How much power does your house use when nobody's home?

Yorkie006

Hi,
I was interested to see how much electricity is my house using when I'm not home. 
According to the smart meter monitor, when nobody's home (and heating is off), the stuff that is on permanently (fridge-freezer, microwave with digital display, TV on standby) is using 10W every hour. Does that sound about right?
My total usage today (it's now 6pm) so far is 1.08kWh (I've been in most of the day apart from a few hours in the afternoon). How does this compare to other people's usage? Thanks!

Spoonie_Turtle

Slightly different (asks about holiday rather than just being out) but still relevant to your interests: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6383232/how-much-electric-does-your-house-use-when-you-are-away

ariarnia

yes it really depends. our house uses about 2kw a day when theres no one around and we use about 4.5 kw a day annually on average (6 or so in winter and 2/3 in summer) because our house is quite often empty.

you might want to measure more than an hour though. your fridge for example will cycle on and off. 

the national 'average' for a home in use would be about 8kw a day based on 3000kw a year but no one is really the 'average'

SAC2334

Yorkie006 said:

Hi,
I was interested to see how much electricity is my house using when I'm not home. 
According to the smart meter monitor, when nobody's home (and heating is off), the stuff that is on permanently (fridge-freezer, microwave with digital display, TV on standby) is using 10W every hour. Does that sound about right?
My total usage today (it's now 6pm) so far is 1.08kWh (I've been in most of the day apart from a few hours in the afternoon). How does this compare to other people's usage? Thanks!

Since I started to take notice of cut backs a couple of months ago I been using 4 kwh s a day . Gas has been steady at 1 kwh a day for the last few months .

So far my GCH has nt been used  this autumn as I was trying to get into November before opening the gas kwh floodgates with a 28 kwh boiler into a detached bungalow .

After getting soaked through on a long walk today I m cracking and its going on tonight .
Nationwide Bank have just given me £200 ( MSE banking and saving for info ) to switch to them from Santander  so that little freebie will go into my gas account and help pay my 8000 gas kwh s a year.

dunstonh

Background use is 84wh.      That is lighting for the stable block, electric gate and alarm, main router, sky Q box and F/F.

Current daily use is around 44kWh.   39kWH of that is down to the AGA.  The other 5kWh is down to three PCs, printer, scanner, mesh router extender and 6 monitors in the office, lighting and evening TV use.  The oil boiler draws some when fired up, which will impact over the colder months.

jrawle

Yorkie006 said:

Hi,
I was interested to see how much electricity is my house using when I'm not home. 
According to the smart meter monitor, when nobody's home (and heating is off), the stuff that is on permanently (fridge-freezer, microwave with digital display, TV on standby) is using 10W every hour. Does that sound about right?
My total usage today (it's now 6pm) so far is 1.08kWh (I've been in most of the day apart from a few hours in the afternoon). How does this compare to other people's usage? Thanks!

Is 10W the instantaneous reading from your smart meter's IHD (rather than an hourly total, which would be in kWh)?

10W is excellent, as is only 1.08 kWh usage by 6pm. I consider myself to be a light user, but even so my background usage when the fridge compressor isn't running is around 20W, and my daily usage is a bit under 4 kWh.

magickmagpie

When I was away (in summer) for a long weekend, my energy usage was around 2 - 2.5 KWh per day. The only things that were left on were a fridge and a freezer, plus the pump that gets the water up from the borehole that serves my house, my neighbours and a cattle drinker in a field (I live on a farm). My freezer is 16 years old and probably not the best in terms of efficiency. I'd guess that the fridge and freezer had to work a bit harder as it was summer - and the cattle probably drank more too!! It will be interesting to see if how much the usage falls in winter if I go away - the cattle will be gone into their sheds and the fridge and freezer will have an easier time of it as well.

[Deleted User]

I fear that you might be looking at your IHD when your fridge-freezer is in standby mode. It will switch on and off as required to maintain the two set temperatures. This will require a lot more energy than 10W. 

The best way to determine your average baseload is to look at usage over a period of time.

Mstty

2.5-2.6kwh a day running a fridge freezer, a seperate shed freezer, router with 5 nest cubes around the house, 5 Alexa's always on 2 the show LCD ones. Various smart plugs on standby and house alarm.

mandarin6

Having read this thread and the link re holiday use we have been trying to find out what is using background electricity.  We moved into a small semi 10 months ago (2 person household) no garage or utility, very few appliances and no gas ch (oil). Our background usage showed 282 wph with all plugs disconnected including tv and router. According to our latest energy statement we use on average 4.5kw pd which I think is high. We switched everything off ( Boiler, FF WM, outside lights) but left smoke alarm fuse on and it showed 135w background usage. Any ideas what is consuming electric?

Spoonie_Turtle

mandarin6 said:

Having read this thread and the link re holiday use we have been trying to find out what is using background electricity.  We moved into a small semi 10 months ago (2 person household) no garage or utility, very few appliances and no gas ch (oil). Our background usage showed 282 wph with all plugs disconnected including tv and router. According to our latest energy statement we use on average 4.5kw pd which I think is high. We switched everything off ( Boiler, FF WM, outside lights) but left smoke alarm fuse on and it showed 135w background usage. Any ideas what is consuming electric?

Oven, electric shower, extractor fan, something unexpected in the attic?