Oct price cap increase likely to push energy bill to over £10k... for a family of 4...

KxMx

Even when I had a pet I didn't need to use plug ins. 

It is more of a challenge keeping the home smelling fresh in winter though without the level of ventilation the summer brings and the use of heating in rooms. 
In my previous home I'd use a Yankee Candle thing with scent beads in over winter. 


Am thinking of getting a reed diffuser this winter instead. 

Mstty

Someone in the house loves their candles and diffusers. We also have two plugins and measuring the ones we have at 29.24p kWh they draw 3w and are on max 6 hours of the day just for a smell boost so £3.80 for the year.

markin

Sea_Shell said:

Mstty said:

michaels said:

Mstty said:

Surely we are looking at costing things at circa 60p kWh now for Oct/Jan

Every single watt of standby will be £5.25 a year priced at 60p kWh

"THE GREAT SWITCHOFF" should target anything on standby

At that price your £50 per year device will now cost £100 per year so it remains the case that finding a 10% saving in that device saves more than turning off a 1w standby at the plug.  Not rocket science, you can only save big from big use devices.

Read the post about 6 air fresheners plug ins using £126 (£21 each a year!!)

It's not all about the big things when prices hit 60p.

I can't remember who posted today but they stated the start position should be everything off.

That's looking like the best idea then monitor as you use👍

Reminds me of the scene in Apollo 13, when they are working out which circuits they can turn on without overloading the system!!! 🤣

And those air fresheners...wow...that's not loose change!!

They are air polluters not fresheners!  And they stink.

Air fresheners can impact indoor air quality by adding potentially hazardous pollutants to the air. The use of air fresheners is associated with elevated levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, and xylenes, in indoor air.

Air Fresheners and Indoor Air Quality

Sea_Shell

markin said:

Sea_Shell said:

Mstty said:

michaels said:

Mstty said:

Surely we are looking at costing things at circa 60p kWh now for Oct/Jan

Every single watt of standby will be £5.25 a year priced at 60p kWh

"THE GREAT SWITCHOFF" should target anything on standby

At that price your £50 per year device will now cost £100 per year so it remains the case that finding a 10% saving in that device saves more than turning off a 1w standby at the plug.  Not rocket science, you can only save big from big use devices.

Read the post about 6 air fresheners plug ins using £126 (£21 each a year!!)

It's not all about the big things when prices hit 60p.

I can't remember who posted today but they stated the start position should be everything off.

That's looking like the best idea then monitor as you use👍

Reminds me of the scene in Apollo 13, when they are working out which circuits they can turn on without overloading the system!!! 🤣

And those air fresheners...wow...that's not loose change!!

They are air polluters not fresheners!  And they stink.

Air fresheners can impact indoor air quality by adding potentially hazardous pollutants to the air. The use of air fresheners is associated with elevated levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, and xylenes, in indoor air.

Air Fresheners and Indoor Air Quality

I agree, can't stand the things personally.

Capyboppy

KxMx said:

Even when I had a pet I didn't need to use plug ins. 

It is more of a challenge keeping the home smelling fresh in winter though without the level of ventilation the summer brings and the use of heating in rooms. 
In my previous home I'd use a Yankee Candle thing with scent beads in over winter. 


Am thinking of getting a reed diffuser this winter instead. 

I'd suggest using a 'scented melt' made with soy rather than Yankee Candle which is full of chemicals. The more natural the better. Or even a 'melt holder' with some water in and add a few drops of pure essential oil. Far healthier.

MariaAH

UPDATE: In the last week we have made a serious effort to reduce shower time, and have more than halved our gas usage per day. Based on today's rate, that equates to approx £285 a year saving, but obviously savings will be greater when price cap goes up in Oct. We will be seriously targeting winter gas usage too by turning thermostat down 3 degrees.

Electricity is a harder one to crack and use over last week is around about the same as usual. TP link monitors have been plugged into son's gaming PC and Aircon since Thurs...but am going to leave them in place for a full 7 days before making an assessment as he is not typical 9-5 usage. A very rough guess at the moment is possibly about £700 a year, but will get a full 7 day reading to get a better idea. Yes this is a lot but we can ensure we charge him for the electricity he actually uses.

The fact that we all work from home clearly does increase the electricity we use, but I guess we have to balance that versus how much it would cost if we travelled into work more. The fact that we have EVs does make the energy bill so much higher, but then we do not have the petrol to pay for out of remaining income.

