Background Electricity Usage 8760 hours a year

Ultrasonic

SAC2334 said:

The forthcoming big leap in the price cap has brought in my plan B for my 8kw electric shower especially now that the warmer weather is coming.
 My shower was actually switched on  today for  exactly 1 minute 15 sec total ( timed with a stopwatch )  .this was 35 secs on to thoroughly wet my self then turn shower off, then  spend as long as I  like taking my time giving myself a thorough clean and not being  rushed. Then switch on, wait a few secs for the heat to come through the shower head and rinse off completely for another 30 secs then switch off.
1 minute 15 secs total, and much less water used too. no waste of both water and very expensive electricity (30 p kwh ) I m quite happy  with that. Cost per shower  1.5 p at a rough estimate . 
I don t know how to work out how much a gas powered shower would cost using the on/off method but could be even cheaper 

Yes I do on/off showers too although not quite as speedy as yours. My shower is at the end of a bath so I put the plug in at the start so I can use the water in the bath to lather soap with. It also lets me see how much water I've used and if the water's getting too deep it's a sign I've had it on too long!

Ultrasonic

Earlier in this thread I noted that turning the WiFi off on my router roughly dropped its power usage from 8 W to 4 W. Vodafone is my ISP and I've just found out that their broadband app allows me to set times for the WiFi to switch on and off automatically rather than having to do so manually  .

Benny2020

I made a steamed treacle sponge this afternoon, looked at the meter before and after, 0.045 units or 0.5kwh of gas for 1.5 hours of gas hob usage.

Ultrasonic

Benny2020 said:

I made a steamed treacle sponge this afternoon, looked at the meter before and after, 0.045 units or 0.5kwh of gas for 1.5 hours of gas hob usage.

Pleasingly not too expensive then  .

k_man

Ultrasonic said:

QrizB said:

Ultrasonic said:

cx6 said:

Sea_Shell said:

So it comes back to the most efficient way of powering it question...which maybe mains only (remove battery)?

most efficient = mains only remove battery

Bear in mind that not all laptops can have their batteries easily removed. Also, are there any safety concerns of running a laptop with the battery removed? I'm thinking of exposed electrical contacts with voltage across them. 

I agree with cx6.

There are exposed electrical terminals but they'll be less than 20 volts so safe. and they're barely exposed (take a look at your laptop, you'll see what I mean).

The battery in my laptop is not designed to be removed by the user, hence my first comment  : It's a 5 year old HP Envy X360 if you're curious.

How safe or not 20 V is will depend in part on the current delivery capability. A car battery is 12 V but I'd be careful with one. Safety considerations may also be different if children are around. A fire caused by a laptop used without a battery may also lead to an 'interesting' discussion with an insurer... 

I would be more worried about cost of losing any unsaved data when I move the laptop across the desk or to a different room, and the power comes out!

Gerry1

SAC2334 said:

1 minute 15 secs total, and much less water used too. no waste of both water and very expensive electricity (30 p kwh ) I'm quite happy  with that. Cost per shower 1.5 p at a rough estimate.

Far too rough, I'm afraid. Electricity at 8kW costs £2.40 per hour (4.00p per minute) so the cost was was 5.00p + water.

If your gas costs 7.5p/kWh and your boiler is 90% efficient then you'd need 8.89kW (1.11p per min) so the cost would be 1.39p + water.

That doesn't allow for the small amount of heat loss from the hot tank, but can be neglected assuming you have gas DHW anyway.

Chrysalis

This is a great thread, I have done same myself when investigating high meter readings.

Sea_Shell

QrizB said:

Ultrasonic said:

cx6 said:

Sea_Shell said:

So it comes back to the most efficient way of powering it question...which maybe mains only (remove battery)?

most efficient = mains only remove battery

Bear in mind that not all laptops can have their batteries easily removed. Also, are there any safety concerns of running a laptop with the battery removed? I'm thinking of exposed electrical contacts with voltage across them. 

I agree with cx6.

There are exposed electrical terminals but they'll be less than 20 volts so safe. and they're barely exposed (take a look at your laptop, you'll see what I mean).

Mine is an Acer Aspire 5750, and has a replaceable removeable battery.    In fact, when the original hard drive went wrong, one of the on-line "try and fix" tips, was actually to try running it on mains only with the battery pack removed.  (it didn't solve THAT problem, as the HD was failing, fast)

It doesn't move from the desk in the study 99% of the time, and on the odd time I do take it downstairs, we have a spare power lead, as invariably, i'm on it too long!!! 

Sea_Shell

It's out!!!    And the only bare terminals are those that seat into the battery pack and are well "inside" the recess, so unlikely to ever touch them, even when carrying it.   

So we'll see how it goes, if it becomes a hassle (for any reason) or we have a power cut, i'll pop it back.  (it had 30% on it before I took it out).

And yes, I did power down the laptop properly before I removed it!!!    I'm blonde, but I'm not THAT blonde!!!



ETA - it appears to be drawing 20w, whilst in use.    

k_man

I think we have now officially entered obsessive power saving.

Have you checked the power use of the laptop power supply when laptop is off?
Or do you turn that off at the mains?

If it is a 10 years old laptop, the charger may be a big old inefficient power brick wasting power all the time!