My Energy Usage

DundeeDan

Hi Everyone,

Im having trouble getting my head around my energy bills and i thought this would be a good place to get some help.

First of all, our estimated electricity and gas bills are around £280 per month! This is were SSE reckoned we should pay, then we recently changed to Bulb but have not yet had a bill.

we live in a 5 bedroom house, 1 is the kids toy room which is not used too often and the radiators are off, Another is a dressing room which is all LED lights and only used for a small portion of the day. The other 3 rooms are used as bedrooms but the kids are at school and nursery all day then in bed for 7ish.

We are usually out the house all day doing bits and bobs, so its not like we are burning electricity like mad.

the entire house is all LED spotlights, we have 3 tv's but as we are out most of the day they are one for an hour or two at the most.

our kids are young so the washing machine is on probably twice a day.

We do have a 32amp hot tub but we were told it would only add a tenner a week onto our bill.

even if the hot tub is eating more electricity than we assume...where is the rest of the energy going??

How can we go about figuring it out?? We don't have a smart meter as Bulb are not offering them as of yet,

thanks for reading!

Danny

ajbell

Read your meters, no one can help you unless you say how much you are actually using rather than an estimate.
If you switch a radiator off in one room then the other radiators will attempt to heat that room unless it is sealed.
Hot tub will use a lot depending on how long you use it for.

Sterlingtimes

The hot tub looks like 7 kW. I think you need to look no further than that. I did a quick Google search and £100 a month does not seem to be high for a tub heated by electricity.

DundeeDan

i took a reading today at 6.30pm and will check tomorrow at the same time to get a rough 24 hour usage!

we are not in the hot tub every day, id say more like one to twice a week.

maybe i will check the weeks usage rather than just 24 hours

thanks for the reply.

Talldave

Do a week with hot tub & a week without?

Lisi299

Hi

You sound like you don’t use a lot however your appliances will be, two loads of washing a week is quite low, I do 5 at least for two of us lol.

Hot tub keep heated and not used doesn’t use a lot, used on jets or 1 hour a day is 7.5 units without anything else being used in the home and without running costs and the heating of the water. Anything you need to heat costs money.

3 tv’s, are they left on standby when not being used?

I would say your usage may be right how many units are you using a day?

Cardew

The hot tub will obviously use lots of electricity. However you haven't stated what type of house you have. i.e. New build, old with poor insulation etc.

Cardew

Lisi299 wrote: »

3 tv’s, are they left on standby when not being used?

That seems to imply TV standby is a big factor in electricity. Few modern TVs left on standby 24/7 will use more than 1 penny a week

JJ_Egan

Bulb referals are marked as Spam and deleted .

Takmon

Lisi299 wrote: »

Hi

You sound like you don’t use a lot however your appliances will be, two loads of washing a week is quite low, I do 5 at least for two of us lol.

They do two loads a day.

Lisi299 wrote: »

Hot tub keep heated and not used doesn’t use a lot, used on jets or 1 hour a day is 7.5 units without anything else being used in the home and without running costs and the heating of the water. Anything you need to heat costs money.

Keeping a hot tub heated uses a lot of electricity. Even if you keep a cover over it a lot of heat is lost (especially during the night) so it needs to be almost constantly heated by the element to maintain the temperature.

Lisi299 wrote: »

3 tv’s, are they left on standby when not being used?

I would say your usage may be right how many units are you using a day?

Vegastare

I really think the hot tub might be a real culprit - under floor heating can also be a big usage boost if you had that....you may get a better deal with new company - but it is not going to reduce usage - it is only that which will get the cost down.