Moved house electric increased

Headhunter

Hi there, I'm wondering if anyone can suggest anything. We recently moved from a 2 bed flat to a 3 bed house. The house is certainly much larger but the appliances we use are generally the same and we have the same habits as before, however our electric consumption seems to have more than doubled to 20kwh per day approximately, which puts us in the high use bracket. There are 2 of us in the house... Both adults.

Since the move we've bought a new TV but it's not dissimilar to the old one, a new fridge but it actually won an award on which magazine for its efficiency. 

The only major change is that we now have a small cellar which is a bit damp so we have a dehumidifier running continuously but as far as I'm aware they do not use huge amounts of power. It's an ecoair model.

I would've thought our consumption should have dropped because we used to use the oven in the flat whereas we haven't used the oven in the new house at all since moving in.

It's a mystery. I phoned igloo who provide our electricity, but didn't get much help. I thought about turning off all power at the fuse box to see if the meter keeps going.

Anyone experienced anything like this? Can this house inherently be burning electricity at a higher rate somehow?

QrizB

Headhunter said:

The only major change is that we now have a small cellar which is a bit damp so we have a dehumidifier running continuously but as far as I'm aware they do not use huge amounts of power. It's an ecoair model.

Hello and welcome to the forums!

I suspect that your dehumidifier is to blame. I don't know if it's your specific model model but this one draws 295 watts, which is roughly 8kWh/day. That could be almost all your increase in electricity use?

comeandgo

Can you shut off the dehumidifier for a day and see how much your usage drops?

tim_p

How is your water heated? Immersion heater?

theoretica

Is the dehumidifier actually running 24 hours?  That could be 6kwh or so.  Less if it is on a timer/sensor.

Lightbulbs - are they all LEDs? 

Anything electrical providing heat - immersion heater?  Shower? Underfloor?  Towel rail?

Headhunter

Thanks for your replies and info.  I was trying to post individual responses with quotes but as some of you have included links, it is not letting me - as a newbie I'm not allowed to post links, even if they're in quotes from someone else it seems.  So....

QrizB
You maybe right, it's an Ecoair DD1 Simple which according to the Ecoair site consumes 300-580W of energy.  I always thought dehumidifiers were relatively low consumers of power but it seems not..  

comeandgo - yes I think that might be an idea...  I had assumed that it couldn't be the dehumidifier but perhaps it is the culprit

tim_p - the water is heated by a combi boiler so no immersion

theoretica - yes at the moment it's on all day...  Otherwise most of the bulbs are efficient ones however at this time of year we barely use the lights, no immersion, there is underfloor heating in 1 of the bathrooms but that's turned off, all towel rails are on the gas heating system

MWT

Headhunter said:

...it's an Ecoair DD1 Simple which according to the Ecoair site consumes 300-580W of energy.  I always thought dehumidifiers were relatively low consumers of power but it seems not.. 

7.2 - 13.9 kWh a day would seem to cover your increase...

Are you planning to deal with the damp in the cellar? A dehumidifier isn't a great long term solution at that sort of consumption level...

Headhunter

MWT said:

Headhunter said:

...it's an Ecoair DD1 Simple which according to the Ecoair site consumes 300-580W of energy.  I always thought dehumidifiers were relatively low consumers of power but it seems not.. 

7.2 - 13.9 kWh a day would seem to cover your increase...

Are you planning to deal with the damp in the cellar? A dehumidifier isn't a great long term solution at that sort of consumption level...

Yeah I was wondering how to sort it out. It's basically rainwater coming up through the floor. Next door has theirs tanked and it has a sump and pump also some kind of inbuilt dehumidifier and an alarm system in case the moisture reaches a certain point... Theirs is now a utility room with washing machine etc. With the torrential rain we had last week in East London, there are actually small pools of water on the floor now... Around an inch to 2 inches deep in places

MWT

Sounds like the neighbours have already got a working solution and you could do worse than find out who did the work for them and get a quote...

Could also ask them about the running costs of the pump etc. so you know what you are getting into.

matelodave

There are two types of dehumidifier - compressor (which operate like a refrigerator) and dessicant which rely on blowing the air over a rotating wheel of dessicant material and then drying it off with a heating element - Your EcoAir is a dessicant unit and probbly uses twice as much energy as a compressor unit. I

However, dessicant dehumidifiers are better for very cold damp environments as the compressor units will freeze when the temperature gets too low.

As said above a dehumidifier isn't the answer and wont get rid of standing water and a small unit like the DD1 probably hasn't even got the capacity to lower the basemenent humidity to the point where the humidistat takes over and so will run virtually coninuously, you need to get the basement tanked and a sump-pump fitted if you want to cure the problem properly.

I've got an EcoAir which I use during the winter in my 3m x 3m log cabin "man cave" as it's got all my tools and electronics in there. The cabin is fully waterproof and it takes a day or so to reduce the humidity to a level where the humidistat takes over.

I have to empty the tank several times in the first week and then about once every week to ten days thereafter. It chews through around 10-15 kwh  for the first day or so which then drops to around 1-2kwh/day  once the the humidity is under control.