Energy usage too high

TP78

Are the annual usage figures based on old behaviours i.e. is it possible that your new behaviours (heating for 5 hours etc.) haven't yet made their way on to your annual projections?

[Deleted User]

SuzeQStan said:

RelievedSheff said:

carlin76 said:

Thank you, we have electric under floor heating in the loft conversion and the bathroom but no other high energy devices I’m aware of 

You definitely do have something that is sapping energy at an alarming rate somewhere.

The average UK home uses around 2700kWh of electric for comparison. You are using 4 times that.

4 bed detached is always going to use more than an ‘average’ property on all energy fronts. 

I live in a 4 bed detached and use below the typical on both gas and electric.  About 2300kWh electric and 10500kWh gas.

dunstonh

Last year I lived in a large detached house year and used 26000kWh of gas, so @carlin76's 33000kWh isn't shocking. The real issue as others have said, is the enormous 10812kWh of electricity, which will be costing nearly £4000 under the energy price guarantee.

10812 kWh is not enormous.  It is high but we use 16443 kWh over a year on electricity (central heating with oil).  I know we are a large user but managed to reduce our use this year by around 30% by finding out the "leakage" of standby items or wasteful items and using tapo P110 plugs and replacing heavy use items.

SuzeQStan

[Deleted User] said:

I live in a 4 bed detached and use below the typical on both gas and electric.  About 2300kWh electric and 10500kWh gas.

That’s amazing @[Deleted User] - but it’s been said on so many times on MSE forum that declaring ‘mine is more / less than yours’ can be less than helpful. As is the ‘average useage’  figure which is truly applicable to no one as it’s an average. 

no two will ever be the same. We can only do our best to make improvements and live within our means. And hopefully gain good ideas on these threads. Constructive ideas.

OP - please keep us updated on how you get on - there are lots of better brains than mine on these forums who will provide advice and help.

redbuzzard

Until it was destroyed by fire in 2019 we had a 1950's 3 bed bungalow and I looked up the old bills the other day.  We used 27000 kWh of gas for heating (gas Rayburn, the type with a Potterton gas boiler inside plus the oven burner) and 7000kWh of electricity.

That said it was a very draughty house.  I don't think I quite appreciated at the time just how bad that was in energy terms.

Block all the holes up, make sure the loft is properly insulated.  Convert to LED lights if you haven't already.  If you have an old boiler there will be savings in replacing it.  Are any parts of your house overheated?  Do you have TRVs on your radiators?

[Deleted User]

SuzeQStan said:

Deleted_User said:

I live in a 4 bed detached and use below the typical on both gas and electric.  About 2300kWh electric and 10500kWh gas.

That’s amazing @[Deleted User] - but it’s been said on so many times on MSE forum that declaring ‘mine is more / less than yours’ can be less than helpful. As is the ‘average useage’  figure which is truly applicable to no one as it’s an average. 

no two will ever be the same. We can only do our best to make improvements and live within our means. And hopefully gain good ideas on these threads. Constructive ideas.

OP - please keep us updated on how you get on - there are lots of better brains than mine on these forums who will provide advice and help.

Exactly as you say - the typical is unlikely to be right for anyone.

In the same vein, it is not particularly useful to bite back at other posters that suggest the OP has high usage and make blanket statements like "4 bed detached is always going to use more than an ‘average’ property on all energy fronts."  It's clearly incorrect, as my information points out, and could just encourage someone with high consumption to think "well, it's just because of my house and I can't do anything about it".

Surely its much more of a "constructive idea" to acknowledge that the usage is high, and to help the OP work out why it is so and what they can do about it?

Spoonie_Turtle

dunstonh said:

Last year I lived in a large detached house year and used 26000kWh of gas, so @carlin76's 33000kWh isn't shocking. The real issue as others have said, is the enormous 10812kWh of electricity, which will be costing nearly £4000 under the energy price guarantee.

10812 kWh is not enormous.  It is high but we use 16443 kWh over a year on electricity (central heating with oil).  I know we are a large user but managed to reduce our use this year by around 30% by finding out the "leakage" of standby items or wasteful items and using tapo P110 plugs and replacing heavy use items.

Isn't it?  That's more than we're on track to use for the entire year, all-electric including heating and hot water.  Granted ours is a smaller house (3-bed, and semi-detached) and ASHP for heat/water, but still!  And unlike many on the forum we don't have new, energy-efficient appliances or cut down usage to the bare minimum (as shown by the 9-10k figure).

xeny

dunstonh said:

Last year I lived in a large detached house year and used 26000kWh of gas, so @carlin76's 33000kWh isn't shocking. The real issue as others have said, is the enormous 10812kWh of electricity, which will be costing nearly £4000 under the energy price guarantee.

10812 kWh is not enormous.  It is high but we use 16443 kWh over a year on electricity (central heating with oil).  I know we are a large user but managed to reduce our use this year by around 30% by finding out the "leakage" of standby items or wasteful items and using tapo P110 plugs and replacing heavy use items.

Simplistically16443/365/24 is 1.9KW average consumption night and day all year. That's really quite substantial. What are your non leaky and wasteful items? 

chris1973

You need to do an audit of the appliances being used. Start with lighting, as well as replacing filament bulbs with LED types, any of those floor standing uplighters in use, some of these use 200w, 300w or even 500w linear K7 dual ended halogen tubes. The same with those recessed spot lights haunting kitchens, bathrooms and Bedrooms, i've seen 16 or 20 of these in use in larger kitchen-diners still using the original 35w or 50w halogen bulbs, if you have these in any room, swap them for LED replacements, noting any minimum load requirements of transformers or dimmer switches.

Any outside floodlights being nuisance triggered all night by the wind or local cats, change them from Halogen to LED and adjust the sensitivity.

Kids using a games console each?, these eat a surprising amount of power, especially if multiple kids, using multiple consoles each connected to its own large screen TV. Limit their use. Same with current hungry gaming PC's.

Any tropical fish tanks or exotic pets like reptiles requiring heat lamps or heaters?.

Reduce Thermostats in fridges and freezers, turn down / off heating in utility rooms and garages where the fridges and freezers are, its -6c outside, the less work they have to do the lower their daily power consumption.

If multiple members of the family are using an Electric Shower, limit them to a few minutes each per shower. Lowering the bathroom temperature to 15c or 16c is remarkably effective at making sure people don't linger in the shower.

macman

10,812kWh is enormous for a property with oil CH and DHW. It's 2 to 3 times what I would expect, assuming no electric car or UFH.
As far as the OP's electricity is concerned, my money is on the UFH being the culprit. Immersion heater left on maybe?
As regards the gas, the first thing to review is the insulation. Loft insulated to the right depth, double glazing, cavity wall insulation? 32,684kWh of gas is massive, so I'm thinking maybe this is a listed property without double glazing or cavity walls? Really need more info from the OP.
Or could this be our old friend the imperial to metric meter change not accounted for?
OP, has the gas meter been changed during your ownership?