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

Mstty

rlcoach said:

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.

Most regulars that are into their energy saving would say yes you can cut some costs if you want to and without prying too much do all adults contribute to the bills. If so and everyone is happy with the cost and they don't want to reduce convenience in life then that's fine. If there is a passion for a bit of energy saving from.everyone buy in is key and I am sure you could all save enough each week for a couple of bottles of wine.

QrizB

rlcoach said:

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 .

Don't worry too much about this. In my experience instantaneous electric showers need to run on "hot" for about 2/3rds of the year; it's only in the summer months that the incoming supply is warm enough that you can get away with using the low power setting.

Just keep showers short.

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.

If the American fridge-freezer is averaging 140 watts, that's 3.3kWh/day, 1200kWh/yr, about £420-worth. 15% of your daily energy use just there.

tux900

michaels said:

Does anyone run a monitor for working from home, how much does it consume? Mine is on the old side (24 inch, 1980x1200) and pulls 65w - are newer ones appreciably more economical?

They might well be. I've got a 34" Samsung ultra-widescreen (3440x1440) and it draws a fairly consistent 28W on standard settings.

ossie48

Something I've addressed to dig into my annual 6000kwh usage...my PC is a gaming PC, large graphics card, processor and fans pumping cool air in and hot air out. I can't measure but this box is probably chugging along at 100/ 150w according to research and thats not at full load (It has a 750w power supply) 

Its used 99% of the time for web browsing - I'm retired so it can very from 4-12 hours a day. Its off now, I had a 7w intel mini PC spare from my wifes home working and that's now connected....no noise, no heat. Obviously I'm going to miss the gaming PC heating the lounge but I'm expecting to see at least 1-2 Kw taken off that daily bill. 

I'm also hoping the air fryer will pay for itself. 

Octupus have just projected my monthly direct debits at £230 - I can cope with that, down from £270 but up from £130 12 months back. 

dunstonh

Still..AGA, the whole idea of it is mind boggling and you'd have to be millionaire not to care about that kind of usage

I still care about that level of usage despite my worth.   However, it seems largely irrelevant now as Eco 7 rates appear to be heavily discounting the night rate more than ever, making the AGA dirt cheap to run.  As low as 6.9p per KWH. That equates to just £18.83 per week.  That actually makes it comparable to a lot of people's conventional ovens.

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

For summer?  if so, you are using way above the average.  So, it suggests you could save energy.  (we were using 18kWh a day in Summer and a bit of investigation using energy monitors allowed us to bring it down to under 10kWh a day)

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.

For us, it was:

1. American FF using about 3kWh a day.  So, new one to replace it (Samsung C rated, which is the best you can get in terms of energy at the moment)  and that uses 0.72kWh a day. 
2. Dishwasher using about 2.5kWh a day. Replaced it with energy efficient one using eco programme. It uses barely anything now. It takes 5 hours to wash and dry but doesnt need the high heat.  Short programmes need quicker heat and use far more energy.
   
3. devices on standby.  Individually, not a big saving but across everything together, it was getting upto 100w running. Some settings on the TV (such as ability to turn on using a mobile device) were burning 17w in standby.  Sky mini boxes were heavy in standby (leave the main one on but the mini ones get turned off when not in use now).  About 1.5kWh a day approx.
   
4. We were pretty good with LED lights already but I replaced the older LEDs which were around 11-12w with more modern ones. I also replaced the al cheapo ones from Amazon with Philips LEDs.    The cheapo ones were beginning to fail after 4 years, almost one after the other.  The Philips ones are more expensive but their luminance is greater at a lower wattage.  i.e. the 6w cheapo ones were less bright than the Philips 2w ones.  Philips should last logner.
5. External lighting turned off and only used when necessary.   We had dusk/dawn lighting and significant outside lighting on a timer. That is now turned off and only put on when necessary.  We still have to keep the stable block lit but I replaced lighting with LEDs there, and I still have a number of fluorescent tubes to replace.
6. Microwave was using 37w just sitting there.  Now off at the plug.

I am still finding the tumble drier is a big use.  Around 1.7kWh a day.  We are currently testing programmes to see which actually  works and uses less energy (some programmes are next to useless whilst some are overkill).  We have a tapo P110 smart plug in that to monitor the differences.

None of our heating is on electric, and we have a 10 acre site with stables, electric horse walkers and an office that runs three computers all day and more and we were using 2kWh a day less than you.  So, you need to identify what is eating your electricity. Its all a learning process.    TP Link Tapo plugs made the job a lot easier.

rlcoach

dunstonh said:

Still..AGA, the whole idea of it is mind boggling and you'd have to be millionaire not to care about that kind of usage

I still care about that level of usage despite my worth.   However, it seems largely irrelevant now as Eco 7 rates appear to be heavily discounting the night rate more than ever, making the AGA dirt cheap to run.  As low as 6.9p per KWH. That equates to just £18.83 per week.  That actually makes it comparable to a lot of people's conventional ovens.

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

For summer?  if so, you are using way above the average.  So, it suggests you could save energy.  (we were using 18kWh a day in Summer and a bit of investigation using energy monitors allowed us to bring it down to under 10kWh a day)

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.

