How can I monitor our electricity usage...

Robin9

Good advice from Snow Tiger. Other big uses of electric are Showers, Tumble Driers, Cookers, old fridges/freezers.

If you don't already do so send Bulb monthly readings so you don't get estimated bills.

In order to help you monitor your usage read your meters daily. Also the private one for the sewage plant.

You say you have a digital meter - don't forget there is a decimal point which can be very easy to miss. How long have you had this meter ? Could you post the reading from when you first had it and also todays reading please ?

greyteam1959

In your original post your say you have an electric immersion water heater.
That will be where your big electric usage is coming from.
Is it on all the time ??

cranford

You need to check on the kind of light bulbs you have and how long they are on. Last year I replaced a 300 watt halogen fitment with a 30 watt LED on and this has saved me £80 a year - nearly 700 units on lighting just one room. I am now replacing other light bulbs on starting with the ones I use most. My kitchen fluorescent lights have been replaced with a 30 watt plug in cool white bulb from ebay - probably brighter than a 150 watt incandescent bulb.

RandyRos

SnowTiger wrote: »

I think most of us have wondered that about our meter.

You mention you have an open fire. Is that your only source of heating? Does it run a central heating system?

Do you run any additional electric heating? Perhaps a radiator in the bedroom(s), kitchen and/or bathroom? Electric heating is very expensive.

After heating hot water will likely be the biggest user of electricity. How good is the lagging on your immersion heater?

yes, the open fire is our only source of heating. We have a 2kw fan heater (wall mounted) in the bathroom which is run maybe 20 mins a day while we shower (only in winter). We do have storage heaters fitted in 2001 by Warm Front as my youngest was a baby. We NEVER use them. The one winter we did, we got into £500 of debt with the leccy company :eek:

Our immersion tank has a red jacket on it. That's all I can tell you. I guess the jacket works ok, cos the airing cupboard isn't very warm. But it's warmer than the kitchen, so we keep the butter dish in there so we can spread the damn stuff :rotfl:

RandyRos

Robin9 wrote: »

Good advice from Snow Tiger. Other big uses of electric are Showers, Tumble Driers, Cookers, old fridges/freezers.

If you don't already do so send Bulb monthly readings so you don't get estimated bills.

In order to help you monitor your usage read your meters daily. Also the private one for the sewage plant.

You say you have a digital meter - don't forget there is a decimal point which can be very easy to miss. How long have you had this meter ? Could you post the reading from when you first had it and also todays reading please ?

Yes I'm aware that heating and cooling appliances use the most electric. We've got a big fridge but it's only 2 years old. The cooker is new this year. The washer is 3 years old and used once or twice a day. The drier is used once a day and is just over a year old. barely use it in summer. The medium chest freezer is 6yrs old and we have an old second hand small upright freezer for the dog food. So that won't be very efficient, but it doesn't seem to have raised the leccy usage noticeably. Shower is a 2kw one and is used 20-60mins a day. The immersion heater heats the double tank at night (economy 7). I set the washer and dryer to run at night most of the time.

I do send Bulb monthly readings I know not to read after the decimal. I'm afraid I don't know when I got the meter, but it must be 10-15 years go (we've lived here 27 years). Also, I don't keep a track of my usage year after year. All I know is that it's been nine something thousand for as long as I have been monitoring it (again, 10+ years). Before that I never bothered working it out, just went with the cheapest estimate.

RandyRos

greyteam1959 wrote: »

In your original post your say you have an electric immersion water heater.
That will be where your big electric usage is coming from.
Is it on all the time ??

I don't think so. It's a double tank (has two parts to it, so 2 elements). Both elements heat the water up at night (E7) and if we need more hot water during the day (rarely) then we can turn a dial to heat up one part of the tank.

However, the control box in the airing cupboard has power going to it all the time, as it has a 24 hour clock/timer device on it

RandyRos

cranford wrote: »

You need to check on the kind of light bulbs you have and how long they are on. Last year I replaced a 300 watt halogen fitment with a 30 watt LED on and this has saved me £80 a year - nearly 700 units on lighting just one room. I am now replacing other light bulbs on starting with the ones I use most. My kitchen fluorescent lights have been replaced with a 30 watt plug in cool white bulb from ebay - probably brighter than a 150 watt incandescent bulb.

all energy savers here. But this year we replaced our 3 outdoor lights with solar powered LED lights and have saved £10 a month on the electric!!!

RandyRos

thanks for all the replies. We will try unplugging everything tomorrow for an hour or 2 and see if our meter moves at all. I will let you know what happens

JC_Derby

RandyRos wrote: »

No, we live opposite A farm, which is nothing to do with us or our landlady (though her hubby owned it about 30 years ago). The one hubby works on is 8 miles away.

We live in a row of 4 cottages, owned by one landlady. We do have a sewage treatment plant for the 4 cotts that is wired up to our house as it's the nearest, but that has it's own counter and the landlady pays us for the little energy is uses (about £45 every 3 months).

I will try turning off everything and see what happens. I have wondered if the meter is running too fast or not counting correctly, but it's digital so it must be correct, mustn't it?

you say this has its own counter? Have you done a comparison? Ie turn everything else off and see that one unit on here matches one on your meter?
Have you asked your neighbours what their usage is?
You don’t mention anything about age of your house, compared toyour friends waterfront house
I also don’t actually think your spend is that high, bearing in mind that you are all electric and that electric costs more than gas. The average gas bill last year was about £680 the average electric approx 700...I’d suggest that as a single fuel user your bill would naturally be higher than that.

RandyRos

JC_Derby wrote: »

you say this has its own counter? Have you done a comparison? Ie turn everything else off and see that one unit on here matches one on your meter?
Have you asked your neighbours what their usage is?
You don’t mention anything about age of your house, compared toyour friends waterfront house
I also don’t actually think your spend is that high, bearing in mind that you are all electric and that electric costs more than gas. The average gas bill last year was about £680 the average electric approx 700...I’d suggest that as a single fuel user your bill would naturally be higher than that.

no, we haven't tried that. thanks for the idea.
our house was built in the 70's and my pal's house was built in the 80's. There is no doubt that ours was made on the cheap. we've always had trouble with drains blocking because the waste water pipes don't slope! And 3 days ago my hubby and son had to rod the drains as they were overflowing in the garden only to find a small chimney sweep's brush head had been lodged in the pipes! !!!!!!!? I swear this house is a nightmare, but until the kids can afford to move out we're stuck as I'm disabled and hubby's on crappy farm worker wages so we can't afford another £200 a month for another 3 bed house