On, Standby, Off ... Are Electric Cost savings possible?

ariarnia

InvertedVee said:

ariarnia said:

InvertedVee said:

3 no. extractor fans in continuous mode   9.7p per day £35.56 per year

can i ask about this? i'm guessing from the other things thats based on in use not standby? or are you saying a extractor in a rarely used second bathroom would cost £35 per year?

Hi, my fans are two-speed. The low speed is on all the time to ensure ventilation in the home and consumes 4W of electricity per fan. The fans run at boost speed when the lights are on (bathrooms, WC) or when switched on (kitchen).

£35.56 is the total for three fans.

thank you.  

we have only ever had the ones that are off until they detect damp or someone turns on the lights so i dont think they use that much power (i was thinking we only have guests a couple of times a year normally so id get OH to turn that one off if it was £35 )

Spoonie_Turtle

matelodave said:

We were a bit surprised when I measured the standby power of our electric reclining chairs. They took 15watts each = 132kwh each per year = £46 each, we don't have them any more.

…

The thing that really chews leccy on standby is our super duper highly efficient eco friendly heatpump - just on standby it uses 130watts which means that over a year it would happily consume 1140kwh = or £400. We can mitigate that quite a bit by shutting it off in the summer except when its heating water but it doesn't really make it as eco friendly or cost effective as the media wants us all to believe. Ours is nearly 13 years old and I guess that a more modern unit would be a bit better.

As Mstty says the only way is to measure your specific appliances and the TP-Link TAPO p110 monitor plug is a cheap and easy way to do it.

Interesting.  Our electric chair doesn't register on our monitor (so draws less than 0.1W) but nor do a few other things that only power an LED - and some of those were surprises so I wonder if the monitor could be faulty.

Our heat pump is from 2019 and the vampire load in summer is 1-2kWh/day for "heating" despite the heating not being on (literally, 0kWh output).  Not sure the rest of the family would be okay with turning it off and on in summer for hot water though.  Part of me wonders if the auxillary heater might be cheaper, for the little hot water we use, and just keep the pump off for a few months 🤔

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Internet routers, ours is fibre and draws 5.5W.  The extender, because our router's wifi is pretty darn rubbish, draws another couple of Watts.

xeny

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Our heat pump is from 2019 and the vampire load in summer is 1-2kWh/day for "heating" despite the heating not being on (literally, 0kWh output).  Not sure the rest of the family would be okay with turning it off and on in summer for hot water though.  Part of me wonders if the auxillary heater might be cheaper, for the little hot water we use, and just keep the pump off for a few months 🤔

Quite possibly. In the height of summer (so mains water is a little warmer) I get a decent shower from about 15 minutes of a 3KW immersion heater, so about .75KWh.

getmore4less

We have a few very light standby loads that tick 1Wh on a tapo p110 over the day.

washer ~0.7Wh per day.
Dryer ~8Wh  a day

Grazzier

Gosh !    Many thanks to all the contributors herein.

I am amazed at the replies. Very helpful responses and info.


Thank you again


G

matelodave

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Our heat pump is from 2019 and the vampire load in summer is 1-2kWh/day for "heating" despite the heating not being on (literally, 0kWh output).  Not sure the rest of the family would be okay with turning it off and on in summer for hot water though.  Part of me wonders if the auxillary heater might be cheaper, for the little hot water we use, and just keep the pump off for a few months 🤔

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Internet routers, ours is fibre and draws 5.5W.  The extender, because our router's wifi is pretty darn rubbish, draws another couple of Watts.

As there are only two of us and we dont use lots of hot water I can usually get away with just turning our heatpump on for a couple of hours every other day. The 210l tank stays hot enough for showers although the second one of the second day isn't as hot as some people might like but its OK for the summer and we only heat the water to 45 degrees anyway.

We have an EcoCamel shower head which runs at 12lpm and I can easily have a decent shower and wash my hair in less than two minutes. Washing up goes in the dishwasher.

Astria

matelodave said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Our heat pump is from 2019 and the vampire load in summer is 1-2kWh/day for "heating" despite the heating not being on (literally, 0kWh output).  Not sure the rest of the family would be okay with turning it off and on in summer for hot water though.  Part of me wonders if the auxillary heater might be cheaper, for the little hot water we use, and just keep the pump off for a few months 🤔

---
Internet routers, ours is fibre and draws 5.5W.  The extender, because our router's wifi is pretty darn rubbish, draws another couple of Watts.

