Can this be right? Annual Electric Usage 10,597kWh

Mody123

Netexporter said:

An immersion heater, running continuously, will consume about 10,000kWh in a year. That is not likely to happen as the water would boil. However, if the thermostat is faulty/set too high, then water heating could account for a substantial portion of your annual usage.

Have you checked what the tank thermostat is set to? Have you measured the water temperature?

I have never checked the tank thermostat - it never occurred to me. How can I do this? 

gm0

29kWh per day.1.2kW continuous.  5A average (it will vary of course)

Entirely plausible

Halogens (if not all replaced with LED @ 4W each - 35/50W each bulb) these are insidious and the fashion at one time was for rows of them on hall and kitchen and living space ceiling fittings.  If it's all LED great.  If it's not.  Make that a priority.

Immersion heater in unfamiliar to you tank - left on (it should cycle on the thermostat but still - teenagers showering drawing it off - reheat).  Several kw element like a kettle.  At the moment heating water with gas would be cheaper if not greener.  That could change.

A massive modern tv - 300-500W x hours left on

Growing children do tend to leave lights on - are all are low energy LED

Computers and games consoles can be a beefy load - a high end gaming PC GPU can be 500W or more on its own for the hours of use.

Could there be an electric UFH in part of the house and another mystery switch - dreadful for usage.

Perhaps a teenager has opened a crypto currency proof of work "mine" causing a small data center to appear in your house with a household PC running flat out.

But basically your bill rocketed because the price of each kWh rocketed. 

No harm in a quick audit though.  Starting with finding that immersion switch.

A current clamp meter to put around the meter tail cable is about £20 off amazon
You can measure and switch some things in and out.  Circuit by circuit at the CU or thing by thing.

You don't have to guess.  Measure.  And work out what upgrades (if any) or changed habits make sense

Netexporter

Mody123 said:

Netexporter said:

An immersion heater, running continuously, will consume about 10,000kWh in a year. That is not likely to happen as the water would boil. However, if the thermostat is faulty/set too high, then water heating could account for a substantial portion of your annual usage.

Have you checked what the tank thermostat is set to? Have you measured the water temperature?

I have never checked the tank thermostat - it never occurred to me. How can I do this? 

It is normally a small box strapped to the side of the cylinder. It will have a marked control knob to set the temperature. 55 degrees is hot enough to control legionella. The hotter you set the temperature the greater the heat loss, so keep it as low as is commensurate with getting enough to fill a bath. There are a lot of variables, such as size of cylinder and how much dead-leg in the pipes, so you may need to experiment a bit to find the optimal temperature.

Using the gas boiler will, almost certainly, be cheaper than using electricity to heat water, unless you use a very cheap off-peak electricity tariff.

FreeBear

Mody123 said: There is a plug socket and wire running off the tank but its unplugged.

I have three other switches in the airing cupboard, conveniently labelled by the previous owner: 
1. Electric shower 
2. Towel rail (in bathroom)
3. Pump for central heating

All of these are on. I don't know what #3 is for though?

Does the other end of that cable go to an immersion heater (usually screwed in to the top of the tank) ?

These things should be wired in to a switched fuse outlet, and not on a plug & socket.

Turn the towel radiator switch off - During the summer, it doesn't need to be on, and will eat a good chunk of electricity. Even in the winter, it is not essential - I assume you have a radiator linked to the central heating in the same room as the towel radiator.

Central heating pump is what pumps the water around the boiler & radiators. It will only come on when the boiler fires up, and the switch is only there to isolate the pump should it ever need changing.

Netexporter said:

Mody123 said:

Netexporter said:

An immersion heater, running continuously, will consume about 10,000kWh in a year. That is not likely to happen as the water would boil. However, if the thermostat is faulty/set too high, then water heating could account for a substantial portion of your annual usage.

Have you checked what the tank thermostat is set to? Have you measured the water temperature?

I have never checked the tank thermostat - it never occurred to me. How can I do this? 

It is normally a small box strapped to the side of the cylinder. It will have a marked control knob to set the temperature. 55 degrees is hot enough to control legionella.

In a domestic situation, the legionella risk is extremely low - Some 400 cases reported annually, half of which are contracted overseas, the bulk of the remainder in a commercial premises. Quite safe to turn the temperature down lower, say 50°C (the bacteria will still get killed, just takes longer).

Netexporter

In a domestic situation, the legionella risk is extremely low - Some 400 cases reported annually, half of which are contracted overseas, the bulk of the remainder in a commercial premises. Quite safe to turn the temperature down lower, say 50°C (the bacteria will still get killed, just takes longer).

Yes, I'm aware that pasteurisation is a time/temperature equation. I was just trying to keep it simple but safe. Legionella risk assessment is mandatory for rental properties, so it probably isn't a bad idea to observe the same standard for owner occupied dwellings.

Scot_39

10000 kWh - if on top on top of gas for heating hot water etc - does seem excessive. 


The current headline Ofgem median tdcv is 2700 electric, 11500 gas,  but thats only for 2-3 in a 2-3 bed iirc. 

The more appropriate I guess for your household though the current Ofgem large (3rd quartile iirc) for 4+ bedroom, 4-5 people  4100 electric, 17000 gas.


If pure electric it's easily understandable. If not its over twice that large cap tdcv.


Big power rated items  electric shower - typically 9.5-10.5kW 

5 electric showers per day could easily eat 1-1.5kWh each. More so in personal experience if involves haircare (for my ex. timed once around 15min - 2.25-2.5kWh+ on 'doing my hair' days).

8kWh day = 3000kWh annually.

