Cutting Electricity Costs

Cardew

lynseydee wrote: »

Cardew

I know our consumption is high but I don't know what else we can do to bring it down.

As far as I'm aware the water is heated by gas although it is run by a timer in the airing cupboard. Not sure if this could have anything to do with it. Will ask hubby to see if he knows more.

Unfortunately I can't seem to take less time in the shower compared to my hubby's 5 minutes, where he can use a 2in1 and I have to use a separate shampoo and conditioner and all the other bits a woman has to do in the shower

Having a timer in the airing cupboard sounds very much like you could be using an immersion heater to heat your water! Where are the controls for your heating?

You really need to check that out.

I was making no criticism of time spent in a shower - having teenage girls taught me that it is essential to spend that time!!!!
I was pointing out that a total of 15 minutes a day spent in a power shower will use huge amounts of hot water(much more than baths); and if heated by an immersion heater - large amounts of electricity

lynseydee

Hi Poppycat, I am amazed that you use nearly half the amount of electric as we do. I have told hubby we need to try to get energy saving lightbulbs for every room in the house but we need funny looking bulbs for our bedroom light and not sure if you can get them in energy saving as the only place we can find that sells them is B&Q. We also have no tumble dryer, heating is gas central heating and we too cook with gas. Do you mind telling me who your energy supplier is and whether you have dual fuel?

Cardew

The timer does both our heating and water. The thermostat for the heating is in the kitchen. How would I heat the water if I didn't use the timer? (sorry to sound thick). I asked hubby and he said the water was heated by the gas so now I don't know what to think.

Didn't take your comment as a critisism. Just wish I could be in and out of the shower just like hubby. Would mean I could have an extra 5 minutes in bed in the mornings :rotfl:

Poppycat

lynseydee we got loads of free low energy bulbs standard type but saldy out house we got last year had 5 Candle SES (50w) in living oom and 5 Candle (60w)(BC) in dining room both controlled via a dual dimmer switch now changed to a dual light switch. Hallway normal bulbs x 100w changed to low energy 11w. 2 bedrooms had dimmer swicthes in changed to normal switches and fitted low energy bulbs. Bedroom 3 had 4 GU10 (50w) each changed to Megaman gu10's about 9/11w each (cant remember exactly now) Bathroom had 3x R63 only one worked due to old owners now changed to Megaman 2x 11w R63 Compact Reflector E27 (they take about 30 secs to warm up and are not cheap about £9 or so a bulb)

http://megamanuk.com

Kitchen light is the thorn on our side that wants changing as its 4x GU 5.3 35W. That only gets used for cooking and making cups of Tea, couple of hours a day

We pay £61 per month for dual fuel online energy saver 2 with Scottish power. We use to pay £70 per month but SP decreased the payments a bit.

lynseydee

Hi Poppycat

Scottish Power seem to be coming up as the cheapest when I put in the amount of our direct debit and I think that is their online service (i.e. paperless billing). Might see if I can work out the usage and see if that would still make them cheaper.

Thanks for the link. We already have energy saving lightbulbs in both the upstairs and downstairs landing lights as they take "normal lightbulbs". Every single room in our house has funny shaped bulbs, which were all there when we moved in.

Poppycat

Have a look of megaman site you can get some replacements in most sizes/types and they even do a dimmer bulb now, worth getting them I think

espresso

lynseydee wrote: »

Scottish Power seem to be coming up as the cheapest when I put in the amount of our direct debit and I think that is their online service (i.e. paperless billing). Might see if I can work out the usage and see if that would still make them cheaper.

To get accurate results from any energy comparison site, you need to enter the actual consumption in kWh, not your DD amount.

You really do need to find out exactly what is consuming 24kWh per day, which is very high for a house using gas for heating and cooking!

Cardew

lynseydee wrote: »

Hi Poppycat, I am amazed that you use nearly half the amount of electric as we do. I have told hubby we need to try to get energy saving lightbulbs for every room in the house but we need funny looking bulbs for our bedroom light and not sure if you can get them in energy saving as the only place we can find that sells them is B&Q. We also have no tumble dryer, heating is gas central heating and we too cook with gas. Do you mind telling me who your energy supplier is and whether you have dual fuel?

Cardew

The timer does both our heating and water. The thermostat for the heating is in the kitchen. How would I heat the water if I didn't use the timer? (sorry to sound thick). I asked hubby and he said the water was heated by the gas so now I don't know what to think.

Didn't take your comment as a critisism. Just wish I could be in and out of the shower just like hubby. Would mean I could have an extra 5 minutes in bed in the mornings :rotfl:

The national average for electricity use is 3,300kWh per year. You use nearly 3 times the average. It is pretty pointless talking about monthly DD payments or which supplier etc - your problem is you are using too much electricity.

Even if your water is heated by gas, you could still have the immersion switch in the 'on' position.

It really does seem strange that you heat the house and hot water(lots of it) + cook with gas with low gas bills.

Lighting, unless you leave lights on all the time, are unlikely to be the cause of your high consumption. Consumption that high is almost certainly some form of heating and/or a fault.

As suggested above you need to buy a meter and start checking things; but firstly check the immersion heater!!!!

Poppycat

I didnt know the national average is 3,300kWh per annum, as are over that then. we have used since 22/04/06 3194 units

Peter_Pan

We are paying £77 a month for electric and are desperately trying to cut down, i think its lots of little things adding up. We are a family of 5,incl two teenagers who seem to be in the bathroom all the time. They have TVs and PCs in their room, son also have an electric Guitar and amp which he practises every spare minute he has, we have energy saving lightbulbs everywhere we can.
We also have a tumble dryer , washing machine, fridge/freezer and dishwasher and cook by electric - i try to put these on overnight as we are on economy seven.
We also have a fishtank with light, pump and filter so as i said i think its that we do use a lot of electric but could do with making some savings though.

Have sat kids down and son has agre
ed that he doesn't need his guitar, Pc, tv and music all on at once so will monitor this, my daughter is terrible for leaving phone charger plugged in even when her phone isn't charging so is going to monitor that.
They also seem to walk out of a room and leave lights on so thats another area we will be tightening up on.
We have turned off our garden outdoor security light and just put it on if we need to go out there as the cats were making it come on a lot. I am going to try and make sure appliances go on at night only - at mo if i'm too tired i leave it and put them on in the morning or early evening.

Will be interesting to see if we all do our bit how much of a difference it will make.

tanith

Was just reading through this thread and remembered we have an immersion heater in our airing cupboard.. I didn't even know it was there for about 5yrs as our water is heated by the gas boiler, I assume its there for summer time use but I just have the boiler switched to water only in the summer .

Anyway check if you have a socket with a switch in the cupboard and check that the switch is off.. ours is under a shelf and you can't actually see it unless you take everything out and look up under the shelf...

Just a thought...