how low is your leccy consumption now, this very week..... asking for a friend

rlcoach

Mstty said:

rlcoach said:

We are averaging 21 kWh of electricity a day - what is going on there?

Time for an energy review.

Electric showers, big American type Fridge Freezers, powerful desktops, electric vehicle and using the immersion on your hot water tank are the top guzzlers

I hadn't really looked into it before, I presumed we had been using too much gas and didn't realise it was the electricity that was way over.

I think the electric shower might be an issue, but usage seems consistently high and I would expect it to be more lumpy if the shower was the main culprit. We do have two fridge freezers, and inherited an American type double door freezer which came with the house. I have put an energy monitor on the American fridge freezer and it looks like it is using around 140-180 watts, although used an alarming 1kw for a while when it first got switched on. We have a combi boiler, so shouldn't have anything heating up any water outside of the shower.

Still not seeing what is using all the electricity yet. Will have to go through a process of elimination I guess.

Coffeekup

rlcoach said:

We are averaging 21 kWh of electricity a day - what is going on there?

Only you can answer that, we can help find the issue by suggesting things.

No gas all electrical?
Immersion heater on more than is needed?
Electric shower?
Washing machine tumble dryer on all the time?
American fridge freezer? 
Extra fridges/freezer's/wine coolers in garage?
Old or multiple TV's on for long periods with decoders?
Running a mini bakery or lots of over cooking?
More than 3 young adults/adults in the house?
More than one gaming PC running all day?
There's other things to add however more info from you is needed.

rlcoach

Mstty said:

Got ours consistently at a level that is comfortable and reasonable

Mstty said:

Got ours consistently at a level that is comfortable and reasonable

Wow, what did you do?

rlcoach

Coffeekup said:

rlcoach said:

We are averaging 21 kWh of electricity a day - what is going on there?

Only you can answer that, we can help find the issue by suggesting things.

No gas all electrical?
Immersion heater on more than is needed?
Electric shower?
Washing machine tumble dryer on all the time?
American fridge freezer? 
Extra fridges/freezer's/wine coolers in garage?
Old or multiple TV's on for long periods with decoders?
Running a mini bakery or lots of over cooking?
More than 3 young adults/adults in the house?
More than one gaming PC running all day?
There's other things to add however more info from you is needed.

Sorry, I think I was still in shock with how bad our energy consumption is in comparison to others in this thread.

• House with 5 adults and 1 child
• 2 of us work from home, 2 others home full time
• We have gas for central heating, combi boiler so also for hot water on-demand.
• No immmersion heater.
• Shower is electric and stuck on hot. Looking to get this fixed asap, but think a big job as still need tiles pulling down for access .
• 2 x fridge freezers (1 is a Samsung American style double door fridge freezer that came with the house)
• House tends to split in to 2 groups for mealtimes we tend to have double the cooking in the evenings
• Electric underfloor heating in kitchen, have no idea how much this cost but is still switched off for summer
• Sky q multi-room. Usually 2 separate TVs in the evening
• Most rooms have GU10 lights, and I would guess they are all LED but have yet to check. All the ones I've put in personally have been 5w LED.
• The kitchen lighting consists of 24 GU 10 lights, and is probably in use 5-7 hours functions as a secondary sitting room. 
• Dishwasher (probably showing its age) gets run 1 to 2 times a day
• Washing machine gets used a lot, but the drying cycle is used very infrequently and we plan to use it even less

Have put an energy monitor on the fridge freezers, as of about 6 hours ago. The American one averages 140 watts, the standard one I guess about 30. Early days, but the American big fridge freezer seems to be constantly 140 watts but spikes into 400/500.

Our house seems to idle on around 160 watts in the day without the fridge freezers or anything actively being used. 

I guess the American fridge freezer needs sorting out, the dishwasher could do with replacing and we could do with having the kitchen lighting improved so it doesn't need to be floodlit when not actively being used for cooking.

There seem to be various problems, but is there also something worse at play, for our consumption to be 20kwh+ a day?

At various times in the year we have had only 2 adults at home, neither about much in the day and the energy usage was still at 15 kwh a day. 

Any ideas or suggestions would be very welcome , and please forgive my ignorance with our energy usage we are genuinely committed to getting it sorted as soon as possible.

michaels

I would say you are basically as many consumers as two households so it is not surprising you are using 2 households worth of electricity.

DeeQS

You didn’t say if the 24 bulbs in the kitchen are LED or Halogen.
LED (3.5w x 24 x 5hours) = 420watts
Halaogen (35w x 24 x 5 hours) = 4.2kwh

the dishwasher could be 2kwh per cycle = 4kwh per day.

rlcoach

michaels said:

I would say you are basically as many consumers as two households so it is not surprising you are using 2 households worth of electricity.

That makes a lot of sense and would explain why it should be high even with concessions. However, even on the weeks when there was only 2 adults at home it was 15 kwh a day, which seems excessive?

rlcoach

DeeQS said:

You didn’t say if the 24 bulbs in the kitchen are LED or Halogen.
LED (3.5w x 24 x 5hours) = 420watts
Halaogen (35w x 24 x 5 hours) = 4.2kwh

the dishwasher could be 2kwh per cycle = 4kwh per day.

I would guess they are all LED by now but do need to double-check. When I looked at the smart meter before/after switching the lights on/off, for the kitchen at least, it seemed in keeping with what LED would consume.

rlcoach

DeeQS said:

the dishwasher could be 2kwh per cycle = 4kwh per day.

2kwh! My goodness, I didn't realise it could be so much.

I have the Octopus usage charts, but is difficult to work out over a course of a day how much is spent on the dishwasher, showers, cooking etc. I will look into it

Spies

I always run my dishwasher on 30 min cycle so even if it heated for the whole cycle (which it doesn't) that would only be 1kwh.

The dishwasher tablets I use (finish) actually recommend using the shortest cycle and just throwing the tablet in rather than using the dispensing thing.