Our EVs, whilst still cheaper to run (and better for the environment), they are clearly not as efficient as headline figures from the manufacturer would suggest as there are so many variables. An example:

My son charged his EV from 48% (93 miles) to 100% (194 miles)

• First of all, the suggestion is that he gets 194 miles on a full charge versus the 238miles quoted by Renault. My son says that if he uses aircon/heating etc, in reality he can sometimes only gets 160 miles on a full charge.
• Charging up 52% used 33.19 kW according to the Hypervolt app, whereas 52% of the cars 52kW battery is 27.04 kW...There is a loss on charging.
• This suggests that charging the 52kW battery from 0 to 100% could use 63.83kW? However, if the battery is 'not at the right temperature to accept the charge', then more energy would be consumed as the car will use energy to warm the battery up or cool it down. So charging during very warm or very cold weather is a lot less efficient.
• Headline figures from manufacturer state approx 4 miles per kWh (7p a mile at todays rate) but this does not include any charging losses, nor reduced range in hot/cold weather. So during the extremely hot weather we have had, huge losses during charging plus reduced range due to using aircon, could have reduced that to 2.3 miles per kWh (more like 12p a mile at todays rate). This DOES, however, explain WHY there is such difference between the mileage used vs the energy consumed based on our expectations. One thing is for sure, just looking at the car data which tells me on average I get 3.9 miles per kWh does NOT tell the whole story. 

Mstty

Great update thanks Maria

xeny

It'd presumably help if you've got any kind of shelter for the cars to protect them from extremes of hot or cold, even a car porch or parked in the shade/lee of the house if there's no garage available?

michaels

MariaAH said:

UPDATE: In the last week we have made a serious effort to reduce shower time, and have more than halved our gas usage per day. Based on today's rate, that equates to approx £285 a year saving, but obviously savings will be greater when price cap goes up in Oct. We will be seriously targeting winter gas usage too by turning thermostat down 3 degrees.

Electricity is a harder one to crack and use over last week is around about the same as usual. TP link monitors have been plugged into son's gaming PC and Aircon since Thurs...but am going to leave them in place for a full 7 days before making an assessment as he is not typical 9-5 usage. A very rough guess at the moment is possibly about £700 a year, but will get a full 7 day reading to get a better idea. Yes this is a lot but we can ensure we charge him for the electricity he actually uses.

The fact that we all work from home clearly does increase the electricity we use, but I guess we have to balance that versus how much it would cost if we travelled into work more. The fact that we have EVs does make the energy bill so much higher, but then we do not have the petrol to pay for out of remaining income.

Our EVs, whilst still cheaper to run (and better for the environment), they are clearly not as efficient as headline figures from the manufacturer would suggest as there are so many variables. An example:

My son charged his EV from 48% (93 miles) to 100% (194 miles)

• First of all, the suggestion is that he gets 194 miles on a full charge versus the 238miles quoted by Renault. My son says that if he uses aircon/heating etc, in reality he can sometimes only gets 160 miles on a full charge.
• Charging up 52% used 33.19 kW according to the Hypervolt app, whereas 52% of the cars 52kW battery is 27.04 kW...There is a loss on charging.
• This suggests that charging the 52kW battery from 0 to 100% could use 63.83kW? However, if the battery is 'not at the right temperature to accept the charge', then more energy would be consumed as the car will use energy to warm the battery up or cool it down. So charging during very warm or very cold weather is a lot less efficient.
• Headline figures from manufacturer state approx 4 miles per kWh (7p a mile at todays rate) but this does not include any charging losses, nor reduced range in hot/cold weather. So during the extremely hot weather we have had, huge losses during charging plus reduced range due to using aircon, could have reduced that to 2.3 miles per kWh (more like 12p a mile at todays rate). This DOES, however, explain WHY there is such difference between the mileage used vs the energy consumed based on our expectations. One thing is for sure, just looking at the car data which tells me on average I get 3.9 miles per kWh does NOT tell the whole story. 

There don't seem to be any definitive figures for AC charging loss on EVs but generally a figure of 10-15% is quoted using a dedicated wall charger, higher if you are charging from a plug socket.

That is good progress on the gas, I wish our household members were so easy to convince of the merits of thinking about water consumption.

In terms of how much you can save on the gas, you can get a pretty good idea on what proportion of annual consumption is hot water rather than heating by looking at summer usage when the heating is off (although that is slight below average for hot water as the incoming cold supply is warmer in the summer)

MariaAH

michaels said:

There don't seem to be any definitive figures for AC charging loss on EVs but generally a figure of 10-15% is quoted using a dedicated wall charger, higher if you are charging from a plug socket.

That is good progress on the gas, I wish our household members were so easy to convince of the merits of thinking about water consumption.

In terms of how much you can save on the gas, you can get a pretty good idea on what proportion of annual consumption is hot water rather than heating by looking at summer usage when the heating is off (although that is slight below average for hot water as the incoming cold supply is warmer in the summer)

I would not say my kids (age 19 and 22) were 'easy' to convince, but think they got fed up of being nagged and moaned at!