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

dunstonh

Have started adding tapo energy monitors to things, so should have a better picture by the weekend.

Now the fun begins.  And probably some shock at certain devices eating more than you think.

Currently, our tumble drier is my quandary.  It is used daily but gives anything from 0.3kWh per day to 1.7kWh per day.  So, my wife is telling me what programmes she is using and how long it is so we can see what causes the difference.   Money wise, it is largely insignificant but getting the figure as low as possible is strangely enjoyable.

rlcoach

Mstty said:

rlcoach said:

After switching off the chest freezer and putting more things in stand by we are down to around 19 kwh at the weekends and 16-18 in the week. We have underfloor heating that will go in winter. Still not tied down what is using most of the electricity and what we can do to reduce it. Seems we used most in the evenings, so probably TVs, lighting and cooking?

I am looking at the Octopus usage charts every day, and despite us working from home all day looks like half the usage is in the evenings (cooking, lighting, TVs etc)

Have started adding tapo energy monitors to things, so should have a better picture by the weekend.

Electric shower?

TV's as well so multiple on around the house maybe with or without extra devices?

Cooking do you cook as one for the family or individual people do their own thing?

Our house is kind of divided into 2 at evening mealtimes, so we have double the cooking. The electric oven and hobs get used a lot. At the weekend there is a lot of cooking, which I think accounts for a lot of the weekend increase.

The electric shower does get used, but probably split between morning and evening.

rlcoach

dunstonh said:

Have started adding tapo energy monitors to things, so should have a better picture by the weekend.

Now the fun begins.  And probably some shock at certain devices eating more than you think.

Currently, our tumble drier is my quandary.  It is used daily but gives anything from 0.3kWh per day to 1.7kWh per day.  So, my wife is telling me what programmes she is using and how long it is so we can see what causes the difference.   Money wise, it is largely insignificant but getting the figure as low as possible is strangely enjoyable.

Yes, I connected the tapos to the Dishwasher and Washer Dryer this morning so quite interested to see what these measure. We use the washing machine a lot, but the dryer I think much less. We have got those Dry:Soon heater airers last weekend, so that we could use that instead of the washer dryer now that its getting harder to dry stuff outside.

At the moment I guess our daily usage is roughly: -

Lighting: <1kwh
Computers+Monitors (Working from home): 1kwh
Fridge Freezer x 2: 3kwh (mostly American fridge freezer we inherited with house)
TVs/AV: 1-2kwh

which leaves over half the usage still unaccounted for.

We could upgrade the fridge/freezer and the dishwasher, and it will make a nice difference but still likely to be pretty high usage. 

Should have a much better idea of what is using the missing bits by the end of the weekend.

RobM99

"Our house is kind of divided into 2 at evening mealtimes, so we have double the cooking. The electric oven and hobs get used a lot. At the weekend there is a lot of cooking, which I think accounts for a lot of the weekend increase."

There's a clue here!

Leon_W

I usually check our meters on a Friday so this past week.......2 people in a detached 3 bed cottage, gas combi for hot water and the heating isn't on yet.

We've used 33kwh of electricity which is an average of 4.71kwh per day.  Or £1.34 per day.

and 4m3 of gas which is roughly 44kwh which is an average of 6.28kwh per day. Or 47p per day.

I don't realistically think we can get much lower than this unless we make "sacrifices" , and by "we" I mean the wife !

maxmycardagain

27 day electric bill total (inc VAT and S/C) - £42

electric used £32

maxmycardagain

lindatoo said:

michaels said:

The curtains are an additional thermal barrier so the radiator heat going to the cold side of that barrier at the coldest time of day is definitely not a winner.

If you look at your summer gas usage that should give you an idea of how much goes on hot water (savings from showers not baths, low flow shower head, consideration of the amount of energy needed to get hot water for washing up etc from a combi) and how much on heating.  Suggestions are use radiator thermostats to only heat the rooms you use when you use them, heat the person (heated electric throw etc) and possibly even use electric room heaters (I prefer oil filled radiators to convection or fan heaters, I think they provide a 'better quality of heat' to keep one room warm rather than the whole house, especially if you are on a cheap electricity fix relative to the current gas price.

But also consider personal circumstance and comfort - do you have other things that give you more pleasure for the saved expenditure?  There are no pockets in a shroud...

I have a large radiator in my hallway which does not have a TRV and I'm fairly sure I can't turn it off either and the engineers who upgraded my heating said something about it being because it is where the thermostat control is (I may have got that wrong) which is why I'm concerned about the draught coming through the front door. To be fair I don't fully understand but I think it might be causing my boiler to have to work harder. Also I have a radiator cover on the hall radiator and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. But either way I'm using a lot of energy heating my hallway and staircase which is obviously not a space that I use much.. I hope this makes sense as I said I'm not as clued up on the subject as I'd like to be.

I have the same issue, to defeat that radiator means turning the wall thermostat down which shuts the boiler off for ALL heating...

Spies

I replaced my wall mounted stat with a wireless one years ago, the actual thermostat lives in the room we spend all our time in. 

maxmycardagain

Spies said:

I replaced my wall mounted stat with a wireless one years ago, the actual thermostat lives in the room we spend all our time in. 

the hallway radiator is the only one without a TRV, cant even shut it off, if it had a TRV i could whack the wall thermostat right up and just set the TRYs to what i want

maxmycardagain

Spies said:

I replaced my wall mounted stat with a wireless one years ago, the actual thermostat lives in the room we spend all our time in. 

that would let my TRV-less hall radiator run wild.... lol