Reducing my INSANE energy bill without draconian measures ?

Owen_Clark

Hi Everyone,
My name is Owen Clark and we are a family (2 adults, 2 kids and a dog) of energyaholics. During a typical year we are burning through 24,000 KwH of gas and between 10,000- 8000 Kwh of electricity. I would desperately like to get these figures down however there are some substantial problems in the way and some compromises I'm not prepared to make. I have made substantial efforts to reduce our bills already and am not sure what's really worth doing next, particularly as I tend to look at the whole eviornmental impact as well as the cost saving.

We live in an old brick house built in ~ 1800 with no cavity walls, four bedrooms and 4 large downstairs rooms:

Pic here if you want to see: clarks-online.com/img/house.jpg

There is an additional side extension on the ground floor which is hidden by the bush which adds an extra large room.

Here's the stuff I've already done:

Replaced Roof and Insulated the roof cavity with as much insulation as possible.
Replaced all windows with UPV double glazed ones.
New, Energy efficient boiler, washing machine and tumble dryer (best in class).
Changed energy supplier (three times).
Replaced 100% of bulbs with low energy bulbs.
I have an "as minimal as possible" timed setup for heating and water which I continue to optimise.
Checked that anything left on "Standby" is genuinley low energy consumption (5w or less).
Insulated the inner walls of each room with insulated plasterboard to boost the insulation for each room and try to loose the heat loss through the walls.
Replaced all Radiators with modern energy efficent ones.
Probably some other stuff I have forgotten.

All of this a substantial time and cost.


I have some things I'm not prepared to do:

e.g. Put a solar panel on the roof, it would totally compromise the charecter of the house, I don't have the 20-30K to drop and I'm not convinced the government won't screw people out of the returns in the end.

We also have two 40" HD TV's, (I bought one and then, to my amazement won one 6 monhts later) we use one in the sitting room and the kids use one in the "Games Room" to watch TV and play on consoles. However both only use 1w on standby and I'm not prepared to get rid of either.

I do have some "usual suspects" I think may be worth considering:

We have two medium size fridges, one of which is very old but I'm not convinced that the cost (financially and enviomentally) of replacing it is worthwhile.

We have a very large, very old chest freezer which is very useful but I suspect very high on energy cost. Again not sure to replace or not.

The kids (And TBH the missus) are TERRIBLE for leaving lights on and appliances on despite many discussions and schemes to stop them doing this. I have thought about timers but, they can be annoying and also I have heard can cause fires.

We do have a lot of gadgets: Laptops, PC's, Iphones etc. I feel I have done as much as I can with these already (PC's, Laptops set to sleep, devices only charged when needed etc).

There is also an electric radiator in the ground floor extension (Elnur 1500W) as it was not possible or practical to run the gas into this room. However this is only on when needed until it gets really cold and then I use a timer to manage it carefully.

I do not believe it is possible to insulate the house significantly further without substantially rebuilding parts of it, however if I am wrong please correct me.

I am already paying IMHO too much out for energy and I only see this cost on an upwards trajectory; is there anything I can do about it?

Thanks,

Owen

P.S. Ack, there was a picture attached to this but apparently as a "New" member no pictures are allowed.

grahamc2003

You don't say the temperature you have the house at. A small lowering of the temperature (whatever it's set at) would have a large effect on bills (but I expect everyone has already heard that!).

I'd dump the old chest freezer, they can be very inefficient - you could get a plug in power/current/voltage meter and see exactly what it's using - I expect at the very least a hundred quid saving there. Do you really need it anyway? I'd dump the second fridge, and possibly the best one too if getting old, and buy a much more efficient appropriately sized fridge/freezer and manage with that.

Obviosuly, your 1.5kW heater uses quite a bit, but you say you minimise it's use already (my minimum would be zero!).

I personally wouldn't let my kids have use of a games room all the time, not only because of the electricity they could use if they have a couple on xbox 360s and the llike, plus the large TV - easy to use a kW there, and if they are left on for many hours per day potentiall 500kWh saving there and healthier kids.

I assume the cooker is gas?

It looks a large place, and I don't think your usage judging by the size and desire to be uncompromising is exeptionally high, (electricity is high) - you seem to have done all the obvious stuff I can think of.

