Expert Advice and Tips on Consumption please!

wibbler

I hate to pile in on the energy questions, but here I am anyway. I just want to check I'm not missing anything.

Ex Avro customer, now on Octopus (Flexible Avro October 2021 v1, Unit Rates: Elec 28.46p per kwh, Gas: 7.48p per kWh; Stand Charges Elec: 43.12p per day Gas: 27.22p per day). Just been told I'm facing monthly bills of £450 a month, so that has focused my mind even more than before. Octopus estimate £3104.09 a year for electricity £2037.72 a year for gas, which has made my eyes water. 

Averaging 21KWh Electricity per day (screenshot of last 30 days). 4m3 gas per day (screenshot of last 30 days). On a Smart meter reporting every 30 minutes.

Family of 5 (2 parents, 20/15/6 year old). Both parents work from home. Detached 4 bedroom house.

Questions:
- We are stuck with our tariff, yes?
- Does our consumption seems ok? (We have 7 fridges (!) due to my wife's business, so I guess that pushes it up a bit).
- If I phone the energy company for advice, they will just say "turn things off". Are there any gadgets or clever tips to save electricity, apart from turning things off (which I am definitely doing)?
- Are smart meters always correct, or should I check somehow?

Thank you!

Gerry1

Forget estimates, averages for 30 days and gas volumes, you need hard facts.  That means annual kWh consumption derived from actual meter readings.  You can then compare costs and how your usage compares with the national averages of 2,900kWh electricity and 12,000kWh gas.

In a nutshell you're on the capped tariff so that's probably as good as it gets right now.  Obviously with 5 people and 7 fridges in a detached house your annual consumption is likely to be well above average.

Check your bills to see whether the readings are shown as Smart or Estimated.  Read the meter and send the readings if they're not Smart.

You could try a fixed tariff but whether that's wise will only be determined by hindsight; most people are taking a wait and see attitude.

MWT

wibbler said:

Averaging 21KWh Electricity per day (screenshot of last 30 days). 4m3 gas per day (screenshot of last 30 days). On a Smart meter reporting every 30 minutes.

An average over the last month is not going to give you a clue about your annual gas use, but from the Octopus estimate, they have you at about 26,000kWh for the year, and your electric at about 10,000kWh.

Do check your actual meter readings from around a year ago to confirm, but the electricity at least is believable based on your current use, and the 7 fridges, but still high... do you use any electric heating over winter? ... do you have any electric showers?

The gas is high for a 4 bed detached, but also not impossible, so that represents one of the things to look at more closely.

How well insulated is the house? ... how old is the boiler and is it set to the right temperature for condensing or is it set high where the last gas engineer probably left it?

Benny2020

Could you cut it down to 6 fridges?

Mstty

Surely the business pays for the fridges and uses part of the home for tax purposes so you cannot count that.

How old are these fridges? How big?

It is of course far cheaper to run those business fridges on a domestic electricity tariff so in reality your electricity usage may well be normal with those.

Magnitio

Buy an energy monitor (something like this: https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/smart-plug/tapo-p110/ ) and connect to each of the appliances that you have plugged in to check how much they are consuming. For fridges/freezers, you would need to leave in for maybe a day to get an idea of energy usage as they cycle on/off. This may highlight that some of your fridges are better than others and will also allow you to work out how much they cost to run and whether it would be sensible to buy more efficient / fewer / larger fridges.

When finished with this, you may also find a use for the plug to schedule other appliances to be switched on/off, or to continue monitoring usage.

theoretica

Gas - you want to be very sure you are only heating when and where you really need the heat - not the bedrooms during the day, for instance.  How advanced is your thermostat system?

theoretica

Many of the businesses that I can think of which need 7 fridges would also use other power - eg for cooking.  Another thing to take into account when comparing your usage to average - and working out your wife's business expenses.

Alnat1

Do your radiators have TRVs fitted so rooms can be kept cooler when not in use?

Do you close all curtains at dusk when the heating is on?

Do you close doors between rooms?

Do you have a main room thermostat set at around 18C?

Is your boiler set to around 50C for hot water, 55C for central heating?

Does your heating go off overnight?

That all helps cut the gas use.

QrizB

For what it's worth, 21kWh/day of electricity is roughly 3x the national average at this time of year, and 4m3/day of gas is roughly 4x the average

Yes you're a family of five, but even so there's a lot of scope to cut back.

Gas in particular seems very high, assuming you're not using that in your business too.