The new normal: £2 to tumble-dry and £45 a year for a smart doorbell

Section62

double_dutchy said:

Absolutely does! Most people use dishwasher tablets - you can get these for less than 10p ( one per load) if you buy in bulk but if you buy smaller/expensive bags it works out nearer to 20p per tab. You also need "rinsaid" added occasionally plus dishwasher salt (more needed if you have harder water) and occasionally a dishwasher cleaner!

10p tablets include those which are 'All-in-one'.  Tesco do a 40 pack for £4.00, less than that when they have a clubcard deal on.

One of the mistakes people make is to spend money on all-in-one tablets, then pay for rinse aid as well.

Personally I've gone back to using powder (got a cheap batch from Sainsbury's) and rinse aid, with the rinse aid setting dialled down to the minimum that works.

I would still add salt for the water softener though - works out at £1/kg (e.g. Sainsbury's).  Ask the water company for the hardness index for your area and make sure the water softener is set to the right amount rather than the default.

No need at all for dishwasher cleaners.  Just remove the filters at least once a month and rinse them under the cold tap.  Then wipe around the door seal with a cloth.  Dishwasher cleaners are yet another way the detergent manufacturing companies have devised to convince people to part people with their money.

tghe-retford

I did think running a 5W light bulb for an hour costing 26p meant one of three things:

a) Faulty light bulb, get it replaced pronto if it's not already on fire, or;
b) Something don't look right.
c) The energy consultancy firm predictions are finally underestimating likely unit prices and that the future price is 5,200 pence per kWh. Not even Germany has that. Yet.

I'm going with option B.

This is the problem with mixing numbers - pounds and pence, it causes confusion when you calculate things. I double checked my numbers and I get 0.26p or £0.0026 per hour. Four hours makes it one pence which sounds right.

lindatoo

SAC2334 said:

Alnat1 said:

I thought that as well @pochase. There's too many people think sitting in the dark will save them a fortune, rubbish like that only makes it worse.

The "5 minutes in the shower" is way too vague, what kind of shower? electric? heated from boiler/tank?

Fridge freezers vary a lot, the American one I scrapped after Tapo testing would have cost me £450/year.

If only it was 15 p for a five minute 8kw electric shower on the Oct capped rate  I would nt bother doing my on/off technique , eg quick blast for 40 secs , switch off , when ready then switch back on for a rinse off for 40 sec = 1.20 secs = 8.8 p 

I make it approx. £4 an hour to run an 8 kw shower = 6.66 p a minute x 5 is 33 p for a 5 minute shower at the Oct capped rate .

I ve probably got that wrong and someone will add up correctly for me , they usually do .
Maybe 15 p for a 5 min shower is more or less right for a gas powered shower 

To avoid a long cold  or a scalding hot brief minute or so when switching back on again  I first switch off at the shower  then when all done ready for the final rinse I find a quick off and on directly at the pull switch does the trick and the shower restarts with just maybe 10 secs to warm up to correct temperature

jjI have a gas powered shower and I tried your method this morning and at current rate it cost about 4.5p so your calculation of 8.8 is about right. Don't think I got all the shampoo out of my hair though. 

FreeBear

lindatoo said:

SAC2334 said:

Alnat1 said:

I thought that as well @pochase. There's too many people think sitting in the dark will save them a fortune, rubbish like that only makes it worse.

The "5 minutes in the shower" is way too vague, what kind of shower? electric? heated from boiler/tank?

Fridge freezers vary a lot, the American one I scrapped after Tapo testing would have cost me £450/year.

If only it was 15 p for a five minute 8kw electric shower on the Oct capped rate  I would nt bother doing my on/off technique , eg quick blast for 40 secs , switch off , when ready then switch back on for a rinse off for 40 sec = 1.20 secs = 8.8 p 

I make it approx. £4 an hour to run an 8 kw shower = 6.66 p a minute x 5 is 33 p for a 5 minute shower at the Oct capped rate .

