How best to find out high energy culprit

macman

Pointless to speculate until the OP posts their actual annual kWh usage as advised. There may be no issue at all.

Gerry1

The OP also needs to make clear why the bill has increased and which fuel is to blame. If the DD has increased that's a bit of a red herring because the DD guesstimate could have been set too low (as hinted), the arrears are being clawed back, and the ongoing DD has been increased. Always think kWh.

If four people are having hot baths using an immersion heater powered by full price electricity, you'll certainly have massive bills ! Use the gas boiler instead.

Talldave

I believe the tank in the loft being referred to is the cold tank. I doubt if the immersion is being used with those consumption figures - the gas is being used to heat the water.

The fridge freezer is probably the worst culprit, but are you using any halogen/incandescent bulbs?

RelievedSheff

Talldave wrote: »

I believe the tank in the loft being referred to is the cold tank. I doubt if the immersion is being used with those consumption figures - the gas is being used to heat the water.

The fridge freezer is probably the worst culprit, but are you using any halogen/incandescent bulbs?

I think bulbs were mentioned in the other topic.

It doesn't take long for halogen spot lights to rack up a decent bill.

LED replacement bulbs are really coming down in price now so there is no excuse for not changing them and saving money on bills really quite quickly.

twang72

Ok thanks for all the replies ill try to keep it brief:

annual yearly (gas+electricity) kWh usage according to British gas website yearly report:

2016: 18150 kWh(combined) Electricity:3648kWh/Gas:14502kWh
2017: 18956 kWh(combined) Electricity:3736kWh/Gas:15220kWh
2018: 20007 kWh(combined) Electricity:4012kWh/Gas:15995kWh
2019: 12093 kWh (combined) Electricity:2526kWh/Gas:9567kWh


Other answers to some of the questions above:
Am on British Gas tariff called : HomeEnergy Secure Mar 2021 (I believe its fixed till then so if I exit £40 exit fee on both, so £80)

Few energy comparison sites say I can save £150-300+ but not switched just yet.

Using old 60w Light bulbs but also a few low lit energy saving bulbs, one giant tube florescent light in kitchen and a square tubed florescent tube light in bathroom.

No shower, just bath tub with hot water, at least 1-2 bathes per day from family members>setting Less then 1hr hot water timer the women in family complain the water has gone cold so I left it @ 1hr coming on 4 times in the day so 4hrs daily so I don't suffer.

Boiler is Valiant but its maybe 16-18+ years old but its regularly serviced and doing well.

Water tank in Loft, immersion tank we don't use since our Valiant boiler heats the water and radiators.

But there is no way to switch this immersion tank off its permanently on, only a on/off switch to manually boil hot water, we only use if boiler breaks down.

Thermostat which auto controls the central heating is often @ 21-22c any less then the central heating won't come on.


Washing machine is a samsung 9kg ecobubble
40c, 1200 spin and daily wash mode which takes 1hr we use this daily at least once

twang72

Continuing on....

I have had smart meter from British gas for past almost 3-4 years, but family and myself just leave it alone and get on with work and chores (looking at the hud screen now though)

My smart meter energy usage when pressing kw button on smart meter hud shows 5-6 green constant energy bars always, switching off fridge freezer (rated E) knocks off 2-3 green bars.

Is that good ? Since I am unsure if an A++ fridge would take off any more bars

Switching on sky box + old lcd 32" TV on I see a rise in 3 green energy bars, same with larger led 42" TV.

Switching on kettle I see the green bars go rocketing thru to the other end from green to orange/red but this is for a minute then back to norm.

Switching on all 4 oven rings, I don't see any higher flame icon on the smart meter hud screen, or higher green bars usage though ?

coffeehound

twang72 wrote: »

2016: 18150 kWh(combined) Electricity:3648kWh/Gas:14502kWh
2017: 18956 kWh(combined) Electricity:3736kWh/Gas:15220kWh
2018: 20007 kWh(combined) Electricity:4012kWh/Gas:15995kWh
2019: 12093 kWh (combined) Electricity:2526kWh/Gas:9567kWh

Annual usage seems to be going up year on year.

twang72 wrote: »

Using old 60w Light bulbs

Pop into poundland and get replacements for those. I'm using up old filament bulbs in cupboards and stairwells wher they aren't on for long.

twang72 wrote: »

No shower, just bath tub with hot water, at least 1-2 bathes per day from family members>setting Less then 1hr hot water timer the women in family complain the water has gone cold so I left it @ 1hr coming on 4 times in the day so 4hrs daily so I don't suffer.

. . . But there is no way to switch this immersion tank off its permanently on,

Sorry I don't get this. If the hot water tank was being constantly heated, then why would you be running out of hot water? What temperature do you have the thermostat on the tank/cylinder set to?

Talldave

I think the water tank in the loft is your cold tank. The one in the house is your hot tank, heated by the boiler with an immersion heater as backup which you're not using.

I think your consumption is average. You need to monitor in Watts, not green bars! LED GLS bulbs are a couple of quid and use 5W instead of 60W.

The fridge freezer thing is all about how many watts it uses and for how many hours a day/week/year. Google the model number, find its specification and see what the manufacturer said it uses a year - it'll be using at least that and more probably. Compare with specification for one you might think about replacing it with. If it's old and struggling to keep temperatures down and it was energy hungry when new, then it's worth thinking about junking it.

matelodave

Forget your IHD - take proper meter readings from the meter. Most IHD's dont work out the costs properly and many dont even accurated give meter readings.

Lets make it easy.

Turn everything off before you go to bed, then read the meter. Read it again in the morning when you get up but before you turn stuff back on again. That will give you a rough idea of what is being used when you arent using much.

If you use more than say 1-2kwh overnight then find out whats using it (Fridge, freezer, sky-box, router, clocks phone chargers, TV on standby, cooker etc) Hopefully you wont have used much gas because you'd turned off the boiler.

Then turn stuff on that you normally have on and read the meter after a couple of hours, you should see what is now using it. as I said before it's not difficult you just need to use a bit of common sense to identify what's using it all.

How many TV's, sky boxes, games consoles, hair dryer and other stuff are in use. Hot water for multiple baths will use a lot of energy, especially if you are having several a day.

If you can't put a bit of effort into taking meter readings and checking whats going on then there's no hope of you reducing your consumption

Gerry1

twang72 wrote: »

kWh usage according to British gas website yearly report:

You're getting there, but these figures won't be accurate if any are estimated. In future, take at least monthly readings from each meter (not the IHD).

twang72 wrote: »

Few energy comparison sites say I can save £150-300+

Forget all the alleged savings, just compare the projected annual costs with your existing annual costs.

twang72 wrote: »

No shower, just bath tub with hot water

That's £££ down the plughole, get a shower PDQ, and not an instantaneous electric one.

Well, seems like there's no great problem with your overall consumption, seems quite reasonable for your circumstances. Good news in that you haven't been pouring money into a black hole, not such good news if you were looking for a magic bullet to halve your energy costs. BTW, no point in combining the kWh figures, they're basically chalk and cheese.

Like many others, you were probably misled by wonky DD amounts. Forget them, mostly forget green bars, always work in actual kWh usage and then find the best deal.

However, there's a fair bit you may be able to do to reduce your energy consumption if you haven't already done so: all the usual things such as good insulation around the hot tank, cavity wall insulation, loft insulation etc. Then keep checking your consumption to make sure you're still on a cheap tariff !