Advices needed for prepayment meters user

Mstty

That's kids for you🤣🤣

Alnat1

I assume if your daughter can afford to run a car she must be working? I would hope if that is the case that she pays board. Maybe hinting if she doesn't make an effort to cut her electricity use then her board will need to go up to cover her portion of the costs.

Coffeekup

kimp22 said:

I have 2 freezers one i will be getting rid of soon and a normal fridge/freezer. My husband like Google home devices and have about three with screens on all the time. But he's say they take pennies and they control an extension lead at night which comes on a few hours to charger older sons phone and younger son tablet. My older son has a big gaming computer and I think that takes a lot of power and the oven is on and off constantly because they make there own meals but it's never at set times.
I just thought it might be because I am home all day. 

Thanks 
Kim

"A big gaming computer"..... I've built few over the year's they can can certainly eat up energy.

Depending on the the games or application's that gets used they can get very demanding.
Certain games and certain apps demand more from the CPU and graphics card. This also applies to having multiple apps, web pages, games and mods open at the same time. These two components alone generate substantial heat under load, requiring the fans or water cooling to try and keep them cool.

Depending on the spec of the PC they can use 1kwh per hour or occasionally more, multiply that by the amount of use it gets per day soon adds up.
If your interested on finding out the size of the PC, the kettle lead plugged in at that back of the PC you should see the power supply unit's size, it could be 500/600/800/1000/1200w.
 
Power supply unit's are also terribly inefficient the best ones being platinum being 90-92% efficient.

A house full of people all doing their own thing is costly, no other nasties like hot tubs or pond pumps? 

Alnat1

It sounds like your children are old enough to understand  the reality of the situation. Time for a family meeting and serious discussion about how everyone needs to pull together to get through next winter. You need to get everyone on board in a positive way.

Mstty

Board and lodgings is a good way of instilling the idea that life is not free.for those old enough and incentives for those younger if they all take an interest in the smart meter and energy use.

MattMattMattUK

Coffeekup said:

kimp22 said:

I have 2 freezers one i will be getting rid of soon and a normal fridge/freezer. My husband like Google home devices and have about three with screens on all the time. But he's say they take pennies and they control an extension lead at night which comes on a few hours to charger older sons phone and younger son tablet. My older son has a big gaming computer and I think that takes a lot of power and the oven is on and off constantly because they make there own meals but it's never at set times.
I just thought it might be because I am home all day. 

Thanks 
Kim

"A big gaming computer"..... I've built few over the year's they can can certainly eat up energy.

Depending on the the games or application's that gets used they can get very demanding.
Certain games and certain apps demand more from the CPU and graphics card. This also applies to having multiple apps, web pages, games and mods open at the same time. These two components alone generate substantial heat under load, requiring the fans or water cooling to try and keep them cool.

Depending on the spec of the PC they can use 1kwh per hour or occasionally more, multiply that by the amount of use it gets per day soon adds up.
If your interested on finding out the size of the PC, the kettle lead plugged in at that back of the PC you should see the power supply unit's size, it could be 500/600/800/1000/1200w.
 
Power supply unit's are also terribly inefficient the best ones being platinum being 90-92% efficient.

A house full of people all doing their own thing is costly, no other nasties like hot tubs or pond pumps? 

I totally agree on the gaming PC things, people totally forget how much they use when playing games or video work. I have an 1,000 watt PSU, it's an 80 Plus Plat model so at 90% depending on exact usage, whilst it never draws 1,000 watts it can get regularly get over 600 (12900k + RTX 3090) and expect that to go 100 watts higher when the 4090 comes out. Throw in a 4k monitor and speakers adding another 100 watts and 1kW consumption is not unrealistic as a baseline for cost calculations. 

I think it should be obvious that a gaming PC uses a lot of power though from the heat it kicks out.

Mstty

Probably better to sell the gaming PC's and switch to a gaming console and TV that would be max circa 400w going on the PS5.

si_74

On your original question I would say it's definitely a good idea to plan for the winter now and set some money aside if you can, even if it's just a little bit each week.

Hopefully this will allow you to adapt to not having that money available, but still gives you the option of accessing it in case of an emergency until the winter. It will also soften the blow of the higher usage, and bills, from October onwards.

I am on a metre and paying direct debit, but am overpaying now so that there is a balance there waiting for later in the year.

kimp22

The computer has a 1200 watt power supply but I was told it doesn't draw that much power all the time. But it is hot in his room when he has it on and the fans are going all the time. I think my son might have asd and he doesn't go out much but the computer has to be off at night at 9. So on average he's probably using it 4 hours a day and it's mainly playing football I think.
I got the air fryer out yesterday and made some oven chips which usually take 30 minutes in oven only took about 10 and the preheat of 3 minutes.
I really do need to lower usage some how. 

Kim

Mstty

kimp22 said:

The computer has a 1200 watt power supply but I was told it doesn't draw that much power all the time. But it is hot in his room when he has it on and the fans are going all the time. I think my son might have asd and he doesn't go out much but the computer has to be off at night at 9. So on average he's probably using it 4 hours a day and it's mainly playing football I think.
I got the air fryer out yesterday and made some oven chips which usually take 30 minutes in oven only took about 10 and the preheat of 3 minutes.
I really do need to lower usage some how. 

Kim

If the fans are going and it's hot with a monitor let's say it's drawing 1kwh so that mounts up 4kwh a day 28 a week 1456 kWh a year approx £400 a year. If it's on longer at the weekend 💲💲💲😳

Air fryers are great for money saving