Forget Smart Meters, here are my practical top tips for saving energy and using less water,

Petriix

I've come up with a new one: Join the gym at great expense, then exclusively shower at the gym. We're 'saving' about £30 per month by shifting most of our hot water usage. From April that saving will be even higher.

kk20

Since we had our smart meter fitted I did something similar as an experiment.  At night when everyone had gone to bed there were the TVs in standby, phones charging, laptops still plugged in etc.  We were using 292W.  We have two fridges and a separate chest freezer - they couldnt be unplugged but everything else could.  After doing that we went down to 122W of "essential" overnight stuff (I needed to wait until the fridges "clicked on" as they arent on all the time).

The big draw were the computers, there was a desktop switched on in one room, that is now set to hibernate after 30 min inactivity.  The laptops were plugged in, they were put on a switchable 8 way that gets switched off at the wall.  TV, media box etc all on the same switchable 8 way.

So a quick audit is worth it.

Sea_Shell

Petriix said:

I've come up with a new one: Join the gym at great expense, then exclusively shower at the gym. We're 'saving' about £30 per month by shifting most of our hot water usage. From April that saving will be even higher.

Maybe we should all wash less.  But I think problem BO will increase. 🤮😉

Keu

kk20 said:

Since we had our smart meter fitted I did something similar as an experiment.  At night when everyone had gone to bed there were the TVs in standby, phones charging, laptops still plugged in etc.  We were using 292W.  We have two fridges and a separate chest freezer - they couldnt be unplugged but everything else could.  After doing that we went down to 122W of "essential" overnight stuff (I needed to wait until the fridges "clicked on" as they arent on all the time).

The big draw were the computers, there was a desktop switched on in one room, that is now set to hibernate after 30 min inactivity.  The laptops were plugged in, they were put on a switchable 8 way that gets switched off at the wall.  TV, media box etc all on the same switchable 8 way.

So a quick audit is worth it.

That is very interesting, I do not have a smart meter although that is the sort of thing that is useful, except as snapshot in time it does not tell me what is causing the high use.

I took advice on this and other forums, first I focused on the obvious, the fridge, TV and computers. I only have laptop but I remember my old PC used a huge amount of energy.  Now I do not put the laptop on if I have TV on, simple self discipline like this saves money and 99% of the time I can only focus on one.

I did use Amazon echo and lighting devices to deal with standby issue, turning thing off on command as part of a routine, having lights dim on command, these smart plugs use about 0.5w which is lower than the standby on most of the devices.  I also have some of the light switches so there is a routine that turns off lights and fans that I might leave on accidentally.  

For me getting energy usage down is like cleaning a very dirty pan, on the first attempt one is satisfied because it looks a lot better than it did, but on a new day if I take the pan that was adequately cleaned yesterday and I have another go I can remove a lot of what I missed and every 3 months or so I remove baked on grease with one of those kits used for oven shelves.

In your position I would be looking to see how I could migrate the fridges down, to one, I know people who have a chest freezer for their dog food and a fridge for their dogs too, but they generate all their energy from solar.  It was only when I showed how much they would get by giving more back to the grid that the math made sense.

I know some people have several fridges and a fridge freezer because they have lots of kids but still worth experimenting with lifestyle changes.  Not shopping until fridge is empty is a big money saver, having a week  or two where you live on what is in the freezer and not rushing to fill it up again. 

matt_drummer

Keu said:

I know some people have several fridges and a fridge freezer because they have lots of kids but still worth experimenting with lifestyle changes.  Not shopping until fridge is empty is a big money saver, having a week  or two where you live on what is in the freezer and not rushing to fill it up again. 

Fridges and freezers are far more energy efficient when full, they use far more energy when empty.

Not shopping until the fridge or freezer are empty is not a money saver. Eating less food is but if you consume the same amount of food a full fridge and freezer saves money.

Also buying food in larger quantities is often much cheaper than buying just what you need each day. If you have to travel to a supermarket by car then again, the less visits you have to make the cheaper it is.

I haven't read the whole of this old thread but I am sure it has been pointed out to you that smart meters biggest potential money saving is the energy tariffs available to you that are not without smart meters.