Is my usage higher than it should be?

victor2

If you don't have an electric shower, it sounds like something else is eating electricity at certain times.

You're not using an electric heater anywhere to supplement your heating are you?

For a week or so, read your meter daily at the same time. Record your actual daily usage and look for some sort of pattern, then consider what you did on any high usage days.

LiamBucknall

victor2 said:

If you don't have an electric shower, it sounds like something else is eating electricity at certain times.

You're not using an electric heater anywhere to supplement your heating are you?

For a week or so, read your meter daily at the same time. Record your actual daily usage and look for some sort of pattern, then consider what you did on any high usage days.

Thanks for the advice. It does appear that something is eating away at the electricity, must be one of the appliances. Cheers 

Gerry1

sheramber said:

Gerry1 said:

Why use electricity for the shower when you have water heated by gas?  It's like paying £5 a litre for petrol when it's £1.50 over the road.

if that is what is fitted in the house the do not have much choice.

It is a rented house so they cannot change it.

Not necessarily, there is a workaround.

Gerry1

Have you tried the Meter Sanity Test, especially if the meter is external to the property?

[Deleted User]

Many people, myself included, wouldn’t know to differentiate types of shower; mine is a thermostatic power shower, fed by a hot water tank. Suspect OP could have something similar. 

But it’s still a white box slapped on the wall that’s wired up to the electric. Without knowing any different, I could simply refer to it as an electric shower; even has an on/off switch in the cupboard. Ticks plenty of ‘electric shower’ boxes. It’s not ignorance, it’s plumbing/electrics; not my hobby or specialist subject. 

Of course, it uses nowhere near the electricity a fully electric shower uses. Perhaps better to clarify the type of ‘electric’ shower first before throwing around the high prices, otherwise people might stop showering for the wrong reason. 

markin

[Deleted User] said:

Many people, myself included, wouldn’t know to differentiate types of shower; mine is a thermostatic power shower, fed by a hot water tank. Suspect OP could have something similar. 

But it’s still a white box slapped on the wall that’s wired up to the electric. Without knowing any different, I could simply refer to it as an electric shower; even has an on/off switch in the cupboard. Ticks plenty of ‘electric shower’ boxes. It’s not ignorance, it’s plumbing/electrics; not my hobby or specialist subject. 

Of course, it uses nowhere near the electricity a fully electric shower uses. Perhaps better to clarify the type of ‘electric’ shower first before throwing around the high prices, otherwise people might stop showering for the wrong reason. 

I can't believe they are still sold, rather than just a valve and using a separate pressure pump, But its still 150w.
 

Spoonie_Turtle

[Deleted User] said:

Many people, myself included, wouldn’t know to differentiate types of shower; mine is a thermostatic power shower, fed by a hot water tank. Suspect OP could have something similar. 

But it’s still a white box slapped on the wall that’s wired up to the electric. Without knowing any different, I could simply refer to it as an electric shower; even has an on/off switch in the cupboard. Ticks plenty of ‘electric shower’ boxes. It’s not ignorance, it’s plumbing/electrics; not my hobby or specialist subject. 

It is ignorance, in the strictly neutral meaning of the term.  All people are ignorant to various areas of information, simply because they've never had reason to learn them.  Nothing wrong with that, unless it starts to influence opinions or judgements - that's when it becomes a problem.

Qyburn

markin said:

mine is a thermostatic power shower

I can't believe they are still sold, rather than just a valve and using a separate pressure pump, But its still 150w.
 

Out of interest, why not, it sounds as if you think they are inherently a bad or an inefficient thing?

We had one in our last place and it was super convenient, a simple control on the wall of the cubicle controlled both water flow and temperature as well as switching on/off.  It had rock solid temperature regulation as well.  Even if you could get that with a stand alone mixing valve you'd still need to mate that with a suitable stand alone booster pump and work out all the controls. I can see that it might work out cheaper to install. I'm not sure the efficiency would be much different, although I don't have figures to back that up.

Regarding the OP's installation, a couple of photos of the shower controls would probably enable us to confirm what type. Ours looked completely different to an electric shower as the pump and gubbins as in the attic above, and only the control dial was in the shower.

wild666

LiamBucknall said:

wild666 said:

Are you leaving appliances in standby mode? There are only three appliances that should be left on 24/7 and they are the fridge, freezer and router. 

Nothing left on standby. Only fridge freezer internet and an extension cable upstairs we leave plugged in. Even still, I don’t think standby appliances would contribute a huge amount of energy would they? Especially not enough to hit 10-12kwh a day. 

Over a month they can add up to 30% of the electric usage, when I turned everything off except those three appliances my monthly usage dropped by nearly 59kWh per month, since it's down to about 38kWh per month as I use the Xbox around twice per week. Even an extension lead left on with nothing connected will use some power.

Qyburn

It's worth measuring devices if this is of concern. Our PVR draws 4W, but that has to be left on standby so it wakes up to record things. The TV initially used 12W on standby, but changing a few setting got it down to less than 0.5W. Multiway USB changer in the kitchen doesn't even register on the monitor when there's nothing plugged in.  Still plenty more to check, but our big wins so far have been the new freezer and persuading my desktop PC to hibernate.