For us, it was:

1. American FF using about 3kWh a day.  So, new one to replace it (Samsung C rated, which is the best you can get in terms of energy at the moment)  and that uses 0.72kWh a day. 
2. Dishwasher using about 2.5kWh a day. Replaced it with energy efficient one using eco programme. It uses barely anything now. It takes 5 hours to wash and dry but doesnt need the high heat.  Short programmes need quicker heat and use far more energy.
   
3. devices on standby.  Individually, not a big saving but across everything together, it was getting upto 100w running. Some settings on the TV (such as ability to turn on using a mobile device) were burning 17w in standby.  Sky mini boxes were heavy in standby (leave the main one on but the mini ones get turned off when not in use now).  About 1.5kWh a day approx.
   
4. We were pretty good with LED lights already but I replaced the older LEDs which were around 11-12w with more modern ones. I also replaced the al cheapo ones from Amazon with Philips LEDs.    The cheapo ones were beginning to fail after 4 years, almost one after the other.  The Philips ones are more expensive but their luminance is greater at a lower wattage.  i.e. the 6w cheapo ones were less bright than the Philips 2w ones.  Philips should last logner.
5. External lighting turned off and only used when necessary.   We had dusk/dawn lighting and significant outside lighting on a timer. That is now turned off and only put on when necessary.  We still have to keep the stable block lit but I replaced lighting with LEDs there, and I still have a number of fluorescent tubes to replace.
6. Microwave was using 37w just sitting there.  Now off at the plug.

I am still finding the tumble drier is a big use.  Around 1.7kWh a day.  We are currently testing programmes to see which actually  works and uses less energy (some programmes are next to useless whilst some are overkill).  We have a tapo P110 smart plug in that to monitor the differences.

None of our heating is on electric, and we have a 10 acre site with stables, electric horse walkers and an office that runs three computers all day and more and we were using 2kWh a day less than you.  So, you need to identify what is eating your electricity. Its all a learning process.    TP Link Tapo plugs made the job a lot easier.

Thanks so much for this, that is such a helpful list and nice to see you had similar usage and even similar problems and managed to bring it down to much better levels. Funnily enough I have got the TP Link plugs which I currently have connected to the fridge freezers at the moment, and will then move on to other potential problem areas.

I don't think I have any halogen lights, but I never considered I might have less energy efficient ones. We have SO MANY GU10 bulbs, I think I will just swap out all the old ones for the amazon ones.

I am going to walk my way through the list, and chip away until we have sensible energy bills.

Miser1964

I earn a decent wage but am certainly not thinking these capped unit rates are OK and it's 'business as usual'. Been adopting all the guidance on combi boiler optimisations to get into condensing mode etc. plus further insulation. 

Robgmun

michaels said:

Robgmun said:

michaels said:

Robgmun said:

Chrysalis said:

Crazy how variable things are, on another forum many have daily usage at about 20 kWh a day and they consider my usage tiny, but then my usage seems high compared to those posting 3 kWh a day.

My daily average is 6-7 kWh a day.

The difference is that most normal non-MSE people aren't obsessed about saving money like we are and 20 kWh was pretty common. I know because I was one of them. Once I started to take notice a month ago it went from an average of 20 down to about 8-10 without impacting our daily lives.

I could go lower but that would mean much bigger changes that would we'd find reduces our comfort. We're pretty happy with where we are now

Would be really interested in how you achieved that, we are big users but I can't see any big savings that are not also big lifestyle changes

3 Main ways. 

1) Changed all the remaining light bulbs to LED, we had a couple of Halogen blub up-lighters that were consuming 220W each. We threw them out and replaced them with equivalent LED up-lighters that were virtually the same in every way giving off the same amount of light and warm temp, they're only pulling 20w each.

2) Everything is now on smart plugs so no more things on standby. Swapped my office desktop PC that was pulling 130w when on with a laptop that only pulls 65w when charging. And i'm not charging it all the time

3) And a big one, Switched off the immersion heater for the water tank. That was consuming about 6khw per day on it's own. It was a waste of energy because the water tank was keeping the water hot enough anyway. Only need the gas on for 60-90mins a day for every one (4 of us at the moment) to have nice hot showers and do the dishes etc 

Does anyone run a monitor for working from home, how much does it consume? Mine is on the old side (24 inch, 1980x1200) and pulls 65w - are newer ones appreciably more economical? (So about 130w with the laptop as well)

Mine is a gaming monitor (27" 1440p) but it's only pulling about 30w. It's probably because I'm pretty photosensitive so i have the brightness set way down on my screen including the TV otherwise it hurts my eyes

Robgmun

rlcoach said:

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.

Got to be honest, after reading all those facts, I'm surprised you're only getting away with 20KWh!!

Spoonie_Turtle

Robgmun said:

rlcoach said:

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.

Got to be honest, after reading all those facts, I'm surprised you're only getting away with 20KWh!!

So am I!  Our average from monthly meter readings works out around 20/day in the summer and we don't have half those causes.  I have a suspicion what the culprits are, including fridge and freezers (though the fridge is hardwired in for some reason so we can't use the energy monitor on it, but it is really old so a prime suspect) plus electric shower (though this year using it on the eco setting whenever it's warm enough to) - but we use the slow cooker and air fryer more than the oven, all eat at the same time, no Sky or any other boxes, normal single bulbs (LED and CFL) for lighting not spotlights, dishwasher and washine machine run every few days, etc.

[I have ideas from several other high usage threads though, and armed with a plug-in monitor, so not looking for advice just at the moment.]