Electric cooker causing huge bills?

Smodlet

Steaming takes far longer than boiling so yes, trying another cooking method might well save you money.

You mention in your OP that you are on a standard tariff but 14p per kwh does not sound standard to me; it sounds pretty good. Have you tried doing a price comparison recently to see if you can get a better tariff? If so, would you have to pay exit fees? There are a few suppliers (well, one that I know of) who will actually pay those for you and give you cash back so switching could be a good idea for you.

Talldave

LindaLou72 wrote: »

Thanks for all your help here! It's consistently just over 400W. That should only include the fridge/freezer, so will have to see if any other plugged-in items are contributing to this.

That's a crazy amount for the base load of your home. You stand to make the most gains by cutting that down. Is there a floodlight left on in the loft or shed/garage? The only way to get to the bottom of this is probably to start switching off circuits on the consumer unit. Lighting circuits shouldn't make any difference if you do your tests during daytime, for example. Ring mains are most likely be supplying the greedy load. If that's the case it really comes down to unplugging things in each room until you find out what makes the difference.

Use the money you were thinking of spending on an oven on reducing the debt on the electricity bill and the direct debit can then come down to a sensible level?

matelodave

Try reading your meter at roughly the same time every day for a week or so to see what your daily average consumption is and try to marry that up with what you've been using - at this time of the year I'd guess that for most people it should be around 8-10kwh, more if you are using the washing machine, tumble dryer or dishwasher. Most people average around 3500kwh a year for their leccy if they've got another form of heating that works out at around £50 a month on your tariff. If you are using more then it'll cost you more and it would be worthwhile trying to find out whats using it all

Our background consumption (check the meter at 2am when nothing is on) is around 130w but obviously a lot more during the day = about 3kwh a day when we are on holiday ehen just the Sky box, Freezer, Broadband stuff and surveillance cameras are on.

Even with heating our hot water (we dont have gas or oil but we do have a heat pump) our daily average is only around 8kwh including cooking. We do switch everything off at the wall (including the cooker, TV, washing machine and anything else that has a standby or touch switch control)

Washing day, when the washer & dryer are flogging their heart out doing four or five washes never pushes it much above 15-16kwh at this time of the year. It's different in the winter when the heating is on when it can go as high as 50kwh a day

LindaLou72

Smodlet wrote: »

Steaming takes far longer than boiling so yes, trying another cooking method might well save you money.

You mention in your OP that you are on a standard tariff but 14p per kwh does not sound standard to me; it sounds pretty good. Have you tried doing a price comparison recently to see if you can get a better tariff? If so, would you have to pay exit fees? There are a few suppliers (well, one that I know of) who will actually pay those for you and give you cash back so switching could be a good idea for you.

14.01p/kwh is British Gas's standard rate. We switched from NPower many years back and NPower totally bungled it, and I was never sure how much there really is to gain by switching - but will have a look when this all pans out, if we still seem to be paying over the odds.

LindaLou72

Talldave wrote: »

That's a crazy amount for the base load of your home. You stand to make the most gains by cutting that down. Is there a floodlight left on in the loft or shed/garage? The only way to get to the bottom of this is probably to start switching off circuits on the consumer unit. Lighting circuits shouldn't make any difference if you do your tests during daytime, for example. Ring mains are most likely be supplying the greedy load. If that's the case it really comes down to unplugging things in each room until you find out what makes the difference.

Use the money you were thinking of spending on an oven on reducing the debt on the electricity bill and the direct debit can then come down to a sensible level?

No floodlights, no surveillance, no electricity outside the house. I've started experimenting with switching things off completely overnight, e.g. sockets and so on. No joy so far.

Tried some more investigating when I got up this morning (I'm always the first person awake). The background wattage was 160. Discovered that 100 of it was the fridge/freezer. Not sure what the other 60W was, as there were no lights and nothing else on, but it's not a huge amount and can be looked into later. And the overhead light in the living room took up 10W when I turned it on.

There must be stuff going on upstairs with my husband and my daughter, but they don't have fan heaters or anything like that. Husband does have a gaming PC. Daughter has a laptop. I know the gaming PC sucks up the electric, but when it's off the drain still seems to be high.

I also ran a portable AC unit yesterday, because when the temp goes above about 23C it exacerbates my symptoms. But I don't include that in the 'mysteries' here - we don't run it that often, and the electricity meter tells me that the wattage is average for a unit of its type (about 800W). However - it's conceivable that if last summer's estimated bills factor into this, it might have made enough of a difference to help tip us into a debt with them.

This is all rather complicated! But we'll get there - and I will keep a close eye on the meter itself, as well as our bills, and send regular readings.

Talldave

It's good as you're starting to see what's what. When computers/monitors/laptops aren't in use switch them off at the mains plug. My "work from home" desk with two computers two monitors printers etc used 25-30W when everything was apparently "off".

The fridge is one to watch, how many minutes every hour is it on. Work out the annual kWhr and see how it compares against its advertised consumption. Of course you never achieve that figure in real life, but if it's double or triple it may be time for a replacement.

Smodlet

I am sure you already do this, LindaLou, but defrosting fridges and freezers regularly will help them to run much more efficiently as will vaccuuming or otherwise cleaning the back where all the dust gathers. It inhibits the loss of heat causing the appliance to use more electricity to maintain the cold temperature inside.

As for switching, it can be very worthwhile indeed. I am currently "tariff-tarting" like crazy; I am on my fourth supplier in three weeks <flicks hair a la Miss Piggy> I get to do this only once a year so I am damned well going to make the most of it!

Real version: Avro = terrible customer service, Bulb (who pay exit fees for you) OK but unknown quantity, SSE force you to have smart meters with their good tariffs, Eon's tariffs change twice a week!

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

Check the immersion heater!!!!!

Ectophile

There will always be a few tens of watts of background load in a modern house. There's the internet router, the set-top box poised to record something, alarm clocks and clock radios, and so on. Each takes only a few watts, but they can add up to a few tens of watts together.


In most cases, turning them off defeats the point of having them.


It's also worth noting that the standby power for things varies wildly. Modern appliances should use very little power on standby, and the cost saving of unplugging them is tiny. Older appliances can be a lot worse.


I had an early BT Vision box a few years ago that was notorious for wasting power. I measured mine at 26W switched on, and 25W on standby. Luckily, all of that model of box will now have been junked.

matelodave

My induction hob takes 5 watts, just sitting on standby, so does our printer. My laptop is around 45 watts, as is my wife's but she also has a 22" monitor attached to it which chews it's way through another 40w when it's in use so it's fairly easy to see how your consumption can ramp up if stuff is left plugged in and not switched off at the wall.

Phone chargers dotted around the place can use a couple of watts each even without a phone plugged in, same with an electric toothbrush. Connecting a phone can push that up to 10 watts or more until it's charged.

Dont forget that the gas boiler electronics could take 5-10 watts or more, plus 40w or so when the circulating pump runs even when heating your hot water.

My TV & surround sound system takes about 220watts. Watching for about three hours a night = 660watts add the 20-30 watts continuous for the Sky box plus a bit of use for the DVD player it's not everso difficult to get through 1kwh or even more in a day just by watching the telly.