Moved house, same appliances and electricity usage has gone way up

JudgeDekker

Hello. We have recently moved house. The new house is roughly the same size as the old one, and both have oil heating, electric cooker and no mains gas. Same number of people living there occupying the same number of rooms. We haven't bought any new electrical appliances, just plugged in the same old ones from the old house. Our electricitiy usage was 5000 KWH / year in the old house, and in this new one we are on course for 7500 KWH / year. I don't understand why it's so much more in the new house, considering it's the same playstion, TV, toaster etc as we had in the old house, and I'm just wondering if anyone has any suggestions. There's a burglar alarm in the new house, it's not actually the same cooker so maybe that's less efficient, and I don't think the lights in the new house have energy efficient bulbs yet. But surely those things don't add up to 2500 extra KWH / year, do they. Any ideas, please? Electricity can't just leak like water, can it? Any advice gratefully received.

Hasbeen

How have you arrived at the estimate of 7500Kw? Plus yes change your lighting to more energy efficient means, especially any 50w downlights etc

matelodave

If you've only recently moved house how have you determined your annual consumption. Most people use more energy in the winter than in the summer, so if you are just extrapolating what you use then you might be over estimating. However if you've kept monthly records from your previous place and are then comparing them against corresponding monthly records you could see what is going on and perhaps do something about it. Have you checked whether you've got an immersion heater that may have been switched on. have you now got an electric shower which gets used frequently - do an energy audit.

Talldave

LED lighting can use as little as 10-20% of the energy consumed by legacy lighting, so if you're got a few halogens knocking around they can really ramp up consumption.  As an example, in the kitchen of the place I'm currently renting, halogen lighting totalled 860W whereas with LED its now 192W and even that's not a straight comparison because I've got more lumens in total with a couple of the fittings now having brighter bulbs.

Also look for any electric underfloor heating, loft lighting left on, halogen security lights staying on all night, etc

JudgeDekker

Thanks for the advice. I checked the downlighters: 5w LEDs in the old house, 50w halogens in the new one. And there's dozens of those. I reckon there's a few hundred quid right there.

Hasbeen

JudgeDekker said:

Thanks for the advice. I checked the downlighters: 5w LEDs in the old house, 50w halogens in the new one. And there's dozens of those. I reckon there's a few hundred quid right there.

There you go then. Buy in bulk https://www.screwfix.com/c/electrical-lighting/light-bulbs/cat8350001?calclightbulbtechnology=led
Or look for some deals at B&Q

DawnCrush

JudgeDekker said:

Thanks for the advice. I checked the downlighters: 5w LEDs in the old house, 50w halogens in the new one. And there's dozens of those. I reckon there's a few hundred quid right there.

Dozens? Where have you bought? Buck House?

A typical 3 bedroomed house usually only has about 1 dozen lights at most.

As for the earlier user who claimed to have had 800-1000W of light in their kitchen only, I'm not sure what size kitchen they have but that would be like running this:


The heat produced alone, particularly in a kitchen, would make it uncomfortable, let alone the brightness.

Our kitchen, which admitedly is not that big, is more than adequately lit by a single 60w fluorescent tube.
I'd have thought a maximum of 2 of those (120W) would be more than adequate light for  the largest of any domestic kitchen.

Talldave

JudgeDekker said:

Thanks for the advice. I checked the downlighters: 5w LEDs in the old house, 50w halogens in the new one. And there's dozens of those. I reckon there's a few hundred quid right there.

Buy your LED bulbs in bulk from online specialists. I ended up with a spreadsheet to track the multiple different types of bulb and the required replacements. Over 110 bulbs in the house!!

DawnCrush

Talldave said:

LED lighting can use as little as 10-20% of the energy consumed by legacy lighting, so if you're got a few halogens knocking around they can really ramp up consumption.  As an example, in the kitchen of the place I'm currently renting, halogen lighting totalled 860W whereas with LED its now 192W and even that's not a straight comparison because I've got more lumens in total with a couple of the fittings now having brighter bulbs.

Also look for any electric underfloor heating, loft lighting left on, halogen security lights staying on all night, etc

860 watts of light just in the kitchen?
And I see elsewhere you claim to use 40,000 kWh of gas per year in this rental property? (the average is 12,000 kWh p.a.). Sounds like you are definitely renting somewhere the size of Buck House.

Raxiel

DawnCrush said:

JudgeDekker said:

Thanks for the advice. I checked the downlighters: 5w LEDs in the old house, 50w halogens in the new one. And there's dozens of those. I reckon there's a few hundred quid right there.

Dozens? Where have you bought? Buck House?

A typical 3 bedroomed house usually only has about 1 dozen lights at most.

As for the earlier user who claimed to have had 800-1000W of light in their kitchen only, I'm not sure what size kitchen they have but that would be like running this:


The heat produced alone, particularly in a kitchen, would make it uncomfortable, let alone the brightness.

Our kitchen, which admitedly is not that big, is more than adequately lit by a single 60w fluorescent tube.
I'd have thought a maximum of 2 of those (120W) would be more than adequate light for  the largest of any domestic kitchen.

Doesn't sound that unreasonable to me. Recessed spots don't throw light sideways so you need good coverage. My last place was a single bedroom flat, it was built with 9 down-lights in the living room, 6 in the kitchen, 4 in the hall, bathroom and en suite for a total of 27, with just a pair of CFL's in the bedroom. And yes, it could get noticeably warm with everything on, but the heating was electric anyway (the cheapest panel heaters that the lying agent described as 'storage' but that's another story) so it didn't make much difference. LED GU10's were still pretty terrible at the time so I was stuck with them.

About 1.5kW including a few standalone lamps which were absolutely needed. In comparison, my current place has all LED, many of which are filament and the total (including the PIR lights outside) is 160W

As for the original post. matelodave is probably right about extrapolating the time of year, but also, does the shower definitely run off the oil? It's not electric? That's one place the energy definitely can leak away like water.

comeandgo

DawnCrush said:

JudgeDekker said:

Thanks for the advice. I checked the downlighters: 5w LEDs in the old house, 50w halogens in the new one. And there's dozens of those. I reckon there's a few hundred quid right there.

Dozens? Where have you bought? Buck House?

A typical 3 bedroomed house usually only has about 1 dozen lights at most.

As for the earlier user who claimed to have had 800-1000W of light in their kitchen only, I'm not sure what size kitchen they have but that would be like running this:


The heat produced alone, particularly in a kitchen, would make it uncomfortable, let alone the brightness.

Our kitchen, which admitedly is not that big, is more than adequately lit by a single 60w fluorescent tube.
I'd have thought a maximum of 2 of those (120W) would be more than adequate light for  the largest of any domestic kitchen.

We have over 60 lights in our 4 bedroom house, average 6 per room then there's the hall.
 All the houses here are the same.