Background Electricity Usage 8760 hours a year

k_man

cx6 said:

you can measure your obsessiveness in monetary terms

every 1W background saving saves you about £2.50 a year @28p a unit - maybe nearer £4 a year come October

(calculation: 8760 x 0.28/1000)

I agree, definitely worth saving, if the impact is worth less than the cost saving.

I am not sure we know yet though how much bypassing that battery actually saves.

Especially if we are now comparing

Full high power profile on mains

Vs

Power saving profile when on battery only.

It is however a very interesting exercise!

matelodave

SAC2334 said:

Gerry1 said:

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.

Thanks, pretty crap maths from me . 5 p is still good though and way better than the usual 10 min shower at 40 p + water .
Those who stand there being blasted by a power shower for 20 mins are paying  through the nose at 80 p. plus water .Maybe the on /off shower tip is the biggest saving to be made for those keen on economising.
 I reckon I can get it down to under 1 minute shower use as I overdid the final rinse off .
Can anyone beat the 60 second shower? 
 Electric showers go up to 12 kw so the £1 + shower is on  for those who take more than  15 mins .

Our caravan heats 8 litres of water and we can both get a shower out of it using the on/off method (we've fitted a trigger operated spray head)

At home we aren't so frugal, but we have an eco shower head which delivers 6lpm, the water is heated to only 45 degrees via our heatpump.  I can shower myself thoroughly including hair washing in 90 seconds or thereabouts (which include the run through until the water is hot enough to shower) = about 9 litres of water My wife take a bit longer but still less than three minutes = 18 litres.

To heat 18 litres of water from say 10 degrees to 45dgrees takes around 0.7kwh as mine is heated by a heatpump with a COP of say 2.5 then it'll use about 0.28kwh which will cost us about 8.4p assuming that leccy is around 30p/kwh but somewhere like 21p using an immersion heater.

QrizB

Sea_Shell said:

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.    

Congratulations

There are a few little applications designed for monitoring laptop energy use. I quite like Passmark BatteryMon, which (if you have a battery fitted) will also tell you useful info like its actual capacity vs. nominal. For example my batttery has a nominal capacity of 49.5Wh but an actual capacity of 42.3Wh due to wear 'n' tear.
https://www.passmark.com/products/batmon/

Ultrasonic

Sea_Shell said:
Anyway, the figures are in, and for the first 6.5 hours of the day, our IHD shows 0.46kwh used.   Including the fridge/freezer.

It happened to be exactly 7:00 when I first looked at my IHD this morning and it made me think of this check of yours. Mine  showed 0.28 kWh of electricity had been used, so an average of 40 W overnight including my fridge/freezer. I think this is probably 12-13 W lower than it would have been before this thread made me try to chase down some reductions. At the 38 p/kWh on my current electricity tariff that's an annual saving of about £40. 

Sea_Shell

Ultrasonic said:

Sea_Shell said:
Anyway, the figures are in, and for the first 6.5 hours of the day, our IHD shows 0.46kwh used.   Including the fridge/freezer.

It happened to be exactly 7:00 when I first looked at my IHD this morning and it made me think of this check of yours. Mine  showed 0.28 kWh of electricity had been used, so an average of 40 W overnight including my fridge/freezer. I think this is probably 12-13 W lower than it would have been before this thread made me try to chase down some reductions. At the 38 p/kWh on my current electricity tariff that's an annual saving of about £40. 

My DH has pointed out the irony of spending time on the internet, and therefore using electricity, discussing ways to reduce ones usage!!!

I countered his argument by your example of the savings that can be made, if one looks closely at these things.   

k_man

Browsing the internet on a mobile, rather than a PC/laptop is a significant energy saver.

Sea_Shell

k_man said:

Browsing the internet on a mobile, rather than a PC/laptop is a significant energy saver.

Yes, I have come to realise that!!

So I'll be using my phone more, and save the laptop for things I really need it for, or when a small screen/keyboard doesn't work for me.   Even if I'm sat in the study!!   (It gets the morning sun)

I could use my tablet, but it's old and slow and therefore frustrating!!

Penelopa.Pitstop

As I mentioned on page 9, we switch off all computer related devices in our home office when we're done for the day. I only switch on my desktop computer, when I need it. Otherwise, I use laptop for work and phone/tablet for private stuff.

I checked and all devices (2 desktops, 3 monitors, speakers, subwoofer, small cable router and soem chargers) connected to two power strips can use up to 80-100W in standby mode. So switching it off is no brainer. A bit annoying getting uder the desk to do it, but we do it every day now. Sometimes I switch power strip off when my work laptop is still running and keep it going on battery.

matelodave

Get yourself a remote controlled adapter - we've got a couple that are years old (my Mum had them as she couldn't bend down to turn stuff on & off). They are called HomeEasy and have a small handset which controls up to four circuits to do the switching which in my opinion is much easier than faffing around with a mobile phone app.

We've got one behind the telly which switches the TV, DVD, Surround Sound and Humax box on & off, we only leave the Sky box powered so it can record. My wife has one in her workroom/office which shut down the pooter, monitor, printer and some other stuff and we've got a couple in the lounge to switch the lights and electric recliners off when we aren't using them.

The sockets that power the washer, dryer and disshwasher have a remote switch which was installed when we had the kitchen refurbed and avoid us having to pull out the machines to disconnect them.

victor2

HomeEasy is a blast from the past! Got a few in my box of "old tech I can't throw away"! Do still have their timer/remote controlling the hallway light to make the house look occupied even if we're away. 
Also have a later HomeEasy type 4-way remote controlling various standard lamps and desktop lamps. Don't bother switching the TV off as it consumes 0.5W in standby. A remote socket would probably use as much!