Saving electricity tips

k_man

Alnat1 said:

Without spending 15 pounds or so on a gadget to measure how much how much electricity is being used by your lamp/toaster/kettle/microwave/set top box etc. overnight if the plug is on, it's impossible to tell. 1w-2w won't really warm the plug much.

All I know is the lowest points on our overnight base load used to be around 196w and now I turn everything off it's around 122w. Pricing electric at 29p I make that a saving of 62.66 a year, working on 8hrs overnight. We probably save more as many items are now only turned on at the plug while we are actively using them.

I will also not cry too much when the 1 fish in the heated tank  (inherited from MIL who passed last year) dies. Unfortunately I'm too much of a softy to help him on his way lol.

The warm plug test is only useful if the plug also contains a power transformer, e.g. low voltage devices, chargers etc. where the wasted power is from the plug/transformer.
Incidentally in that case even 1W is noticeable as a warm (not hot plug).

If a standard 240V plug feels warm, then something more serious is wrong, or there is a very high powered device, which should be obvious anyway.

I found the £10 for energy monitoring smart plug worthwhile, as you find which devices actually use power, and, if more than 0.5w, you can use the smart plug to turn them off, including scheduling.
Especially useful for the extension of low power stuff idling away behind the TV.

Zandoni

Mstty said:

So we bought a 2.2l air fryer brand new from amazon for £31.

Rated at 1000w we just cooked 2 salmon fillets and some potatoes(tinned so pre cooked) so they roasted up well. For 18 mins at 180oC it cost approx 200wh going by smart meter measurement for the hour minus our average background use. So under 6p at our capped rate of 29.24p per kWh

I'm actually gob-smacked the fab assisted electric oven would have been circa 40p and would have taken longer.

Bonus is this tower model comes with a 3 year warranty as well and in approx 92 uses it has paid for itself.

How did you work out how much the fan assisted oven will cost.

Zandoni

In our house we always wash our hands under the cold tap, I really can’t see the point in waiting for the hot water to get through, or worse still it only getting through when you’ve finished.

Benny2020

We use the hot water tap until it gets hot to avoid wasting the cold water.

mjm3346

My 40" TV is about 4 years old and uses 0.5 watts on standby (about 1 unit per quarter = 18p, less than 80p a year) definitely not worth switching off every day - I cannot remember the exact figure but in use the 5 years older 32" set uses about 50% more energy then the 40" newer one - older devices fridge/freezers etc can use far more energy than newer ones so it's not necessarily best to run them till they die. My kettle has a label on the side stating it uses 66% less energy to fill to 1/4l than 1l

Mstty

@Zandoni

From the past 3 months of energy monitoring and reduction. In the spreadsheet we have average usage for oven/tumbledryer/washing machine/induction hob and draw per ring and level/microwave/dishwasher.......the list goes on.

Exciting times here at consumption HQ we love a spreadsheet.

[Deleted User]

IMstty said:

@Zandoni

From the past 3 months of energy monitoring and reduction. In the spreadsheet we have average usage for oven/tumbledryer/washing machine/induction hob and draw per ring and level/microwave/dishwasher.......the list goes on.

Exciting times here at consumption HQ we love a spreadsheet.

Actually I think this another thing I am about to do using the 'Usage Now' feature of my IHD.  Starting to realise certain things like the fridge/freezer uses about 80W draw less if the compressor does not need to whirr (I assume it goes into standby mode until needed again).  So I intend to start from a baseline of the power draw (in Watts) of essentials and then just note the power difference once something else comes on (e.g. washing machine etc) and see what happens over the period of time it is running.  ATM I just log the daily power usage (in kWh) for the whole day for both utilities and record this in a spreadsheet.

wild666

Mstty said:

I have calculated turning things off standby is a good idea but it doesn't save everyone bundles of money .e.g. 20 items on 1w standby for 12 hours a day as we don't have a PVR or sky box to muddy the power saving waters.

So the saving for 12 hours per day for the year is £25.61 a year @ our capped rate of 29.24p per kWh

It's not massive but we will still do it as it represents 1.5% of our yearly usage.

@wild666 your savings are mainly your heating reduction and to be honest most people would not want to reduce to the levels you have set yourself as they have a balance of enjoying life over not enjoying home life. 

Then why did my monthly electric bill drop by 80 kWh, £16 per month, when I started switching everything off at the wall socket? I admit the appliances I have are not the most energy efficient but when I bought them they were no higher than C rated, only the TV bought in December 2019, G rated, but gets very little use, mainly due to only being used as a monitor for the games consoles. 

HumberFlyer

My usage through the night (8Hours) I only pay 18p per unit...until aug 2023........ I forgot to include dehumidifier that kicks in through the night.  

mjm3346

"EU regulations specify that non-networked electrical devices sold after 2013 cannot have a standby power greater than 0.5W, and networked-connected devices (for example, televisions or games consoles connected to the internet) must not consume more than 3-12W, depending on the product."