Just plan for bills rising at quite a high rate for quite a number of years

zaax

Tumble dryer - stop using it. Use you're outside chothes line. For wet days get a clothes horse and dry on that. Tell the kids if they leave the lights on you'll remove the bulb.
Also as mentioned only heat the family (living) room and loo & kitchen when cooking

lazyjack

Might be very obvious but the first thing I would do is check that you are still on the cheapest energy tariff (after the recent price increases). I can't advise too much about reducing your energy consumption but you may find you are able to save a fair bit of money before you even start changing/reducing your appliances.

wakeupalarm

It appears you have taken substantial energy saving measures already which should see a massive reduction of your energy use. The high electric usage is probably down to having two fridges and a large freezer as well as the electric heater. Fridges/freezers use a large amount of energy as they are on throughout the day. The electric heater is the same but you need the heating in the extension, so not sure you can reduce that. Your gas usage seems to be high even though you have loft insulation, double glazing and energy efficient boiler. Are those figures gas 24000, electric 8-10,000, before or after the changes you have made?

Owen_Clark

Thanks for the replies I'll try to answer some of the points.

1) Tempreature of the house varies a lot during the day because of timed heating. I only have the heating on when we are in it and then I try to keep it around 19 degrees or slightly slightly higher during the winter (obviously during the summer this is no problem).

2) Sadly, yes those figures are AFTER all the changes made, goodness knows what it would be like without them. The previous owners where fortunate enough to be on "Stay Warm" when that was a good scheme so they never had to worry about the bills but I have done what I can to get them down.

3) Tarrifs, yep just changed to the best deal (I think), I'm on OVO for now and as a new customer I should get no increases for the next 12 months.

4) Tumble dryer: I would like to use it less but this year has been incredibly wet and with 2 young kids + dog not using it is just not pracitcal. We do have a kreel in the boiler room which we use as much as possible, I think banning it's use altogether would be political suicide ATM particularly as I am not the main user.

5) Cooker is electric but modern, it probably does jack our bill up a bit but it's too expensive to change.

6) Yes we use chest freezer extensively as it reduces trips to the shops substantially and saves us money. Replacing it; I will need to do the maths on the cost of a new one vs the cost of keeping the existing one. I suspect the balance will stack up in the "keep your old one" column as a new one is going to be ~ 400 for the equivielent size, although they do chew up a lot of KwH, even the new ones use 300-400 Kwh so our old one... Where's a good place to get a KwH measuring thingie?

7) W/O the radiator the extension room can easily get down to 10 degrees C or less, at that temp it starts to leach heat from the rest of the house so it's worth running it a bit in the winter. The room is intended to be used as are the TV/consoles etc. although we do ration this.


Owen

spiro

Thermostats on every radiator?

Have you considered the Green Deal as you could get Solid Wall Insulation done under that possibly with some supplier contribution.

greyteam1959

You need something like this......
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plug-In-Power-and-Energy-Monitor/dp/B000Q7PJGW
You plug the appliance into it & it measures the amount of electrict consumed.
I plug the appliance in & take a reading 24 hours later.....it is then a simple calculation KWh used x unit price ( dont forget about the VAT !! ) to find out the running costs of each appliance over 24 hours.
You might be in for a shock ( pun !! )
P.S.
My heating thermostat is set at 14.5 degrees

Consumerist

Don't heat bedrooms unnecessarily - use electric blankets to warm the beds and not central heating to warm the bedrooms (unless actually occupied).

good_advice

Wow, large house, so you will have large heating bills.
My suggestions cut back on anything that heats up.
Use the oven less - get a slow cooker on several times a week.
Use tumble dryer less - use clothes horse
Electric fires, very costly.

My latest, just waiting for it to be delivered...
Morphy Richards Accents one cup.
Bought the red one.£28 from Amazon. To try and stop the family boiling 3/4 mugs of water for just 1 mug.

Have you thought about getting a wood burner?

PlutoinCapricorn

Owen Clark, your post has made me realise how lucky I am in many ways: I have an all-electric studio flat and am using around 3,000 kwh a year.

My TV is LCD and I heard that these use less energy than plasma ones do: is this relevant to you?

I replaced a dead 14-year-old frost free fridge freezer with one that needs manual defrosting of the freezer section: this seems like a step backwards but it uses a lot less energy.

I turn things off at the sockets as much as possible: no standby for me! I have never had a dish-washer nor a washing machine: this may change soon. I use hot water bottles a lot and a 'slanket'; I benefit from being very central, having warm flats all around me and facing south thus getting a lot of winter sun. I love candles, and use a battery torch sometimes.

I don't feel the cold very much, and find that life without central heating/air conditioning actually keeps me healthy. When my FF died, I lived without anything for many weeks: I learned that many people refrigerate things that don't need it.