Help to warm house and understand

RuBy

I’ve got a quiet morning so far so can pop up boiler pics.

RuBy

I’m presuming standing charge goes on not smart meter overnight as I always come down to £1.04p. So that would make my usage approx £4/£4.50 a day without standing charge.
Again thanks for the invaluable help.

BUFF

do you have any photos of the controller/room 'stat?

RobM99

Could you turn the hot water (tap) down? 

badger09

So many helpful suggestions, hope you don’t mind if I add one. What temp are you washing at? Unless you need to do 2 hot washes every day, have you tried washing @ 30? My quick wash @ 30 in 10+ year old Zanussi costs about 50% of a 40 wash. An extra spin means they dry quicker too. I did try 20 but results weren’t great. 

Good luck

BooJewels

Funny that you should mention that @badger09 I was going to post something similar.  I've had my Tapo energy monitor on my washing machine and done some comparisons.

I have habitually used the quick wash facility at 40°C (I didn't feel 30°C got them clean enough), but the first time I did this whilst monitoring it, I realised it had only just got the water to temperature and then started emptying to start rinsing.  The only time it was actually washing, was the time it spent heating the water. 

So next load I dropped the temperature to 30°C, but knocked the quick wash off (at the suggestion of someone in another thread).  It took a bit longer of course (total cycle about 100 mins), but a lot more time was spent actually washing the items - it spends between 46 and 53 minutes actually washing and used around 0.42kWh of electricity for the cycle - about 14p.  The quick wash at 40°C spent only 21 minutes actually washing and used 0.544kWh - a bit over 18p.  So not a massive saving electricity wise - but with 2 washes a day it would be over £2.50 per month and you'd perhaps get better results as your laundry is getting more washing - a bit of an in-machine soak.

I too am an advocate of extra spins and can verify (by weighing items) that it definitely gets more water out.

ETA: obviously the numbers above are specific to my machine, water input temp etc.

RuBy

Just an update on my situation.

UW had the wrong start reading for me and after photos of my outside meter were uploaded they have credited me back, so my gas account is £400+ in credit, electricity £150+. They still obviously take my dd which is £280.

Ive been putting heating on 18 degrees for 9 hours a day and with standing charge my combined usage is £8.50 a day max.

Which is less than my dd, so the chill is out the house, it’s comfortable. And I’m fortunate to have £550+ in credit so should get through winter without any debt.

I still only heat lounge, hall and 1 kitchen radiator. I still do washing and drying daily.


hot water bottle in bed and extra blankets on winter duvet keep bedroom surprisingly cosy.

Thank you all for your tips to navigate this, it took a bit of trial and error to work out what way to do it and for me heating left on at 18 for most of day worked out more economical.

Mstty

MattMattMattUK said:

RobM99 said:

Do you (plural) run a gaming PC? They are surprisingly power-hungry! Could be ½KwH which astonished me!

Mine can reach 700w draw at full pelt (1,000w PSU), but only when either running a high end ray traced game, or encoding video after editing, at idle it is around 120w, even in a normal game it will not get over 450w. So high end gaming PCs can use a lot, but they often use less overall than people think. 

However for the OP to put 450w into perspective.

That can be enough to keep an ASHP flow temp to 30oC as we measured in late October early November which kept the house at 19oC all round.

Let's move from that before someone tells us how many kettles that will boil to playing 3 hours a day on average at 300w equates to £115 a year. From April approx £138 a year

Just incase this is an area that could be cut down. 

SensibleSarah

RuBy said:

Just an update on my situation.

UW had the wrong start reading for me and after photos of my outside meter were uploaded they have credited me back, so my gas account is £400+ in credit, electricity £150+. They still obviously take my dd which is £280.

Ive been putting heating on 18 degrees for 9 hours a day and with standing charge my combined usage is £8.50 a day max.

Which is less than my dd, so the chill is out the house, it’s comfortable. And I’m fortunate to have £550+ in credit so should get through winter without any debt.

I still only heat lounge, hall and 1 kitchen radiator. I still do washing and drying daily.


hot water bottle in bed and extra blankets on winter duvet keep bedroom surprisingly cosy.

Thank you all for your tips to navigate this, it took a bit of trial and error to work out what way to do it and for me heating left on at 18 for most of day worked out more economical.

Great update! Glad that you've found something that works for you and your daughter and can be budgeted for. Your current usage looks well within what you're paying monthly by DD and you have a great buffer with the credit too. 

Herbyme

Do you have eco programs on your washing machine? They use much less electricity and water. They take a really long time but you might be able to plan around that. HTH 🙂