Why is our energy consumption so high??

calad1

I've recently switched suppliers to Scottish Power as they had the best offer at the time. I have just gone on to give them meter readings for the first time and our actual consumption is much higher than what they had estimated, which I also found happened when we were with British Gas.


As far as I can work out, we are reasonably frugal with our power - we do have a tumble drier but hang clothes out as often as possible, we turn off lights all the time, we only have our heating on for 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours at night. But yet our consumption is so high. Why???


Our thermostat does not work and we have adjusted all the radiators instead, is it possible this is what is costing us? Or do I just need to accept that a household with two adults, two kids and a dog uses that much energy?

shortchanged_2

Without any idea of how much you are actually using/spending how are we supposed to know if you are using a lot or not?

calad1

shortchanged wrote: »

Without any idea of how much you are actually using/spending how are we supposed to know if you are using a lot or not?

Fair point, I shall gather the info and post it tomorrow. I suppose I was wondering if not having a thermostat was a big no no or whether there was something else obvious to cut energy consumption that I hadn't thought of.

matelodave

A thermostat will definitely help - do your radiators have thermostatic radiator valves. You get a lot more control if you replaced your non functioning thermostat with a wireless programmable one, less than £50 which you'd save in the first year.


Do you heat your hot water with a gas boiler or do you use the immersion heater. Is it timed or do you have it on all the time. Is there a thermostat on the tank.


Once you've sorted out your heating and hot water which are the main users of energy you can start looking at other stuff. Do you have X-boxes, PS2/3s, Sky boxes, computers, Tvs printers etc. if so do you turn them off when not in use or are they all on standby.
Washing machines, tumble dryers and dishwasher should be full when used - half loads cost just as much to run as a full one.
Take shorter showers or shallower baths, don't let hot water run down the sink whilst washing or rinsing.
Have you got a kitchen full of halogen downlighters 10 of them use a unit of electricity every two hours, that's 6p an hour or more. Change them for LEDs.


You do need to read your meters, try doing it every day for a couple of weeks to see when you are using most electricity what effect turning stuff off makes. If you don't measure it you can't see whether you are saving or not

macman

Fix the 'stat for starters-they're about £15, or £60 for a decent digital programmer. If you have TRV's then these will control the local temp.
Also tell us how the property is heated and hot watered. And the approx size of the property and it's insulation.
PS: give the usage in the form of annual kWh usage, not £££'s.

calad1

Thank you for your patience all :A


OK, so I've trawled through all the info I have from British Gas and Scottish Power. Electricity consumption from 19th Sep 2012 - 14th Sep 2013 was 5473kWh and gas was a whopping 20613.35kWh.


To answer the questions:
Yes, our radiators have thermostatic controls, they are generally turned to around 3/4, apart from some very cold areas which are on 5 and in the kids rooms they are on 1.


Hot water is heated by our combi boiler, we do not have a tank.


We have a Wii, which is turned off at night but on standby during the day. TV and freeview are turned off at night. Laptop is sometimes charged overnight, but is off.


The kids share a shallow bath once a day, OH and I generaly have one shower a day each.


Dishwasher goes on once a day, washing machine 3 times every other day, ditto tumble drier.


We have halogen lights in our living room, there are 12 divided into 2 parts of the ceiling - we tend to just turn on one part in the evening, so just 6 lights. No halogens in the kitchen.


Property is gas central heated and hot water is provided the same way.


Property is a 4 bed detached house. Built in 1960, not sure if wall insulated but the loft is insulated.


I was shocked at how big the gas consumption was in comparison to the electric, but it's clearly the heating that's making that difference. I do also cook on the gas hob a lot?? So anything else that I can trim to make a difference? Our energy bills are killing my budget! :mad:

lstar337

Do you have an (old) imperial (cubic feet), or (new) metric (cubic meters) gas meter?

And does that tie up (along with the readings) with what is on your bill?

shortchanged_2

Personally I would say your gas consumption is not particularly high for a 4 bedroom detached property with a family living in it.

Average gas usage for a larger property is around 23000Kwh a year if gas is being used for hot water and heating.