Gas and Electricity Usage

RelievedSheff

MWT said:

Gerry1 said:

Emma137 said:

Unfortunately I wasnt left with an in home display so can't go round to check and turn things off.

You don't need an expensive shiny toy to go through the house and unplug everything that's not being used !

That is true, and I know you are not a fan of the smart meters Gerry, but when you want to work out how much power an appliance is drawing the IHD is very useful, much easier than staring at the meter and counting light pulses.

Indeed and ours has highlighted several times now when we have forgotten to turn something higher powered off.

RelievedSheff

Emma137 said:

The downlighters in the kitchen are all 4w led's. I'll check the bathroom later - most of those bulbs have been in since we bought the house so might not be energy efficient. I've just turned off the underfloor heating which is electric.
The heating is never left on overnight. Its usually on for an hour in the morning and every evening aswell as weekends (during the winter). Its sometimes on in the summer if its cold but usually only boosted for an hour. The gas fire is often on in the evenings in winter too.
I've been round and turned off all the radiators that are in rooms that are not used frequently. I've already been round and checked plugs on things a few days ago.

Have you checked the water temperature on the boiler?

Gerry1

Emma137 said:

I've just turned off the underfloor heating which is electric.

Why on earth do you use underfloor electric heating (perhaps 12 - 15p per kWh, or more) when you have gas (as low as 2 - 3p per kWh)? 

matelodave

You dont need fancy gadgets (unless you want one) to monitor your consumption - read the meter yourself and put the readings into a spreadsheet - do it daily for a couple of week so you can get some idea of your general consumption then extend it to weekly. Try to do it at the same time on the same day every week. Learn how to turn stuff off when it's not being used and you'll soon get a feel for what is using it all - the main culprit eating leccy in your case seems to be the electric u/f heating (it's not hard to read the meter, then turn on the heating for an hour or so and then read the meter again) I guess you'll be astonished at how much it's using and how much it's costing.

Go around and do an energy audit - you dont really need a meter as most stuff has a rating plate. a 1kw heater on for an hour will use 1kwh. A 3kw electric kettle on for five minutes will use 3000/60 x 5 = 0.25kwh. Electric showers, dish washers, tumble dryers and washing machine use lot of energy in a short space of time, so reduce the number of times they are used and maximise their potential - a half a load in a dish washer, dryer or washing machine uses as much energy as a full load. Other stuff, not so obvious, like lighting and other stuff doesn't use as much but can be on for much longer. Computers, TV's, sky box, playstations etc, several hours a night can mount up to a couple of kwh, but that's 750kwh a year = over £100

Don't waste hot water - rinse stuff (including your hands) in cold. Every time you turn on your hot tap your boiler runs at full blast to heat the water, it then has to cool down again and you waste pipefuls of hot water (as well as all the cold that you've run off)

Sort out the timers and thermostats on your heating - do you really need it on for as long as you do, can you turn it down a bit. A programmable thermostat will allow you to adjust the temperatures for different times of the day and on different days of the week. They also have the advantage that they'll revert back to their previous settings after you've had a tweak so you cant forget and leave the heating on a full blast all night.

And last but not least get yourself onto a decent tariff, if you are using those sort of volumes of gas and leccy then just 1p reduction on your tariff would save you £80 a year and 0.1p on your gas is worth £35. Don't get hung up on standing charges - 10p/day is only worth £36 a year so reducing the cost of leccy by 1p/kwh and increasing the s/c by 10p will still save you £44/year.

Emma137

The downlighters in the bathroom are all halogen MR16 - I've looked at replacing these with LED but there seems to be a lot of talk about transformers which is making me worried about replacing them, any advice re: bulbs? The one I've just taken out is 20w 201 lumens if that helps
I've checked the settings on the boiler which are correct but have changed it to eco setting

Talldave

I've used Philips CorePro MR16 LEDspot 827 (2700K) 36D bulbs in one of our bathrooms, although I have used the 5W version with 345 lumens that is meant to replace 35W halogens.  They do a 2.3W version with 184 lumens intended to replace 20W.

Although you'll make a good energy saving, I presume the bathroom lights are only on when you're in there, so the savings over a year won't be great.  You need to check for any halogens in kitchen, hallway, and living rooms that are on for hours a day.

However, I'm pretty sure your underfloor heating is the source of your high consumption.

matelodave

MR 16 are 12volt lamps and will have a transformer of some sort - some LEDs are OK and some aren't but do the sums to see if it's really worth it.

If you have 20 watt lamps, and there are five of them thats 100w = 1kwh in 10 hours, changing to 4w LED's = 5x4 = 20watts = 1kw in 50 hours.
However, take into account the amount of time the bathroom lights are on, say two hours a day (less if you teach everyone to turn them off) = 750hours a year = 75kw for halogen or 15 kwh for LED meaning you'll save 60kwh = £9 (at 15p/kwh) so it's probably not worth the hassle.
However if you had 10 x 50watt halogens in the kitchen for five hours a day and swapped them for 10 x 5watt leds, you'd save over 800kwh a year which is worth £120 a year - definitely worth it. 

MWT

Emma137 said:

The boiler was replaced just before we bought the house with a Worcester combo boiler. The gas meter had m3 on the front but I can’t see anything on our bills to check it’s measured correctly. 

I have nearly always sent meter readings every month, it’s rare for them to do an estimated one. 

Just pick a recent bill and post the number of metered units used according to the bill and the calculated kWh based on that usage.

We can work out from that if it is being treated as metric or imperial.

macman

And check that the meter s/n matches the s/n on the bill...
Otherwise, you are doing all the right checks. 

Emma137

I've tried to post a copy of my last bill but the forum won't let me post it.....
Billing 3rd July - 2nd August Units used 1393.74 kWh - Energy use charge 1393.74 kWh @ 2.73p £38.05
Does that help?
The kitchen are all led & I'm going to change the bulbs in lamps to led. I don't think its worth changing the bathroom as the lights are not on for long at all