I ve probably got that wrong and someone will add up correctly for me , they usually do .
Maybe 15 p for a 5 min shower is more or less right for a gas powered shower 

To avoid a long cold  or a scalding hot brief minute or so when switching back on again  I first switch off at the shower  then when all done ready for the final rinse I find a quick off and on directly at the pull switch does the trick and the shower restarts with just maybe 10 secs to warm up to correct temperature

jjI have a gas powered shower and I tried your method this morning and at current rate it cost about 4.5p so your calculation of 8.8 is about right. Don't think I got all the shampoo out of my hair though. 

Get a pixie cut or go for a buff & polish - Less hair to wash (none with the latter cut), so reduced shampoo requirement, and no need for a hair dryer. Double saving

Billy-no-Money

lindatoo said:

SAC2334 said:

Alnat1 said:

I thought that as well @pochase. There's too many people think sitting in the dark will save them a fortune, rubbish like that only makes it worse.

The "5 minutes in the shower" is way too vague, what kind of shower? electric? heated from boiler/tank?

Fridge freezers vary a lot, the American one I scrapped after Tapo testing would have cost me £450/year.

If only it was 15 p for a five minute 8kw electric shower on the Oct capped rate  I would nt bother doing my on/off technique , eg quick blast for 40 secs , switch off , when ready then switch back on for a rinse off for 40 sec = 1.20 secs = 8.8 p 

I make it approx. £4 an hour to run an 8 kw shower = 6.66 p a minute x 5 is 33 p for a 5 minute shower at the Oct capped rate .

I ve probably got that wrong and someone will add up correctly for me , they usually do .
Maybe 15 p for a 5 min shower is more or less right for a gas powered shower 

To avoid a long cold  or a scalding hot brief minute or so when switching back on again  I first switch off at the shower  then when all done ready for the final rinse I find a quick off and on directly at the pull switch does the trick and the shower restarts with just maybe 10 secs to warm up to correct temperature

jjI have a gas powered shower and I tried your method this morning and at current rate it cost about 4.5p so your calculation of 8.8 is about right. Don't think I got all the shampoo out of my hair though. 

W ell@SAC2334 - it’s definitely worth switching the shower off as much as you can, but you risk damaging your shower (scaling up) and the pull switch (wearing out the contacts) doing it that way.

My advice is to turn it to cold for a few seconds before switching off, then it will come on as normal when you switch it back on - far more convenient and it means the heater unit can cool down, minimising scaling.

lindatoo

TheBanker said:

datlex said:

Makes me laugh the assumption people have a dishwasher.  Mine is me!  So no saving there. I do have a tumble dryer but with solar panels certainly doesn't cost a lot.  Having the oven on for an hour each evening seems excessive as well.  30 -40 minutes cooking seems more realistic.

I have a dishwasher, which I use. I live on my own so I use it every few days, when it's full, usually on a low temperature setting. I was told that this was more cost effective than running several bowls of hot water to wash up by hand. Whether this is still the case given price changes, I don't know. 

In mitigation, I wash some of my pans by hand as they can't go in the dishwasher. If I'm washing up by hand I'll get all the dirty cups and plates out of the dishwasher and wash them using the same water. Then finally use the water to rinse any recycling out. So I think my washing up routine is as cost effective as possible. Unlike someone I know who runs a bowl of hot water to wash up two tea cups after having a brew!

I did buy extra plates so I could go longer between dishwashing, because I found I was running out of clean plates before it was full. 

I have a dishwasher, I've never used it. I had it installed when I replaced my kitchen.  I live alone in a 3 bedroom house and I took the view that if I ever wanted to sell it would likely be to a family who would probably want one. I wash up once a day. In the summer I use very few dishes eating mainly salads and sandwiches etc. in the colder months when I'm more likely to cook, I would still have to hand wash as I have few pans (having given many away to someone who was just starting up) so it's never  felt like a cost effective thing for me to use. I used to automatically fill my sink with hot water, but this year I bought a very small washing up bowl probably not much bigger than half the size of a standard one so I'm now using less water. But having read many articles that suggest dishwashers are quite cheap to run, I am wondering whether I should buy more pans and leave the washing up until I have enough to justify using the dishwasher, although of course there is the detergent, rinse-aid and dishwasher salt to consider.

