My attempts at energy saving make me ask - where did I go wrong??

Powerbank2

Greetings and Salutations,
In life most things are man made some by mistakes most by design - witness any war, our current energy dilemma, the past 2/3 years - enough said. So when this Energy Crisis came on the scene, we had already decided on our own POA (Plan Of Action) based on our lifestyle - we are Home Alone 2, and since our gas is for central heating and bathing in the main we decided to stop using our gas top range/Electric Oven and converted that into a kitchen utensil storage cupboard replaced with a new Air fryer, a Portable Induction plate for our heated food pot and our whistling kettle for water, A 24Hour rated thermos flask to hold the balance of hot kettle water for further cuppas, also with winter approaching we felt our kettle would boil a little faster if a flask of hot water from the last boil of the previous day was added to the nice cold tap water of the next morning first brew. Our microwave a carry over and not a recent purchase. I do batch cooking for our freezer, most suitable for a one pot meal and a mini steamer one one side for veggies. Technically I am not overly amused with a smart meter - if memory serves me right the first installations were of varying designs non compatible within themselves, and the thought of saving energy by putting a washing machine on in the wee hours to save electricity, or being lead by the nose as to the best time to use or not to use energy, for a meal/cuppa coffee, I tend to listen to my tummy and thirst requirements for my go to daily events. I'm with Octopus Energy and despite their well intentioned "we need to increase your debit order to build towards a winter fund (then) and future increases (Now) I  have declined the offer but have setup a savings account called Summer Energy with my bank my reasoning is simple if I give them "extra" lets say £30pm multiplied by the amount of consumers they are getting and have with NO end in sight to the standing charges going away only one of us is scoring and it not US2. We can see no meaning full changes to our electricity usage but we did manage to reduce our gas from around 12 to 15 units down to 6 pm -  but then the weather began to change and it has increase with usage which we fully understand. We are loathe to purchase anything further as we see no benefits Comments and Suggestions most welcome.
Powerbank2

Krakkkers

Only 6 units per month of gas? you are doing great if that is the case.
How much elec do you use in kwh?

Krakkkers

Reading the above i think its that you haven't cut anything you have just changed some things from gas to electric and others from electric to gas.

Keep_pedalling

One thing you can improve if you want to get a good response to your post is to edit it into more readable paragraphs, a wall of text is not easy to read and many, won’t bother to attempt it. 

dealyboy

Hi Powerbank2 and you are very welcome to our community and as with all communities we are a mixed bunch!

We are all trying to find ways to cope with the cost of living crisis and ways to economise, you will find lots of threads discussing moneysaving in the Energy forum (you may need to go down a couple of pages to find a suitable thread).

Good thinking on your 'Summer Energy' account ... that's your interest and not theirs you're accumulating. 

I think most of us forgot our frugality at the beginning of December for a couple weeks, better than being an icicle eh!

May I ask are you on Economy 7 as you are thinking of doing your washing at night?

macman

I think the point worth making is that maybe 80% of your energy usage is CH and DHW, and in your case you are already using the cheapest option, which is mains gas. 
You can tinker at the edges with economising on electricity, but you'd probably save more by just turning your room 'stat down by 1C, or fitting a decent programmer (if not already installed), and by improving the insulation, if possible.
There is no logic in switching from a gas hob to an electric one. Even allowing for the greater efficiency of induction, a gas hob is probably at least half the cost to run.
By 'gas units', do you mean a metric or imperial meter? Meter units are not kWh's.

ariarnia

Powerbank2 said:

since our gas is for central heating and bathing in the main we decided to stop using our gas top range/ Electric Oven and converted that into a kitchen utensil storage cupboard replaced with a new Air fryer, a Portable Induction plate for our heated food pot and our whistling kettle for water, A 24Hour rated thermos flask to hold the balance of hot kettle water for further cuppas, also with winter approaching we felt our kettle would boil a little faster if a flask of hot water from the last boil of the previous day was added to the nice cold tap water of the next morning first brew. Our microwave a carry over and not a recent purchase. I do batch cooking for our freezer, most suitable for a one pot meal and a mini steamer one one side for veggies.

hi powerbank. 

i think your doing the right thing in looking at your lifestyle and the best way to try and manage your energy use in a way that works for you. 

i agree i'm not sure replacing a gas hob with an electric one is the best idea to save money. gas is a lot cheaper than electric so if things take the same amount of time to cook (or boil in your kettle) then the gas hob is probably cheaper. 

i would think that not using the big electric oven and rather using an air fryer or alternative would make more sense to save energy because your cooking in a smaller space. but if you are batch cooking then if you can completely fill and make use of the big oven then again that might actually work out cheaper than running the air fryer for longer if you see what i mean. but i dont know where the break even point is so you might be right (you'd need a plug in energy monitor really to test i think)

boiling water. while adding back in the already warm water will make things faster. the best way to save money would be to not boil the extra water in the first place (i'm sure you know that) 

other suggestions are to do things like look at the settings on your washing machine (eco mode isnt always the least electric as sometimes it balances electric and water use so our 'quick' mode is actually less electric for the wait of washing we want to do most days). and if its safe to do so then getting your home made ready meals from your bulk cooking out of the freezer and let them defrost in the fridge. then they'll use less energy in the pan or microwave to heat through. but that's only a small saving. 

Alnat1

Heating and hot water will be the biggest cost in most households.

Cooking generally uses only a small amount and as gas is around 10p/kWh and electric 34p/kWh, it's often cheaper to use gas appliances where you can.

Post some figures of your annual kWh usage for gas and electric (from readings a year apart or the estimate Octopus give on each bill) and let us know how the house and water are heated, if you have electric showers etc. and someone here will be able to make some suggestions that might help reduce your costs.

pochase

You have not mentioned what you have done regarding your direct debit. Did you cancel it to pay monthly after setting up your summer account?

If so did you pay by variable direct debit, or do you pay on receipt of a bill?

While Octopus had no different pricing for different payment forms last summer, that has change from October and they same as most suppliers charge 7 to 9% more per unit if you don't pay by direct debit.

Spoonie_Turtle

pochase said:

You have not mentioned what you have done regarding your direct debit. Did you cancel it to pay monthly after setting up your summer account?

If so did you pay by variable direct debit, or do you pay on receipt of a bill?

While Octopus had no different pricing for different payment forms last summer, that has change from October and they same as most suppliers charge 7 to 9% more per unit if you don't pay by direct debit.

Yep.  Savings accounts may be paying relatively decent interest again compared with the last few years, but none are paying quite that much as far as I know.