The old place might have had a combi fed shower.  So that equivalent energy use would have been in gas bill.


HW cylinder - 1 or more 3kW immersion elements ?

With gas I am not clear if that's heating your tank or not. When my parents upgraded to combi boiler the hot water tank was removed in a large 3 bed 5 apt semi.

It gas het - an indirect tank gas coil het mainly - possibly with just 1 standby immersion heater for occassional use. 

A larger for 5 - maybe 3 or 4 bed house especially if  has mulitple bathrooms (250-300l say) all electric tank could have come with 2 or 3 3kW elements

It would be slightly abnormal for a modern hw cylinder standby immersion heater to be on a normal 13A type socket lead - more likely a hard wired spur switch - with a dedicated 16A spur timer if timed.  But I have seen at least 1 set photos here with that and using a cheap socket timer. 

A typical heater element would be 3kW at 240V - and if present and active could well be sharing the load of gas boiler indirect loop - more so in summer when you might have boiler on for far shorter time - which combined could be 15-20kWh per day if using a full tank full.

My small 120l HW tank - excluding direct cold fed shower - so light use for 1 - consumes 2-3kWh daily - 700-1000kWh pa.  It would take 7kWh to heat to 60 from cold fill plus over 1kW in losses at 60C over next 24 hrs. Far more if have bath or when manually wash car with several bucketfuls of hot.

A bigger modern tank - say 250-300l -  for 5 - can have nearer 2kWh of daily losses - plus actual hw costs.


Games consoles or computers in kids rooms - plus TV or monitors as displays - easily pushing 250W-500Wh per hour for a ps5 type or gaming rig pc (my nephew's - late teens now - latest build has an upgraded  850W psu the old 650W too low for new GpUs) - often for several hours into teens.


A faulty fridge freezer locked on freeze or defrost cycle etc could pull 1000kWh annually

Halogen lights internal to kitchens etc as above  - I replaced 20 or so 20-50W halogens in sisters open plan lounge in kitchen diner section with leds - saved over 1000kWh annually as were on 10 hrs plus in winter. But maybe also check old external - like say pir lamps can be upto 500W each and if triggered by foxes or neighbours cats can run for hours some nights.

Specials
My mums medical kit consumed quite a bit - a hot air mattress bed to prevent sores - 1200kWh estimated from data sheets.
Exotic pets - fish, spiders etc


You need to look around and try and list devices - think big to small but prolonged - their power and likely daily use.

Try reading the meters daily or better still a few times a day to focus in on time of energy use.

As your kids grow have they slowly but surely acquired more power hungry devices - so they too consuming more etc. since the move.
Or simply no longer sharing same bedroom - more lights, TV s etc. In parallel

bob2302

If you have a fully functional smart meter, you can use an app to display your usage in a graph of the day.

Mody123

FreeBear said:

Mody123 said: There is a plug socket and wire running off the tank but its unplugged.

I have three other switches in the airing cupboard, conveniently labelled by the previous owner: 
1. Electric shower 
2. Towel rail (in bathroom)
3. Pump for central heating

All of these are on. I don't know what #3 is for though?

Does the other end of that cable go to an immersion heater (usually screwed in to the top of the tank) ?

These things should be wired in to a switched fuse outlet, and not on a plug & socket.

Turn the towel radiator switch off - During the summer, it doesn't need to be on, and will eat a good chunk of electricity. Even in the winter, it is not essential - I assume you have a radiator linked to the central heating in the same room as the towel radiator.

Central heating pump is what pumps the water around the boiler & radiators. It will only come on when the boiler fires up, and the switch is only there to isolate the pump should it ever need changing.

Netexporter said:

Mody123 said:

Netexporter said:

An immersion heater, running continuously, will consume about 10,000kWh in a year. That is not likely to happen as the water would boil. However, if the thermostat is faulty/set too high, then water heating could account for a substantial portion of your annual usage.

Have you checked what the tank thermostat is set to? Have you measured the water temperature?

I have never checked the tank thermostat - it never occurred to me. How can I do this? 

It is normally a small box strapped to the side of the cylinder. It will have a marked control knob to set the temperature. 55 degrees is hot enough to control legionella.

In a domestic situation, the legionella risk is extremely low - Some 400 cases reported annually, half of which are contracted overseas, the bulk of the remainder in a commercial premises. Quite safe to turn the temperature down lower, say 50°C (the bacteria will still get killed, just takes longer).

Thank you so much, this is very clear. 

The other end of the plug wire does go into the tank, into a fused outlet it seems.  It’s always been unplugged and I just left it that way since we moved in. 

I switched off the towel rail switch but kept the radiator switch on as you’ve said. 

I also found the temperature knob on the tank and it is set at just over 50, so will probably leave that alone.  

debitcardmayhem

Scot_39 said:

Try reading the meters daily or better still a few times a day to focus in on time of energy use.

This ^^^ and then let us know the readings. 

jennifernil

If you have gas CH and a HW tank, why are you running electric heaters?  If not warm enough, you may need bigger radiators.    Also surprised you have an electric shower!   Or is it maybe only a booster pump for the shower?

Electric towel rail is handy in summer for drying towels, but we have all ours fitted with electronic timers so they only run a couple of hours per day, or less.

Investing in new CH controls is probably a good idea.  Do you have TRVs on the radiators?

We are in a large 5 bed house, but only 2 adults most of the time these days,  Boiler and tank similar to what you have, electric cooking, dishwasher, tumble dryer,   no doubt less washing than you,  but several fridges and freezers.  We are home all day and like to keep warm, our gas and electricity come to under £2000 per annum at current prices, roughly a 50/50 split.