Spies

You don't need to spend several hundred pounds on a heat pump tumble dryer, I recently bought one from Curry's under their Logik brand, it's A++ and I'm yet to see it use over 1kWh on a single load. 

I've never had a tumble dryer, if I had, it would have been harder to justify switching from a condensor to a hp. 

My older Beko washing machine which was A++ several years ago also uses less than 1kWh per load so based on what I'm currently paying, less than 35p for a load, but it's also supplemented by my solar. 

Ultrasonic

Billy-no-Money said:

W ell@SAC2334 - it’s definitely worth switching the shower off as much as you can, but you risk damaging your shower (scaling up) and the pull switch (wearing out the contacts) doing it that way.

My advice is to turn it to cold for a few seconds before switching off, then it will come on as normal when you switch it back on - far more convenient and it means the heater unit can cool down, minimising scaling.

Does the heating element cooling down more slowly by simply turning the water off really lead to more issues with limescale? It's not immediately obvious to me why it would, plus from an energy saving perspective it would be advantageous to not cool the element down.

Coffeekup

Ultrasonic said:

I suspect the dishwasher question isn't straightforward. One argument for dishwashers is that they use less water but I'm never sure this properly factors in all the water people use to rinse off items before putting them in the dishwasher.

On the pure cost front I suspect it will be important how you'd heat the water for a washing up bowl. I have a gas combi boiler and going by smart meter figures it takes about 0.5 kWh of energy per bowl (cost ~7.5 p for gas at October price cap rate). For those with hot water already sitting in a tank it may cost little extra to use the water rather than to just leave it in the tank.

Looking at data for a few dishwashers on the Currys website they're quoting energy use per cycle in the 0.75 - 1 kWh range. At October price cap costs that's 39 - 52 p per wash in energy cost, or equivalent to 5 - 7 of my washing up bowl costs.

For those who don't already own a dishwasher (like me) the purchase price would also be an important factor in an overall cost comparison too. 

There is no denying the convenience of a dishwasher though, particularly for larger families.

I agree with you, I've always argued dishwashers are more expensive than washing by hand, yes they may use less water but financially it's better off with washing in a bowl.

That's not factoring in the cost of the washing tablets and salt and rinses, which appear to be expensive for me over a bottle of washing up liquid.

Also a washing up bowl doesn't break down like an appliance can, and you don't have the initial outlay cost of the appliance.

Coffeekup

TimSynths said:

jimjames said:

TimSynths said:

The other important thing to consider is getting the most energy-efficient appliances. The most energy-efficient fridge-freezer, the LG GBB92MCBAP, costs £40.63 a year to run at the current price cap, according to the consumer group Which? The least efficient fridge it tested, the Hotpoint FFU3D W 1, costs £178.66.

If those numbers are correct then it could make replacing an old fridge freezer a worthwhile option cost wise. Mine is going to likely cost around £350 a year to run after using an energy monitor to check usage. I don't know how much lower the consumption is over winter months when the room will be slightly lower temperature but it's working out as just under 600kWh of energy per year just on the one item.

I've just looked- its £1900 for the fridge freezer. Gulp.

I did a bit of working out a couple of months ago on fridge freezer's (non American style as they use 2-3 times the energy), up to the cost of £1,300 for the appliance. Factoring in the cost of the appliance (at that point in time), a rough shelf life of the appliance and a electric cost of 28p per kWh and a prediction of 44p per kWh for Octobers price cap (at the time).

The cost per year varied from £125 a year to over £250 once you factored in the cost of the appliance and it's rough life expectancy.
Or ranging from £75+ a year to run just in kwh's. Sweet spot's to buy a fridge freezer were super cheap un branded FF"s or ones around £500...
Bosch tended to come out on top.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6367785/fridge-freezer-energy-ratings/p1