What does it REALLY cost to run your energy guzzling household appliances? (Less than you think)

Slinky

jobbingmusician said:

A quick comment to all those who are opposing the flask idea.  You should NOT boil only the water you need in an electric kettle.  There should always be some spare water so that the element doesn't boil dry - if you totally empty a hot kettle, the element is liable to die on you quite quickly.  So it is in fact economic to save some hot water in a flask.

A lot of modern kettles don't have an exposed element anymore, so the problem of having to put in enough water to cover the element doesn't apply. After I've tipped my dregs of water into a flask, I'll put a small amount of cold water into the kettle to warm up a bit with the left over heat in the kettle.

jobbingmusician

Effician said:

jobbingmusician said:

Effician said:

TheAble said:

Boiling a litre of water in a 3kw kettle takes around 2 minutes in my experience. So that's 1p. Browning some meat, which will make for a tastier dish - another 1p,

Boiling 1l of water will uses approx 0.2kWh of electric ( water at 10c to 100c) , at the new cap rate that would be about 5.5p.

Would certainly work out cheaper using stove kettle on gas hob.

More difficult to quantify the meat browning as so many variables.

How do you work this out?  

I agree that boiling water in a kettle takes about 2 min.  A kettle will not draw more than 3kW, and I think we can agree that the kettle is likely to be working flat out for these 2 minutes, actually drawing 3 kW. So this is 1/30th of an hour multiplied by 3Kw - a tenth of a kWh.  Which is about 3p  (2.9p at 29p a kWh), not 5.5p or 1p.    

Let me know if I am wrong, and folks, please show your workings so that we know how you are coming up with the figures you are quoting.  Most of the websites and information out there which are misleading people contain statements without showing how the figures are arrived at.  I know we are talking pennies in this precise instance, but we are also talking about people who don't have these pennies.  

I stand corrected, i foolishly belived what i found as the most common answer when gooogling, having just done a test with my ihd 1l of 10c water used 0.12kwh so 3.3p.

Back to your original post do you have any actual costings ( measured with a monitor not guestimates on energy consumption) as in how much it would cost to cook a 1.8kg chicken in a slow cooker or a air fryer.

OK, so we have an update on this even for kettles!  I would have thought that a 3kW kettle uses 3kW, wouldn't you?  Well, it doesn't.  Apparently they run at 2.8kW.  The 3kW includes a safety margin. Sigh.  (But I would point out that this extra bit of information makes the cost even cheaper). 

I actually think we should make a list of the useful conclusions we draw from all this discussion, so that these can be passed on to people who need them.  Thing 1 can be that boiling a kettle (about a litre of water) for 2 minutes costs about 3p.

otb666

@Katiehound Oh you may be correct just found this link https://energyusecalculator.com/electricity_oven.htm To save energy when using the oven try to cook in batches, cook more food and freeze or refrigerate the leftovers. Avoid opening the oven door unnecessarily, heat loss will require the oven to heat up again and waste energy. Cut food into smaller portions so it will cook faster, also you can defrost most frozen foods before placing them in the oven to cook. If you are using an older oven, consider upgrading to a more energy efficient modern model.END It also has a good calculator to use.
I Clean my oven weekly now so you can see through the glass door rather than open it
I also take stuff to defrost in fridge to help that maintain low temperature.
The men in the house like to use oven.  I tend to zap things in microwave first before putting in SC
I am going to look at the old style kettles for gas hobs now and possibly invest in one.
I wont be batch cooking though in oven though as cant afford the freezer space

jobbingmusician

Slinky said:

A lot of modern kettles don't have an exposed element anymore, so the problem of having to put in enough water to cover the element doesn't apply. After I've tipped my dregs of water into a flask, I'll put a small amount of cold water into the kettle to warm up a bit with the left over heat in the kettle.

Hmmm.  Our kettle definitely doesn't have an exposed element, but DH is adamant that I mustn't leave it at risk of drying out.  Putting a small amount of cold water in it if oyou empty, or nearly empty, it is an excellent idea, and one I've been considering for a while.  (I reserve the right to come back and edit this, as this is my wisdom rather than the Resident Electricity Guru.  (Shall I start calling him REG?) 

diystarter7

Long thread and not read it all.
We live in London
Our new rate for electric is just shy of 30p per unit.

What I have done is taken readings of our gas and electric on Thursday as 11.20am and will be redoing it at the same time
this Thursday. There is the standing charge as well,

My intial calculations for one day during the week were worrying so I'm doing the 7 days. Out dual fule is now just under 300 a month the company want another 30 pounds I said no we will cut back. It's a three double bed house, relatively well-insulated cat C and double glazed a few years ago. We have a combi installed ten years ago.
One of our children lives with us and all three of us work from home. We get a lot of sun into the house as it's south-facing and we have massive windows to the back ie south facing and windows to the west of the house as well so get sun all day long if it shines.

We are worried that we may have to pay the 330 to 250. We do use the drier about 5/6 times a week as prefer not to dry clothing in the garden and we have two very large fridge freezers. Of two TVs are running most of the day we are at home the smallet is 55 inches both tv's are about 6 yrs old. We have on the whole led lighting. We run our extractor at full blast and let it run on afterwards to remove all food smells.

We are cutting back.

