11,000 kw pa - Help with Electric Usage Audit

Noble1001

[Deleted User] said:

Noble1001 said:

By way of an update, https://1drv.ms/x/s!AkDR2ydIzZNHg6tAjHuWxVXQBPwiKA?e=3haqaO

I have carried out a pretty extensive cost inventory of household appliances, items etc and have also compared my options with Octopus. It has been illuminating to say the least. (The cost per KW is as per Oct 1st rates). Key drivers are the Electric Range Cooker (although annual usage is an estimate) along with other obvious culprits however the Pond Pump and the two Fishtanks (step sons lifelong hobby) are big contributors. No escaping...we just have alot of 'stuff'...sot it really comes down to choices....an over above average bill or stop using as much 'stuff'. I am still considering Octopus however I want to drive our day to day usage down first to then compare and contrast...given the savings will be reduced in pure money terms. Sept is already looking encourging with our lowest usage year to date. 
Thanks for all your tips and guidance.

Of your £4000pa bill, over £1200 is fish tanks and pond?  Wow.

I know nothing about aquatics, is there something you can do to reduce that (I see from your comment that 'getting rid' is not a plausible option)?

Thanks SparkyGrad,
we can get a new Pond Pump which will more than half the enery usage so that's a winner. I have yet to see what we can do about the fishtanks as they both use, light, pumps and heat....it's more expensive than I ever considered however (as stated) they are my step sons lifelong hobby...(tricky)!

Noble1001

badger09 said:

Noble1001 said:

By way of an update, https://1drv.ms/x/s!AkDR2ydIzZNHg6tAjHuWxVXQBPwiKA?e=3haqaO

I have carried out a pretty extensive cost inventory of household appliances, items etc and have also compared my options with Octopus. It has been illuminating to say the least. (The cost per KW is as per Oct 1st rates). Key drivers are the Electric Range Cooker (although annual usage is an estimate) along with other obvious culprits however the Pond Pump and the two Fishtanks (step sons lifelong hobby) are big contributors. No escaping...we just have alot of 'stuff'...sot it really comes down to choices....an over above average bill or stop using as much 'stuff'. I am still considering Octopus however I want to drive our day to day usage down first to then compare and contrast...given the savings will be reduced in pure money terms. Sept is already looking encourging with our lowest usage year to date. 
Thanks for all your tips and guidance.

Thanks for the update. That’s a very impressive spreadsheet. 

I assume you don’t have Smart Meters. We had ours installed yesterday and the results are already quite illuminating😉 

Good luck with your ‘choices’ and please update your thread 

Thanks Badger,
we have smart meters but not as in-house display monitor so I am dependent on the BG App and the various day/half hour charts etc. I am monitoring actual usage using a plug monitor...this is an ongoing process.

Alnat1

Hopefully your step-son is a working adult who can pay for what he uses?

If he's younger, maybe it's time to tell him his hobby is too expensive and he has to choose indoor or outdoor fish, not both.

Mister_G

OP, I sympathise.

I have a large outdoor Koi pond which chews through 1300kWh per year.

However, we get great pleasure from it and would certainly not get rid of it.

BooJewels

Noble1001 said:

By way of an update, https://1drv.ms/x/s!AkDR2ydIzZNHg6tAjHuWxVXQBPwiKA?e=3haqaO

I have carried out a pretty extensive cost inventory of household appliances, items etc and have also compared my options with Octopus. It has been illuminating to say the least. (The cost per KW is as per Oct 1st rates). Key drivers are the Electric Range Cooker (although annual usage is an estimate) along with other obvious culprits however the Pond Pump and the two Fishtanks (step sons lifelong hobby) are big contributors. No escaping...we just have alot of 'stuff'...sot it really comes down to choices....an over above average bill or stop using as much 'stuff'. I am still considering Octopus however I want to drive our day to day usage down first to then compare and contrast...given the savings will be reduced in pure money terms. Sept is already looking encourging with our lowest usage year to date. 
Thanks for all your tips and guidance.

