Electricity Usage advice

EssexHebridean

kazwookie said:

hmontg said......................- the only appliances we haven’t turned off is fridge and freezer. ..........

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Is / do you have a smart meter? that is left on?

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If the fridge and freezer are not switched off, this indicates that the supply has not been isolated at the wall - which is as close as someone could come to "turning the smart meter off" - the meter will continue to be "on" regardless of what you do with the switch on the household side of it. 

Veteransaver said:

Are you sure you haven't left an immersion heater on, maybe on a timer coming on every night? Even a small cylinder could use 3-4kWh heating it back up

This was also a possibility that crossed my mind - would be easy enough for it to get turned on accidentally. 

markin

The Ventilation would be 250w for 8hrs and 6kwh for 24hr.

Its not just a PIV blowing air from the loft is it? If so turn off the heater.

hmontg

I turned of mech ventilation and our booking water tap and we have used 7kwh between 2000 and 720…apart from stand bys (which I have previously check with plug in meter), f/f and whatever the boilers are up to,nothing else on so obvs that means 14-15 kwh ticking over each day. I know I said 22 average which is was for 6 months but the average for the last 3 months was 26 just for winter month extra usage I guess. Next step will be to turn hot water off as suggested. Hopefully I will get tot the bottom of it now.

MultiFuelBurner

What is the heating source for the house (gas)

Has the electric immersion heater been left or constantly topping you the hot water temps.

dunstonh

Maybe worth investing in a couple of tapo energy monitoring plugs.   Using them on different devices - may a device a week to see what you find would be useful.  It worked for us.

When our AGA was off, we were using around 22 kWh per day.    After a few TAPOs to identify the usage patterns, we changed some things without affecting the quality of life and got it to 7-8kWh per day.

For us, this is what we identified.

American FF was using 3kWh per day.   Replaced it with the lowest energy American FF on the market and now 0.6-0.7kWh per day.

Sky main box and mini boxes in standby were drawing a lot (cannot remember how much).    We changed to Sky Stream and those boxes hardly draw any even when in use.   They don't heat up like the old sky boxes

TVs in standby were drawing around 0.3kW.    Turning off the connectivity options (i.e. turn off control by mobile phone.  Not the wifi to connect the tv though) dropped it to below 0.01 Kw.

Outside lighting - we have a lot of this and some was still strip lighting and halgen.    A lot of it has been changed to LED but still need to do a bit more.     Halogen lighting is not efficient (so kitchens and bathrooms are often home to halogens - often rows of dozens of them).

Dishwasher - using quick loads or standard wash was heavy on energy.   Often used twice a day.  Using eco mode takes nearly 5 hours but barely uses any energy by comparison.   So, we got extra plates and cutlery and now do a single overnight load.   We also changed the dishwasher to a more modern low energy one.

Washing and Tumble were already efficient models so, we didn't need to do much there. 

Gaming computers, playstations etc use a lot of energy. Constant use of graphic intensive gaming over  2-3 hours can eat a kW or two.

Our microwave was using energy when not in use.   Turning it off at the plug when not in use killed that but we replaced it recently and the new one is negligible when not in use.

Our idle (background) use is around 122w now.     If I turn the security cameras off, it drops to 84w.   What is your idle/background use?  i.e. when everything is off or in standby as it would be when you are going out and leaving the house, how much electricity is being used?    This is the starting point.   

born_again

MultiFuelBurner said:

What is the heating source for the house (gas)

Has the electric immersion heater been left or constantly topping you the hot water temps.

Op has a 2nd thread on GAS here..

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6509431/very-large-gas-usage-advice#latest