About what should be the KwH usage for our all-electric bungalow?

Mstty

jdal said:

Mstty said:

I will presume all heating is off?
... (from a different post)
Let the OP come back and report their savings but bear in mind I have also stated for them to check the backup electric heater is not kicking in as that will use probably 3kw when it kicks in.

Yeah, heating is off now (previously we relied on the thermostat setting). Not sure what you mean by "Backup Electric Heater"?

Sorry if I wasn't clear on our Mitsubishi Ecodan we have a separate electric heater (basically like an immersion) you can set it to come in and speed up heating hot water or speed up warning the house quicker or you can turn it off.

Do you know if you have this auxillary electric heater on your system and if you do it's worth finding the settings to to either turn it off or only have it come in after a set amount of time. As an example ours is a 3kw auxillary electric heater so if we had left it on (like it was when we moved in) with 0 mins before it activated the whole system would draw 4-5kw on start up with the ASHP and auxillary electric heater running together.

It was just another energy saving setting we found on our ASHP that once you have turned off your immersion timer just check the manual on your Heatpump to see if that has a separate auxillary heater set to come on as well.

Ideally you should heat your hot water tank from the Heatpump as every 1kw it draws should create 2.5-3kw of heat. Are you able to do this with the way your system has been installed.

k_man

k_man said:

jdal said:

k_man said:

Also depends on your heating settings.
E.g is the room thermostat set to 22C 24/7, or 19C with setback to say, 16C overnight (these are for instances).

Also some people like to have windows open all year, even in winter, while heating us on.

This is assuming power used is mostly for heating.
Do you have monthly readings, to show the drop between winter and summer.
Your potentially high usage (although as above, 8000 seems about right) could be due to something else.

Finally, is the 8000 based on actual usage, or an estimated usage? The latter can be wide of the mark after changing providers.

Thanks for this. 8000 is accurate (ish), I keep a spreadsheet of meter readings. Heating 19/17. We keep windows closed. There are differences between Winter/Summer - daily usage is 30-35Kwh in winter,  13-20WwH in summer. I have just noticed a bit of a rise in the summer daily use. I need to analyse the data a bit more.

Is the 13 - 20 kWh in summer per day, all electricity use, or just that used by the ASHP?

@jdal
In case you missed this earlier.
If 13 - 20kWh is total electric usage during summer, not just hot water, it is not that excessive if other non hot water usage is a bit higher than average.

ETA: the hot water and heating may not have much room for cutting back (albeit every little helps), and saving may be elsewhere.

Reed_Richards

A few years ago I had an oil boiler for hot water and heating and no solar panels.  At that time my average summertime usage of electricity  was 8 kWh a day; winter was not that much different.  

Mstty

2 people working for home full time, others in and out various hours. All electric hot water included with various laptops and monitors averaging 7kwh a day.

The OP stated 2222 kwh for the year for hot water so that's 6 kWh a day which is excessive imo given what we can produce from our system for 1 kWh a day.

k_man

Mstty said:

2 people working for home full time, others in and out various hours. All electric hot water included with various laptops and monitors averaging 7kwh a day.

The OP stated 2222 kwh for the year for hot water so that's 6 kWh a day which is excessive imo given what we can produce from our system for 1 kWh a day.

I thought the quoted figures were from the EPC, not the actual usage?

Just trying to establish if the extra is due to something else , fish tank, pond pump, reptile tank.

And most people use more than 1kWh for hot water, even with a heat pump, so that is more aspirational than normal.

Mstty

But they have a heat pump so it's relevent for the OP and doable if that's how they want to run their hot water after at least being told how. If it doesn't work for them it can be adjusted and this is how many learn about their ASHP

It's completely relevent here.wouldn't you say? 

But if they are burning 6kwh a day on hot water the 13 kWh a day mark isn't that bad at all we just need to work on getting their hot water heating working efficiently.

Perhaps all will be clear when the OP returns👍

k_man

Relevent to make sure the hot water is efficient, yes.
To working out if usage is unusual, and addressing it, we don't know yet.

k_man

Mstty said:

But they have a heat pump so it's relevent for the OP and doable if that's how they want to run their hot water after at least being told how. If it doesn't work for them it can be adjusted and this is how many learn about their ASHP

It's completely relevent here.wouldn't you say? 

But if they are burning 6kwh a day on hot water the 13 kWh a day mark isn't that bad at all we just need to work on getting their hot water heating working efficiently.

Perhaps all will be clear when the OP returns👍

And 6kWh may be right, if the OP's household have 2 full baths everyday!

Reed_Richards

k_man said:

And 6kWh may be right, if the OP's household have 2 full baths everyday!

The OP established that the DHW cylinder was only heated to 60 C once a week.   If that's correct then 6 kWh per day with a heat pimp would be the same as 15+ kWh per day with an immersion heater.  That's enough to heat about 300 l of water from cold which would be very heavy usage of hot water although those 2 full baths might do it. 
 

k_man

Reed_Richards said:

k_man said:

And 6kWh may be right, if the OP's household have 2 full baths everyday!

The OP established that the DHW cylinder was only heated to 60 C once a week.   If that's correct then 6 kWh per day with a heat pimp would be the same as 15+ kWh per day with an immersion heater.  That's enough to heat about 300 l of water from cold which would be very heavy usage of hot water although those 2 full baths might do it. 
 

The OP did also mention the immersion heater is on a thermostat (and does one 60C burst a week).
So depending on the settings, the IM may be running more than needed.
And just a reminder, the 6kWh hot water usage, is an assumption, based on the EPC ratings (or more specifically, Dolors EPC rating).
There may be a 50" Plasma TV on for 18 hours most days! (Just turned an old one if mine on and watched the IHD start to wince).




However, as an aside while we wait.
@Mstty you currently only use 1kWh for hot water per day, but you also do a once a week 60 C boost. How much does that use, and is that ASHP + IM?
Those costs should really be averaged into your daily amounts.

And thinking about it, the 60 C means once a week, you have a full tank of hot water, so may not actually need any top ups each day!