Scottish Power

Nada666

macman wrote: »

But, despite drawing a large current, an electric shower only runs for a few minutes a day.

Not in households that include a wife, a girlfriend or daughters.

Mr_K

Nada666 wrote: »

Not in households that include a wife, a girlfriend or daughters.

Fortunately I have 2 smelly boys - saves a fortune.

ALIBOBSY

macman wrote: »

Then worth spending some money of draughtproofing and insulation (loft, cavity wall, etc) rather than shelling out £2,400pa on fuel anually?
The hours your son or daughter spends on the PC are irrelevant-it's space heating and hot water that burn the majority of your fuel.
Assuming that you heat your hot water from the gas boiler, an immersionm heater is not needed, it's much cheaper to heat by gas. An immersion in such properties is just a back-up.

We have been looking at our gas and electric spends and we spend a fraction of the money on gas than electric-insulation, watching what we use, wrapping up warm all made a difference and brought our gas usage right down-now lower than the average for our house our size.

However our electric is still big and we have been looking to reduce that by checking costs of electrical items. I would certainly say a PC is no way irrelevant. You want to see how fast our meter goes around when the PC is on-OH is an IT tech and he says its almost like having an iron or heater on in the corner, there is a reason they need internal fans. Sit with a laptop on your knee and see how hot it gets.

Mind you the trouble is the OP hasn't given any details as to how the figure or usage breakdown. They MUST be able to access the usage somewhere, either online or on paper statements, no supplier would be allowed to send a total bill without a breakdown.

OP needs to either log in to their online account or root out the last few paper bills to get their usage and the breakdowns, then it will be easier to give advice on reducing it.

One thing we like to do which focuses the mind is one of you stands by the meter and watches it "spin" while the other goes around switching things on/off. Amazing how you are motivated to go around switching stuff off when you have that image of the pounds spinning away in the back of our mind.

Ali x

Cardew

macman wrote: »

Most of your bill is made up of heating and hot water costs, plus big ticket white goods such as tumble driers. A couple of items on standby using a few watts is not relevant.

Absolutely correct!

This fixation some people have with 'turning items off standby' sends out the wrong message.

Firstly before the howls of indignation, nobody is saying you shouldn't turn items off standby. However people should get things into perspective.

Modern electronic appliances have tiny consumption on standby, e.g. even my 15 year old Sony CRT had a consumption of 0.6w. so if left on 24/7 for 365 days the cost would be well under £1 for the whole year! The other TVs have even lower standby consumption.

When complaining about high consumption, so many posts on MSE seem to think that turning the TV etc off standby is the solution - and it ain't.

The OP is paying £235 monthly(£2820pa) Judicious control of standby consumption might reduce that to £2800!

Cardew

macman wrote: »

But, despite drawing a large current, an electric shower only runs for a few minutes a day. You already know what it uses-a 9kW shower will for example use 9kWh's per hour, so a 5 min shower will use 0.75kWh. All electrical items carry rating plates on them, so you don't need an energy monitor to work out the usage and cost.

That is misleading I am afraid.

Every rating plate on an electrical appliance gives the maximum load it will draw, but of course they rarely draw that amount as they are thermostatically controlled.

My fridge freezer for example has a rating plate of 500watts. It is on 24/7 but I would be a little upset if it used 4,380kWh(costing £500) a year instead of the approx. 300kWh it uses.

The cooker rated at 15kW is an even more marked example. That covers 2 ovens, grill, fans, lights and 4 rings

In fact the rating plate for virtually every electrical appliance is meaningless as a guide to its consumption.

oramgepekoe

PricklyPear wrote: »

In a bit if a worrying state at the moment. We are on a standard tariff with no standing charge. We are paying £235 per month by direct debt with paperless bills. This is crippling us. This was before the letter I received today confirming that they are putting their prices up. Any advice would be much appreciated

On the second page of my Scottish Power price rise letter, in the section headed 'What the change means for you' it gives my gas and electricity usage for the last 12 months. Is that in your letter? If so then use that in comparison sites.