Background Electricity Usage 8760 hours a year

Ultrasonic

Effician said:

Slinky said:

Ultrasonic said:

Norman_Castle said:

Ultrasonic said:

Slinky said:

Can anybody recommend a particular monitor?

Get a smart meter fitted then you won't have to pay for one. My IHD is all I've used. Ones you can buy will give you finer resolution (0.1 W vs 1 W) but this isn't desperately useful.

 A smart meter cannot tell you the cost of a washing cycle or running a fridge over many days. 

True but I'm not sure why I'd want to measure that? Plus the manuals for white goods will give some idea if needed.

The context of this thread though was the background electricity use with no obvious activity, and this can be measured with a smart meter IHD so this was the context I was commenting from.

I'd like to know the costs of washing machine use etc as I've currently got E7 old style meter and I'm trying to work out whether the cheaper rate of running it at night is worth it to me.

Could be anything between 300w/h & over 2kw/h depending on the programme & efficiency of the washing machine

I suspect you meant kWh rather than kW/h there.

@Slinky have you looked to see if your washing machine manual gives you any helpful info. on energy use? My bet is you'd need to do a lot of washing at night vs during the day to recoup the cost of a meter.

Effician

Ultrasonic said:

Effician said:

Slinky said:

Ultrasonic said:

Norman_Castle said:

Ultrasonic said:

Slinky said:

Can anybody recommend a particular monitor?

Get a smart meter fitted then you won't have to pay for one. My IHD is all I've used. Ones you can buy will give you finer resolution (0.1 W vs 1 W) but this isn't desperately useful.

 A smart meter cannot tell you the cost of a washing cycle or running a fridge over many days. 

True but I'm not sure why I'd want to measure that? Plus the manuals for white goods will give some idea if needed.

The context of this thread though was the background electricity use with no obvious activity, and this can be measured with a smart meter IHD so this was the context I was commenting from.

I'd like to know the costs of washing machine use etc as I've currently got E7 old style meter and I'm trying to work out whether the cheaper rate of running it at night is worth it to me.

Could be anything between 300w/h & over 2kw/h depending on the programme & efficiency of the washing machine

I suspect you meant kWh rather than kW/h there.

Cheers,  every day's a schoolday

JohnSwift10

How much electricity does a shaver socket use when nothing is plugged into it?

MattMattMattUK

JohnSwift10 said:

How much electricity does a shaver socket use when nothing is plugged into it?

For most modern ones, zero, they only use power when the circuit is complete (eg. something plugged in).

Ultrasonic

That's an interesting question re. shaver sockets. I have about 4 W of background power usage that I've been unable to identify and I do have one or two shaver sockets. I guess if they're using any meaningful power they'll feel slightly warm so I'll check when I get home.

JohnSwift10

MattMattMattUK said:

JohnSwift10 said:

How much electricity does a shaver socket use when nothing is plugged into it?

For most modern ones, zero, they only use power when the circuit is complete (eg. something plugged in).

Mine isn't a modern one, it is at least 31 years old and when my electric toothbrush charger is plugged in it hums and buzzes

Ultrasonic

Are shaver sockets usually on the lighting circuit? Just thinking that for those that are it would be possible to turn off power just to the lighting circuit (with all lights off) and see what difference if any it makes to an IHD indicated power consumption.

JohnSwift10

Ultrasonic said:

Are shaver sockets usually on the lighting circuit? Just thinking that for those that are it would be possible to turn off power just to the lighting circuit (with all lights off) and see what difference if any it makes to an IHD indicated power consumption.

Mine is on all the time, the only way to switch it off must be by a circuit breaker in the consumer unit.

Effician

Don't know if they've already been mentioned but the powerline adapters ( comtrend in our case) for sending t'internet around the mains electric circuit also use a few sneaky watts.

Slinky

Effician said:

Slinky said:

Ultrasonic said:

Norman_Castle said:

Ultrasonic said:

Slinky said:

Can anybody recommend a particular monitor?

Get a smart meter fitted then you won't have to pay for one. My IHD is all I've used. Ones you can buy will give you finer resolution (0.1 W vs 1 W) but this isn't desperately useful.

 A smart meter cannot tell you the cost of a washing cycle or running a fridge over many days. 

True but I'm not sure why I'd want to measure that? Plus the manuals for white goods will give some idea if needed.

The context of this thread though was the background electricity use with no obvious activity, and this can be measured with a smart meter IHD so this was the context I was commenting from.

I'd like to know the costs of washing machine use etc as I've currently got E7 old style meter and I'm trying to work out whether the cheaper rate of running it at night is worth it to me.

Could be anything between 300wh & over 2kwh depending on the programme & efficiency of the washing machine

That's why I'd like to be able to measure it. I don't think manuals are really geared up for giving precise data - we didn't all used to be concerned about small differences when those things were written. It's obvious from this thread that watts = £££ these days