Help us to reduce our energy costs

lstar337

dippydolly wrote: »

Two things not mentioned that I have noticed over time - The meter spins at speed when I use my microwave, so sometimes it pays to use the cooker top for heating drinks etc. Slower but definitely cheaper. Putting items for ironing the right way out before you start, or folding items ready to press can cut your iron time in half. Not massive points, but it all adds up if you are bill cutting. :j

Heating water with a gas stove is very inefficient. Depending on the ring you choose, a lot of heat is escaping around the sides of the pan and wasted into the room or through an extractor.

On the other side of the coin, a microwave oven is designed to heat water (usually in food) directly using microwaves. This is a very efficient process.

Likewise a kettle confines the water and heating element together for a more efficient heating process.

Whether the efficiency is enough to compensate for the ~1/3 cost of gas is up for debate. Anyone care to weigh in on that?

I sway towards believing that the heat wastage through a gas hob makes it more economical to use a microwave or kettle to heat the water, but I happy for somebody to come in and tell me whether I am right or wrong about that.

matelodave

A kettle is the most efficient way to make a cup of tea unless you overfill it. One with the bottom plate as the element is better than one with a separate element as you can just boil one cupful if you want.

Try timing how long it takes to boil a cup full in a kettle or in a saucepan on a gas hob or even in a microwave.

Generally nearly all of the energy goes into the water using an electric kettle whereas there is a lot lost in either heating the atmosphere with gas or in the electronics of a microwave oven.

The really cheapest way would be to go and gather free wood and make a fire

dippydolly

lstar337 wrote: »

Heating water with a gas stove is very inefficient. Depending on the ring you choose, a lot of heat is escaping around the sides of the pan and wasted into the room or through an extractor.

On the other side of the coin, a microwave oven is designed to heat water (usually in food) directly using microwaves. This is a very efficient process.

Likewise a kettle confines the water and heating element together for a more efficient heating process.

Whether the efficiency is enough to compensate for the ~1/3 cost of gas is up for debate. Anyone care to weigh in on that?

I sway towards believing that the heat wastage through a gas hob makes it more economical to use a microwave or kettle to heat the water, but I happy for somebody to come in and tell me whether I am right or wrong about that.

Sorry, you are right of course. Didn't mean great pans of water. I find it economic to heat milk for a coffee on the gas hob, whether the microwave is supposed to be more economic or not. Whatever works for you is great.:j

dippydolly

matelodave wrote: »

A kettle is the most efficient way to make a cup of tea unless you overfill it. One with the bottom plate as the element is better than one with a separate element as you can just boil one cupful if you want.

Try timing how long it takes to boil a cup full in a kettle or in a saucepan on a gas hob or even in a microwave.

Generally nearly all of the energy goes into the water using an electric kettle whereas there is a lot lost in either heating the atmosphere with gas or in the electronics of a microwave oven.

The really cheapest way would be to go and gather free wood and make a fire

Hadn't considered gathering wood, but will bear it in mind as we have one nearby.:j Meanwhile I'll carry on using my kettle for water until things get really desperate.

YORKSHIRELASS

Thanks all, we have an electric hob so heating water on that takes an age!

Anyway we managed to use 18 units of electric yesterday.

We were all at home for most of the day. We didnt use the immersion heater or oven. Cooked tea in the slow cooker and had bacon butties in the morning cooked on our George Foreman grill. I did do 3 loads of washing though and used the dishwasher once.

I am hoping the reading for today comes out lower but we will see! And in any case by my rough calculations even if we used 18 units every day it still works out at less than £120 a month.

Hoof_Hearted

If it's any help, we average 13.5 kWh of electricity a day (averaged over a year). Gas hob and gas CH, but the rest is electric. We have some LEDs, but it's a big house. 18 still seems very high to me as we use the washing machine and tumble dryer liberally and my daughter never turns anything off.

YORKSHIRELASS

That is helpful, thank you. We will see how the rest of the week goes. I have set up a spreadsheet and I am getting a bit obsessed about how much electricity everything uses now!

CashStrapped

I have one of those electric meters which has a sensor on your mains supply. It is a basic version but is quite accurate. It has been very good for measuring and helping reduce our electricity use.

I kind of forgot about it for a while, but have recently reconnected it and have got tough on my usage. It lets you know what you are using at that given moment, and you can set a target for the day.

My house (four people) can get a lot of usage from 6am until 1am the next day. At the moment I have reduced usage to 10.5KW per day. This is the minmum I can achieve without being silly. I reduced it from 13.5-14Kw in the summer!

I would recommend one as it does help monitoring use.

The best thing is to go round the house, make a list of all the items that use electric. Work out what you can unplug and only plug in when you need it. You may be suprised what uses power. Go for a day onthe bare minimum and see what you use. Wi-Fi can use quite a bit, turn it off at night, unplug any unused mobile adaptors, put the tv on a higher energy saving setting. Use lower wash temps in on washing machine and eco mode on the dishwasher.

18kw is not that high considering it is winter and you use a tumble dyer, dishwasher, washing machine and have an electric hob and use an electric oil radiator. I would expect it thereabouts if not higher.

As others have suggested, replace normal bulbs with cfl or led. CFL can still be a good option as they are much much cheaper than LED, especially for higher wattages. LEDs are only 10% more efficient but much more expensive.

Although cfls are on the way out, it is a mature technology. LEDs are very good, but still have not fully matured in my opinion and have not reached a price/performance balance. Give it a year or so and we will be there. I recently got some 23w (110w) philips tornado cfls for £5-6 each. Very good light quality and quck to turn on and cheap!

Good luck!

YORKSHIRELASS

CashStrapped wrote: »

I have one of those electric meters which has a sensor on your mains supply. It is a basic version but is quite accurate. It has been very good for measuring and helping reduce our electricity use.

Good luck!

Thank you, we do have one of those somewhere, I need to dig it out and plug it in again.

Yesterday we didnt use the oven, washing machine or tumble drier at all. The dishwasher did one load on economy and we used the shower twice. Other than that it was just things like the fridge, freezer, T.Vs, laptops, lights etc.

And we used 20 units!!

Our oil heating system uses electricity to power the pump. I am starting to wonder how much this actually uses - the heating was on for about 3 hours yesterday.

System

YORKSHIRELASS wrote: »

T

And we used 20 units!!

Time to go back to basics - me thinks. You need to rule out a problem meter by turning your electricity off at the mains switch and then checking that your meter has actually stopped turning.

But take care. Before ringing your supplier suggesting that the meter may be at fault, you need to understand that they will happily take it away and check it, but a 'no fault found' result will be billed.