Relatively High Electricity Usage

Myrrhman

Pretty sure it's the shower coupled with my unrealistic expectations.

Thanks all for your responses, they're much appreciated. 

Mstty

Don't forget there is a 10oC difference between mains water in summer and winter so an electric shower will also use more power this time of year to heat up.

deano2099

Myrrhman said:

[Deleted User] said:

228 kWh in a month isn't 60% over average.  It's actually 5% below a typical October usage.

The 228 was last month after the girls had gone back to uni, the 60% was the yearly summary. July to August was 393 kwh! 

The average is for a house occupied by 2.2 people. So when you have 2 people your usage is slightly slower, and when you have 70% more people it's 60% higher! Sounds about right.
Bear in mind if you're not using electricity for heating, not leaving all the lights on constantly, and not running anything else odd that's always on and high usage, your electricity usage is likely to be more a factor of the number of people than the size of the house. 

badger09

Myrrhman said:

victor2 said:

Myrrhman said:

theoretica said:

Electric shower?

Yes but we're careful with usage. 

The electric shower is the obvious explanation. If you want to know what it's using, take a meter reading before and after a shower, then again the same number of minutes later to establish a baseline. That will give you an idea what a typical shower uses. If it's a 9KW shower and you run it for 10 minutes, that will account for 1.5kWh. Your usage is not excessive, but if you really want to home in on what uses electricity, that is a way to establish what big appliances that don't run off a standard mains plug can use.

Pretty sure you're right, it used around 1 kwh in 5 minutes. It would explain why we had usage of 393 kwh in August, my eldest was taking 3 20-minute showers per day. 

When she's back from uni for Christmas, she'd better be prepared to stink. 😂

Many thanks for the advice. 

3 x 20 minute showers a day😨. That’s 12kWh every day. Unless she’s prepared to pay around £5 for the privilege, I’d suggest restricting to 1 x 10 mins max. 

Can you run any showers off your CH boiler? 

Apodemus

Mstty said:

Don't forget there is a 10oC difference between mains water in summer and winter so an electric shower will also use more power this time of year to heat up.

Only if you had changed the setting to "eco" or somesuch for the summer and had now changed it back. Most (all?) electric showers adjust the flow rate to reach the required temperature rather than the modulating the heating input. The shower will simply give a much reduced flow-rate as the incoming water temperature drops to winter temps. Hopefully the OP's daughter won't similarly adjust up the showering time to the same total water use!

FreeBear

I'm using around 150KWh per month, but this increased to 172KWh in October. Had a new person move in with me at the end of September, so the increase wasn't unexpected.

RelievedSheff

For 2 of us in a 3 bed detached our monthly electric use is usually around 200kWh.

Have been pleasantly surprised that this month we have only used 175kWh. Not sure how as we have not done anything different. 

Perhaps the cooler temperatures have meant that the garage freezer isn't working so hard?

[Deleted User]

deano2099 said:

Myrrhman said:

Deleted_User said:

228 kWh in a month isn't 60% over average.  It's actually 5% below a typical October usage.

The 228 was last month after the girls had gone back to uni, the 60% was the yearly summary. July to August was 393 kwh! 

The average is for a house occupied by 2.2 people. 

Yeah, it really isn't.

Here isn't the place for that discussion though.