Is our usage crazy?!

jimexbox

otb666 said:

You can adjust your SP DD online i shaved a bit off mine after doing the sums but will monitor it closely Dont look at the 2 year fixes that will really shock you Our usage gas 11094 elect 4625 3 adults 2 at home all day 3 bed semi £4091 per year

Ive just fixed with eon for two years, based on... 

Gas 15,574

Electricity 4,966

£259 a month. Shows how crazy the market is when you're paying 3k+ and you think you've got a half decent deal.

I think I can reduce my gas usage by 20% and electricity by possibly 10%. I've got the whole family making an effort! 

MrsBrush

sarahdh said:

MrsBrush said:

Well, that is thread is hugely interesting for me, as I have just had a massive row with Bulb who decided that we need to be paying £286 a month (was £153 when we moved in to the house in October 21, which has been increased 4 times already) to "increase our credit balance", that we have not built up because of us only being here 4 months! They have been arguing that we need to insulate ourselves against the cap going up, as if we haven't noticed an almost 100% overnight hike!  More like they are in administration and are still losing money because of the wholesale prices going up and the price cap limiting what they can charge, so they seem to be trying to bully customers into paying as much as they can by any means possible! 

I have moved us over to the 'pay for what you use' option, which they eventually and very reluctantly agreed to. Lets see, because switching away remains a no-go at the moment.

I think this will dramatically drop our payments in the short term because our actual winter usage has been in the region of 752kwh for electricity and 1199.5kwh for gas - although fully aware that the price will hike up dramatically anyway.

We have a 3 bed semi, just 2 of us. I work at home full time, so PC and 2 monitors on all day every day, and I am guilty of not always switching them off. We have 2 TV's, which are also on standby. We have 2 (full) freezers, 2 fridges, a washing machine that is only used 3-4 times a week and the usual array of chargers etc. We have just replaced the electric shower, as the old one was useless - but we both only shower once a day, both pretty quick, and I have a couple of slightly longer showers in a week when it takes forever to wash the soap out of my very long and thick hair! My dishwasher has yet to be plumbed in, as the plumbing hasn't been sorted yet.

Our main usage issue seems to come from the ancient hot air gas boiler, which is highly inefficient and no doubt expensive to run. It is basically only on between 5pm - 10pm, and possibly an hour in the morning if it is very cold. It has an underpowered fan, which has to work overtime to get any heat through the place, so just as well the windows and insulation seems to be okay! The antique 1970s original gas hot water system attached to the prehistoric boiler looks as though it broke about 20 years ago, so hot water comes via the 3.5KW immersion heater - which is also expensive to run (and I think is the biggest power wasting culprit) and it doesn't heat up enough hot water to even half fill the bath, so also pretty useless as well. We have given up and turned it off completely, so we are now using the kettle for washing up and for general use. We have a gas cooker, that is used for around an hour or so a day generally.

I know that our energy use is a bit higher than most, but we have been struggling to figure out where we can make cuts, apart from the obvious. Glad it isn't just us, I thought it was just me getting annoyed, worried and fed up.

It's definitely not just you! As naive as it may be, I didn't think the actual cost of energy had really increased recently, I just kept hearing April and thinking it was jumping up then. 

£289 per month is just shocking to me. Our rent is only £550!

Was just a bit of a shock to us, as were with OVO at the old house getting towards the back end of a 2 year fix - so same white goods etc, but a modern boiler and log burner, and we were paying around £90 a month in winter and a bit less in summer. And I thought that was expensive! The worst part was just before we moved, OVO had offered us a similar fix as we had been with them for a while, but whilst this couldn't be ported they were willing to allow us to go back to them after the 3 weeks in the new house with the old owner's supplier and they had offered us a smaller, but still decent fix after we moved. But, the move was delayed by 3 months because of useless conveyancers up and down the chain, the energy crisis hit and bulb went into administration 2 weeks after we moved in. So bang went our chance of getting a decent fixed deal!

Ant555

sarahdh said:

Can I ask why you went for this rather than a smart meter? I've put off getting a smart meter, but I have no idea why, so I don't know if I'd be best getting one, or something like what you have. 

The kids only cook using the microwave, and only for a couple of minutes at a time 

in the years Pre-Covid I had two failed appointments to swap out my meters from my previous utility company - nobody turned up and they said both times oops sorry the engineer should have told you that appointment was cancelled - at the time I wasnt working from home so it was a complete waste of my time and days holiday from work, so I decided that 'they' had their shot and I want going to chase for one.

Then covid times were upon us and I think many of the meter people were off on furlough anyway for a chunk of that.

So, the bottom line is that im not dead set against them but i'll have one when I have to.

As I have now got an electric monitor display,  I have some of the main benefits of them and am still happy to update gas/leccy meter readings monthly to British Gas so reading meter remotely vs online update is of little impact on my time.

Whichever way you go - smart meter with in home display or purchase your own energy monitor , I think you may spot opportunities to reduce your electricity usage.

markin

sarahdh said:

Sea_Shell said:

I'd missed the bit about the fish!!

How big is their tank and how warm do you have to keep them?

It's a 3ft tank. Has a 200w heater but it only kicks in when the water temperature drops (it's set to 25c). Also has a filter which I think is 15w and is on 24/7.

Unless the house is 25c i think it will be on rather a lot.

Insulate the shed very well and the laptop heat would do most of the work.