As there are only two of us and we dont use lots of hot water I can usually get away with just turning our heatpump on for a couple of hours every other day. The 210l tank stays hot enough for showers although the second one of the second day isn't as hot as some people might like but its OK for the summer and we only heat the water to 45 degrees anyway.

With a 45 degree tank temperature, hopefully you allow it to do the weekly legionella cycle as well, bringing the tank upto 60c ? You'll probably need to assist it with immersion to get this high though.

Scot_39

Grazzier said:

Ok, so Off means off. Thats a given. However It would be useful if anyone could enlighten as to what the likely cost savings might be of various devices in the home.

As others have posted - the answers are very variable depending on age and type of kit.

Anything without a physical switch stopping all current flow - will consume something - if fed active mains.

My base load during peak E10 runs around c22W - including wired home alarm, wi-fi router, 2 mechanical timer switches and mechanical timer on cooker etc.  It's a pain to reset timers etc - don't want to lose my router sync speed - and so I can live with that.

Some individual things might use less than a watt - others a couple of watts on standby - but others can use 5-15W each - like older consoles, desktop computer peripherals like USB/NAS drives etc.

When I got my first Smart meter IHD - about 2 years ago - I soon realised how much these small drains added to.

I went out later and bought individually switched power bars and mounted out of sight but reachable - on wall behind TV (tv / dvd / aerial amplifier) and another on computer desk (for external NAS, ethernet hub ) - so can be more selective.

Just did a quick test - powering all on - IHD jumped 60W - not in use - just mains fed.

Estimated payback - maybe 2-3 months max at time - less now.

But remember in winter - a fair bit of elcetrical inefficiency - including standby on things like power adaptors - disappated as heat - which is not necessarily wasted

Old filament bulbs - maybe 100-200W+ in a large room - ran too hot to touch - heat and light - replaced by 15-30W of LED equivalent.  So room needs more heat.

My uncle used to use run a 60W lamp in the loft next to CW storage tank for its heat output - as a frost protection - replaced it with a "frost tube" under the tank when filament bulbs disappeared a few years ago. 

An inefficient fridge freezer - just produces more "waste" heat in a kitchen etc - which just saves on other heating to raise temperature in winter.

Summer - a different story of course - but you have months to adjust for that issue.

Spoonie_Turtle

matelodave said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Our heat pump is from 2019 and the vampire load in summer is 1-2kWh/day for "heating" despite the heating not being on (literally, 0kWh output).  Not sure the rest of the family would be okay with turning it off and on in summer for hot water though.  Part of me wonders if the auxillary heater might be cheaper, for the little hot water we use, and just keep the pump off for a few months 🤔

---
Internet routers, ours is fibre and draws 5.5W.  The extender, because our router's wifi is pretty darn rubbish, draws another couple of Watts.

As there are only two of us and we dont use lots of hot water I can usually get away with just turning our heatpump on for a couple of hours every other day. The 210l tank stays hot enough for showers although the second one of the second day isn't as hot as some people might like but its OK for the summer and we only heat the water to 45 degrees anyway.

I don't mind doing that but my parents might get a bit antsy - Dad tolerates everything being turned off at the plug because Mum feels it's a fire risk (good for eliminating standby loads, even if tiny) but he's convinced that shortens the lifespan of appliances.  So he tolerates it, but isn't happy about it.   With the heat pump,  being such a massive system relative to anything else we have and also not something we can attempt to repair or replace ourselves if anything happens, I can't see him tolerating it being turned off and on again so regularly.   BUT if there's a way of keeping it off for the warmest few months,  that would be okay.   

[We have an electric shower and in summer the unheated water isn't freezing for washing hands, so hot water use is fairly minimal - but enough to still need some warm water.  Boiling a kettle and bringing it up for water needed upstairs is not something either parent would feel safe doing, so an absolute last resort only if absolutely necessary.  Unless there's a way to keep another kettle upstairs and at waist height, perhaps.  Hmmm.]

Alnat1

Took me years to persuade my dad he didn't need to heat any hot water in the tank (was doing  2 hours am, 2 hour pm every day) He has an electric shower and dishwasher. He now boils the kettle for any hot water he needs for cleaning and has another kettle in his bedroom which he can use upstairs for a shave in the bathroom.