We had a fixed rate for over two years as the previous co went bust and EDF honoured the agreement plus a few months i wish they had not given us the extra months as we would have fixed at cheaper rates. The previous bill monthly fixed rate  was 125.

jobbingmusician

I have an update on slow cooking, which is generally good news, although I am not sure whether all slow cookers work the same way.

I went off to play a last minute extra, Covid deputising, St John Passion today.  Feeling rather guilty at leaving DH *yet again* for a lone supper. So I put veg and chicken into the slow cooker, commenting as I left that if he felt like looking at the watts used every 10 minutes (using one of those little machines) for the next 6 hours, it would produce some very useful data.

Well, bless him, he did rather better than that.  He started out by reading the watts every so often, and then Googled the wiring diagram for the machine (which is made by Crock Pot).

My internal model of how a slow cooker - or at least, how THIS model of SC - works was wrong.  It does not have a bimetallic strip sort of on/off thermostatic control.  Rather it has a PTC (positive temperature control) thermistor.  This is a variable resistor.  As the temperature of the SC goes up, the resistance goes up.  THE WATTAGE USED IS ROUGHLY CONSTANT! YAY!

And the wattage used was MINISCULE.  The machine used a TOTAL of 0.11kWh.  This is a 3.5l SC, only about 1/3 full on this occasion, as it was a meal for one.  So 3p or 4p.

I'm pretty confident of this figure, but please do let me stress that I'm not trying to set myself up as any sort of expert.  As you will have gathered, I am learning as we go along, and my aim in setting up this thread is to come up with some useful figures for various types of electrical use (especially cooking) which will inform those who really need it about what they can use within their budget, and how much it will cost them.  I'm very open to correction and discussion.  If we can come up with a useful list like the 'kettle is around 3p' item, I think a lot of people will find this very useful.

Katiehound

I have solar panels and I am almost certain that when the slow cooker is working (not using it today: sorry!) it doesn't appear to use any power.  Just to explain when something 'big' is running the red light flashes or even goes out. When the slow cooker is on the red light is on too so must be very minimal  usage.

Katiehound

diystarter7   We do use the drier about 5/6 times a week as prefer not to dry clothing in the garden and we have two very large fridge freezers.  

Tumble dryers are power guzzlers. I don't have one but a friend does and what she does is to dry the stuff on airers in the bathroom/ spare bedroom / or on the radiators and then tumble them for short periods. I like my washing in the garden especially when it is sunny, smells of 'fresh air' but then I am in a town rather than metropolis.

I don't think your fridge freezers are likely to use masses especially if you refrain from opening the doors regularly.  A chest freezer would probably be more economical -but takes up so much space.

Slinky

@diystarter7 there's definitely scope for some good reductions in your bills if you are starting from a high number (silver lining to every cloud!). I agree with Katie, the tumble drier will be eating a good chunk of money. I'd reconsider the drying in the garden, or if you can't do that, airers inside, particularly in front of your sunny windows will help. Using the TD at the end just to finish off will use much less.

Re the TVs - are they always being watched when they are on? Ours is on much less now in the background. If there's nothing worth watching, it's switched off.

I have really noticed the reduction in our electric since I started filling the washing machine with gas heated water, via a 10 litre watering can tipped in through the powder drawer. That and washing everything at 30 degrees. I've managed to get our daily usage down from 8.5 to 6.5 kw per day. That's with builders in using kettles and concrete mixers, and both of us at home with computers on most of the day.

My contribution to knowledge of energy guzzling appliances is that concrete mixers don't use as much as I feared. We had a huge amount of concrete made on 1st April when the rates had gone up. I read the meters on 31st March and again after they'd finished with the mixer and it only used about 1.5kw.

diystarter7

Slinky said:

@diystarter7 there's definitely scope for some good reductions in your bills if you are starting from a high number (silver lining to every cloud!). I agree with Katie, the tumble drier will be eating a good chunk of money. I'd reconsider the drying in the garden, or if you can't do that, airers inside, particularly in front of your sunny windows will help. Using the TD at the end just to finish off will use much less.

Re the TVs - are they always being watched when they are on? Ours is on much less now in the background. If there's nothing worth watching, it's switched off.

I have really noticed the reduction in our electric since I started filling the washing machine with gas heated water, via a 10 litre watering can tipped in through the powder drawer. That and washing everything at 30 degrees. I've managed to get our daily usage down from 8.5 to 6.5 kw per day. That's with builders in using kettles and concrete mixers, and both of us at home with computers on most of the day.

My contribution to knowledge of energy guzzling appliances is that concrete mixers don't use as much as I feared. We had a huge amount of concrete made on 1st April when the rates had gone up. I read the meters on 31st March and again after they'd finished with the mixer and it only used about 1.5kw.

Many thanks for your help I really appreciate that. I always post honestly even if it makes me look awful. We are aware about the drier but the clothing is softer and the garden does not look messy plus our towels are now not great as well as a few other things so hanging them outside for both reasons is a no, no. We have a south-facing home  and a glass wall and long windows but we would never dry them inside as it will make the house look like a mess. We have a spare, south-facing bedroom but recently redecorated so dont want to ruin that.
Yes, I want cheaper bills but so used to the drier for years plus we have 2 fridge freezers.

We will start soon hanging the bedsheets out in a few weeks, its a start.

The tv's are on as background but the other day started using the smart speakers we have more so as we have them in every room and hall and landing, so did turn the tv of for a long while today, so that is another start

I hope I do not sound ungrateful as I'm not and again, thank you.