Crazy Energy Bill

smartn2

How about heated towel rails in your bathroom/cloakroom? Are they left on permanently at quite a high temperature?

theoretica

Happy_Sloth said:

I imagine having a shower is fairly normal, surely it can't be the reason we spend so much. 

I am coming to suspect that you have lots of things, all of which are a bit above average and are adding up.  One single 60W lightbulb not switched out for an energy saving one and on for 10 hours a day can use 200kWh a year - £50.  But doesn't seem like much by itself.  You have an electric shower - any tendency to long showers?  You have gaming PCs, two inefficient freezers...

MWT

Another big one that is easy to miss is halogen spot lights...

Very easy to run up a considerable bill on just lighting alone if you have this is the kitchen or lounge for example.

In general though It does feel that no one thing is going to be an instant answer, you just have more than average numbers of several different things that do use a lot of electricity.

The main oddity though is having gas in the house but using an electric shower. Low water pressure is no impediment to running a shower from the stored hot water as shower pumps are quite easy for a plumber to install and will use considerably less power than an electric shower.

BobT36

smartn2 said:

Although PC's can use a reasonable amount of electric I'm very surprised at the £2 a day figure quoted. Even a gaming rig when not gaming should not be drawing anything like that unless being maxed out 24 hours a day. For work related tasks the power required (browser, office apps etc) should be much less. Are you making use of all the power save settings?

Indeed. However there's a few things that could minimise consumption. Enable all "power saving" sort of options, make sure the processors are indeed stepping down when properly idling / minimal desktop use (check this in task manager.) Ensure they're dissipating heat correctly (use something like CoreTemp and GPUz) to ensure the fans aren't working 100% 24/7.

Don't leave things such as the Launcher for League of Legends running, as that uses quite a bit of resources and power (almost like you're "in a game", even though you're not). Close the launcher and any other resource intensive apps when not actually playing. 

Of course modern, efficient power supplies can help save a lot of power. As does buying modern monitors. I'm guilty for using a really old one, and it uses MUCH more power than my GF's new monitor, even though hers is gargantuan! 

But yeah PCs use a lot of power when they're on 24/7 and everyone's at home. 


As others have said, replace the dog food fridge, keep the other one.