I looked earlier on my tablet and the spreadsheet was truncated, so I'm looking now on a desktop monitor.  I can't fathom out quite how your lighting works out - you appear to have lights on for only a few minutes per day?

Your hallway light is on for 4.8 minutes per day - similar on the landing - 160 watts, but on for less than 5 minutes a day.  The bathroom sounds about right at 2 hours per day, but the others don't appear to be plausible - 9 minutes for the bedroom light, yet the TV on for an hour?  If that's what you actually use, then fair enough, but at a glance, they jumped out at me with some being high wattage, but on very little.  Mine would be the opposite - low wattage but on a lot more.

Noble1001

BooJewels said:

Noble1001 said:

By way of an update, https://1drv.ms/x/s!AkDR2ydIzZNHg6tAjHuWxVXQBPwiKA?e=3haqaO

I have carried out a pretty extensive cost inventory of household appliances, items etc and have also compared my options with Octopus. It has been illuminating to say the least. (The cost per KW is as per Oct 1st rates). Key drivers are the Electric Range Cooker (although annual usage is an estimate) along with other obvious culprits however the Pond Pump and the two Fishtanks (step sons lifelong hobby) are big contributors. No escaping...we just have alot of 'stuff'...sot it really comes down to choices....an over above average bill or stop using as much 'stuff'. I am still considering Octopus however I want to drive our day to day usage down first to then compare and contrast...given the savings will be reduced in pure money terms. Sept is already looking encourging with our lowest usage year to date. 
Thanks for all your tips and guidance.

I looked earlier on my tablet and the spreadsheet was truncated, so I'm looking now on a desktop monitor.  I can't fathom out quite how your lighting works out - you appear to have lights on for only a few minutes per day?

Your hallway light is on for 4.8 minutes per day - similar on the landing - 160 watts, but on for less than 5 minutes a day.  The bathroom sounds about right at 2 hours per day, but the others don't appear to be plausible - 9 minutes for the bedroom light, yet the TV on for an hour?  If that's what you actually use, then fair enough, but at a glance, they jumped out at me with some being high wattage, but on very little.  Mine would be the opposite - low wattage but on a lot more.

Thanks for the observations,
please bear in mind that the minutes per day is an average every day for the whole year so, the Landing lights is a cluster of 8 lights at 20 watts per light bulb and is barely used in in the summer and is only on whilst we walk up th stairs in the Winter. We have and use bedside lights in the bedroom so the main light is barely used. Hope this helps explain patterns of use.

Simplicity77

need to replace those 20w light bulbs to 5w LED ones. 
So last week I read just standby items will cost you up to £400 if electric rates are at 40p per kwh
I guess your Americano fridge will guzzling power the American way and coupled with your comprehensive list that's a whopping £800-1000 just for night time standby and fridge/freezer.

Good luck finding the cost savings.

BooJewels

Noble1001 said:

BooJewels said:

Noble1001 said:

By way of an update, https://1drv.ms/x/s!AkDR2ydIzZNHg6tAjHuWxVXQBPwiKA?e=3haqaO

I have carried out a pretty extensive cost inventory of household appliances, items etc and have also compared my options with Octopus. It has been illuminating to say the least. (The cost per KW is as per Oct 1st rates). Key drivers are the Electric Range Cooker (although annual usage is an estimate) along with other obvious culprits however the Pond Pump and the two Fishtanks (step sons lifelong hobby) are big contributors. No escaping...we just have alot of 'stuff'...sot it really comes down to choices....an over above average bill or stop using as much 'stuff'. I am still considering Octopus however I want to drive our day to day usage down first to then compare and contrast...given the savings will be reduced in pure money terms. Sept is already looking encourging with our lowest usage year to date. 
Thanks for all your tips and guidance.

I looked earlier on my tablet and the spreadsheet was truncated, so I'm looking now on a desktop monitor.  I can't fathom out quite how your lighting works out - you appear to have lights on for only a few minutes per day?

