you can't use them for is large items, such as an electric stove, which are directly wired in - that's where owl's can come in useful!

good_advice

Hiya, onto the ironing now. Choirs again! Just vacuumed the stairs and around house a bit.

Have you got a slow cooker? I have 2. A middle size and small size.
They are so cheap to run on electric.
First time cooking a whole chicken in middle size one. I felt silly frying the whole chicken in the large frying pan to seal and brown a bit - so acted the fool.... In the slow cooker chicken went with x2 knorr stock pots - stock and onion and carrots.
Book says 5 - 6 hours on high until it is thoroughly cooked and meat juices run clear.Turn chicken right way up after 4 hours if liked.

Cooking roast potatoes in my half size oven later.
To use up oven space also going to cook a fruit cake.

You are doing well with wanting to cut down electric used, it takes practice and learning. It was when I gave up full time work that I had more time to educate myself.

I think you need to start getting that washing out! If you were in 9am - 11am it would be almost dry.
That is what I need to do and get washing out earlier and it then has more hours to dry - just got lazy.

picardygirl

Im out most mornings by 10am (apart from day off each week) so not long enough to try and get things dry, especially this time of year ! But, i got back at 4.30 today and put out one set of bedding, and the wind blew it dry within the hour so saved on tumble drying that lot

Good deed done today, following Victor2's advice of our antique tv using more electricity, we have dumped it tonight By complete coincidence, DD;s boyfriend gave her his old tv (lovely 32 in flat screen) so we've got her old flatscreen in our bedroom now and tested how many kws our old tv was using to the new(er) one and thats another saving made today (old one was using twice as much !!!) and OH's got massive new storage area for his books now, in the tv cabinet (built for big tvs) as the flat screen only uses up small amount of space at the front .

Luckily still dont need central heating on in the evening yet, dont suppose it will to be too long before we do though

good_advice

Hiya, I was looking at an energy saving timer yesterday. £5.95.
I thought I could have the washing going around before I got out of bed. Then get up about 8am and put it out. Talked myself out of it and decided we did not need one and money saving, etc...
Now I see people are using them to switch things off. May be it would not have switched the washing machine on anyway?

Read the meters again yesterday - online customer.
Daily use @ moment 10 KWh electric and 17KWh gas.
One of my favorite games is switching off and unplugging or fuel use would be a lot higher.

Doshwaster

I got a EON monitor when they were giving them away last year - but I don't think they are doing that any more.

In terms of accuracy it's nowhere near the actual usage but where it is useful is seeing if there is any high drain appliances currently active and the relative effect of turning things on or off.

I also take meter readings about once a week and keep them in a spreadsheet so that I can see any trends.

victor2

good_advice wrote: »

Hiya, I was looking at an energy saving timer yesterday. £5.95.
I thought I could have the washing going around before I got out of bed. Then get up about 8am and put it out. Talked myself out of it and decided we did not need one and money saving, etc...
Now I see people are using them to switch things off. May be it would not have switched the washing machine on anyway?

Read the meters again yesterday - online customer.
Daily use @ moment 10 KWh electric and 17KWh gas.
One of my favorite games is switching off and unplugging or fuel use would be a lot higher.

Timing something to run at different times of the day is only of use if you're on Economy 7 as far as money saving goes. Howver, making sure something cannot be powered up between certain hours can be a use for them. If you had an old TV using a lot in standby, then a timer switching it off between say midnight and 6am could save money, as the timer may well use less power than the TV in standby. However, if the TV is actually on when the timer switches it off, it will probably come back on when the timer restores the power to it. Potentially annoying as well as an expensive way of running it!

picardygirl

So its been a week now since we've started being careful with electricity.

Average weekly units used over the last year were 225 kw per week! Last week's useage was 133 kw for the week, so have made some improvement ..... but not enough ! Kids still not grasping the idea of walking out of a room and turning the tv or light off! So still work to be done, but at least we've made some improvement!

good_advice

Good morning picardygirl, keep up the good work. Loosing 92kw is a good beginning.
My adult kids, 2 at home, still leave things on too. I am constantly going around turning lights off and unplugging. I do tell them but not all the time. Nothing changes....
When they move out and it hits their pockets then they will listen!
Hopefully!
My daughter/boyfriend that has a tiny flat, I told all last winter to watch the heating.Well, said they were...Bill came in and was a lot more than for my 3 bed semi.