British Gas talking silly when I wanted to reduce my DD

Ultrasonic

Norman_Castle said:

Mstty said:

I reckon you can do better watch some programs through the Ipad instead of the TV. That's got to be 100w versus 10w??? Ish lol

My 8? year old, 32" tv uses 28w.

An advantage of having a baby TV  .

markin

Mstty said:

Well done on the reduction in usage, this is almost off grid territory (I think I read elsewhere you take cold showers anyway?)

You could almost go solar panels(smallish system for the summer months) but with your reduced usage probably not going to give you the cost of return.

I think someone posted a site for second hand ones and they looked reasonable I will try and find that. @QrizB maybe?

In this thread https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78978142#Comment_78978142

wrf12345

yes, cold shower every day, cooking is down to one meal a dayl but let frozen stuff thaw out so time is down from 21 to 14 minute - grill so leave it for extra two minutes at end when turned off. Instead of cooked breakfast have raw salad (double whammy cos fresh veg is very cheap at the moment as well as saving electric). Stopped using the TV via hifi system, only use that for music. TV/satbox use 60W, computer/monitor use 30W, all lights 1W LED, no heating at all until Nov/Dec (down south). Newish small feezer uses 50W when on but only open once a day, ancient fridge does not use much power (does not save if switched off overnight). Already had the freezer as backup for Covid, replaced the skybox with openbox but already had that as well. Live alone, much more difficult if more than one person or kids. Did buy a heating element that boils a cup of water (£3 from aliexpress) for my four cups of coffee a day, rather than using a electric kettle.

Looked at buying secondhand PV plus inverter etc and getting battery for small independent electrical circuit that would cover existing usage for eight months of the year, around £400 all in to save maybe £80 a year, more hassle than it is worth at the moment. I did have free PV on a previous house and zero s/c charge tariff - best quarter the bill was £10! Happy days!

wrf12345

Oh, turning the gas off at the meter is symbolic, a moment when I can give two fingers to the industry.

Lower usage by everyone has to be the way forward, it's Green and saves the planet - ok I am doing it to save money but...

Mstty

Norman_Castle said:

Mstty said:

I reckon you can do better watch some programs through the Ipad instead of the TV. That's got to be 100w versus 10w??? Ish lol

My 8? year old, 32" tv uses 28w.

Still 5 hours 110w saving each day you just watch through your iPad.

We have started doing this rather than firing up the projector or the TV. We then have designated film nights rather than the projector running from 5-10.

Going to be interesting how all the savings mount up once we have been here a year and can compare.

brewerdave

wrf12345 said:

Lower usage by everyone has to be the way forward, it's Green and saves the planet - ok I am doing it to save money but...

You are correct in theory but .....I'm not willing to have cold showers and live like a hermit sitting in the dark whilst the Chinese and Indians are still building coal fired power plants

wrf12345

reading the meter every day and keeping a log (old meter) helped me narrow down where I could save money, as well as using a power meter to monitor usage of each device

Ultrasonic

Mstty said:

Norman_Castle said:

Mstty said:

I reckon you can do better watch some programs through the Ipad instead of the TV. That's got to be 100w versus 10w??? Ish lol

My 8? year old, 32" tv uses 28w.

Still 5 hours 110w saving each day you just watch through your iPad.

I'm not quite sure what calculation you were doing there but for clarity I'll mention that you're mixing up power and energy. A TV using 28 W of POWER (rate of energy use) run for 5 hours would use a total of 5 hours x 28 W = 140 Wh or ENERGY. Or 140 Wh / 1000 = 0.14 kWh to put it in the units that energy tariffs deal with.

Mstty

Ultrasonic said:

Mstty said:

Norman_Castle said:

Mstty said:

I reckon you can do better watch some programs through the Ipad instead of the TV. That's got to be 100w versus 10w??? Ish lol

My 8? year old, 32" tv uses 28w.

Still 5 hours 110w saving each day you just watch through your iPad.

I'm not quite sure what calculation you were doing there but for clarity I'll mention that you're mixing up power and energy. A TV using 28 W of POWER (rate of energy use) run for 5 hours would use a total of 5 hours x 28 W = 140 Wh or ENERGY. Or 140 Wh / 1000 = 0.14 kWh to put it in the units that energy tariffs deal with.

Was just having a play around with the OP as he has such low usage was seeing if he could do even less lol 

What you failed to take off was the estimated energy usage for an iPad  for 5 hours (taking an average use) off the 140 (I probably didn't make that clear) 

Don't worry it's not all plain figures and boring here 🤣🤣 was just seeing how far the OP would go to save money

Astria

For TV's, it's sometimes worth going into the settings and having a browse. I managed to reduce the power requirement of my 55" Samsung TV by half by reducing the maximum brightness. Considering I typically only use it at night it seems to make no difference. There is a clear difference in the day, but I've better things to do when it's light outside, and if I really wanted to, I guess I could close the blinds to make the room darker.