Your hallway light is on for 4.8 minutes per day - similar on the landing - 160 watts, but on for less than 5 minutes a day.  The bathroom sounds about right at 2 hours per day, but the others don't appear to be plausible - 9 minutes for the bedroom light, yet the TV on for an hour?  If that's what you actually use, then fair enough, but at a glance, they jumped out at me with some being high wattage, but on very little.  Mine would be the opposite - low wattage but on a lot more.

Thanks for the observations,
please bear in mind that the minutes per day is an average every day for the whole year so, the Landing lights is a cluster of 8 lights at 20 watts per light bulb and is barely used in in the summer and is only on whilst we walk up th stairs in the Winter. We have and use bedside lights in the bedroom so the main light is barely used. Hope this helps explain patterns of use.

I figured those were the likely uses, my own bedroom main light barely gets used, as I have a lamp and display lights in shelving - but you don't show any bedside lamps in either your master bedroom or Chris's bedroom.

dunstonh

Well done on the spreadsheet and your monitoring to date.    Here are a couple of pointers we did which could apply to you.

I put my sky mini-boxes and soundbar onto tapo plugs.   And turn them off with that so they don't stay and standby.   All but one of the TVs are OLED.  So, I cant turn those off but standby uses virtually nothing.  The other TV is LED and is turned off with the sky mini via a tapo.   The main sky box remains in standby as you need the recording ability.

PC and all the associated hardware plugged into a tapo.  

Router - main one stays on but satellite routers (mesh network) plugged into tapo and turned off when not in use.

LED lights.     Most of the cheap Chinese ones via amazon were replaced with Philips ones which had greater luminance at a lower wattage.  i.e. the Phillips 2.2w LEDs output more light than the Chinese 4 & 6 watt LEDs (and the frosted Phillips version hides the horrible yellow strips and gives a nicer light)

Dishwasher - initially used the eco mode on our old machine. It extended the time but it used a lot less energy.  But we bought a new dishwasher that took the savings even further.
Replaced American F/F with the most energy efficient American F/F on the market today.     Your F/F is not too bad if its an American F/F but if its a smaller, that may be something to consider.  Your garage freezer seems heavy.

Replacing (still in progress) fluorescent tubes in the stable block and other barns with LED tubes.
Reduced outside lighting and changed to LED.

 

Noble1001

dunstonh said:

Well done on the spreadsheet and your monitoring to date.    Here are a couple of pointers we did which could apply to you.

I put my sky mini-boxes and soundbar onto tapo plugs.   And turn them off with that so they don't stay and standby.   All but one of the TVs are OLED.  So, I cant turn those off but standby uses virtually nothing.  The other TV is LED and is turned off with the sky mini via a tapo.   The main sky box remains in standby as you need the recording ability.

PC and all the associated hardware plugged into a tapo.  

Router - main one stays on but satellite routers (mesh network) plugged into tapo and turned off when not in use.

LED lights.     Most of the cheap Chinese ones via amazon were replaced with Philips ones which had greater luminance at a lower wattage.  i.e. the Phillips 2.2w LEDs output more light than the Chinese 4 & 6 watt LEDs (and the frosted Phillips version hides the horrible yellow strips and gives a nicer light)

Dishwasher - initially used the eco mode on our old machine. It extended the time but it used a lot less energy.  But we bought a new dishwasher that took the savings even further.
Replaced American F/F with the most energy efficient American F/F on the market today.     Your F/F is not too bad if its an American F/F but if its a smaller, that may be something to consider.  Your garage freezer seems heavy.

Replacing (still in progress) fluorescent tubes in the stable block and other barns with LED tubes.
Reduced outside lighting and changed to LED.

 

Thanks so much for taking the time out to list all your learnings and actions. I’ll wade thru and see what would fit. We have Alexa plugs and looks like I’ll be ordering more. Re the TV…can you clarify why you think you can’t turn your OLED TV off standby? I have my OLED on an Alexa plug? Cheers