What is the average electricity units per day?

Cardew

SilverHairedHippy wrote: »

Hi there campers, my annual usage from Jan 2001 to Jan 2014 is as follows (middle figures are the months involved:

Jan 01 to Mar 02 14 23251
Mar 02 to Jun 03 15 39839
Jun 03 to Jun 04 12 26942
Jun 04 to Jun 05 12 28289
Jul 05 to Jul 06 12 20830
Jul 06 to Jul 07 12 18305
Jul 07 to Jul 08 12 20521
Jul 08 to Jul 09 12 21630
Jul 09 to Jul 10 13 17857
Aug 10 to Aug 11 12 13969
Aug 11 to Jul 12 11.5 11155
Aug 12 to Jul 13 12 12831
Aug 13 to Jan 14 5.5 6259

Our supplier is (you guessed it ) British Gas.

Our property is a 1975 small detached 3 bed house with Gas Central heating and water with normal electrical appliances. British Gas says these readings are normal!!! They changed the meter in 2005 as a 'gesture of goodwill' and the recorded readings thereafter went down a bit. They said that was us but we didn't have the test readings they recorded prior to changing the meter. However in 2011 they did provide what they said were the test and house readings for the 2005 change over. The test meter was in for over a month (we have letters proving this) but the details they gave us stated that the test meter was in for exactly 4 weeks. When I checked their figures against the actual bills for this period they have fraudulently used a two week period and turned it into a four week period and used this to prove that the meter was not faulty and categorically refuse to discuss this. (I have all the bills from 2001 todate)
I took out a civil claim against them (as a litigant in person) as they used this record and the limitation act to have my claim thrown out without any reference to the actual evidence. The court didn't help either by ensuring that the judge(s) wasn't give any of the filed documents ( Claim POC Evidence etc etc)
I have all the documentary evidence to prove this plus lots of other things that they have done. and have recorded daily usage figures for the last 4 years -- last sentence intentionally deleted

Welcome to the forum.


I appreciate you are new, but this is a thread about average electricity consumption and I assume your post is about your gas consumption??


May I suggest you start a new thread about your situation. On the top left when you log in to the 'energy' section of the forum is a 'new thread' button. Click this and 'cut and paste' your post into that new thread. I would suggest you tone down/remove the last sentence of your post; you simply cannot make those type of accusations on a public forum and could get yourself in serious trouble.*


If you are claiming that your meter was faulty prior to 2005 then as the Court decided, your case is statute barred, even if it had merit.


* the mods might remove them anyway.

scaredofdebt

We use 10-11 Kwh a day, large 4 bedroom detached house but oil for heat and water. It goes up to around 15 Kwh at weekends, when the kids are off, there are 5 of the blighters!

royroy1

I'm using an average 33 units a day (just looking back at the last 2 years bills as I'm changing suppliers this week) and would love cheaper bills, hence switching suppliers.

We don't use a lot, I'd say we're an average house, but yet I keep hearing others saying that their usage is a lot lower.

The computer stays on 24/7 as does the router.
TV goes on around 7pm until around 3am .
Sky box is on 24/7.
DVD recorder used occassionally.
Son has a PS4 and tv which can be used for a few hours a day.
Washing machine used daily, sometimes twice daily.
Tumble dryer used daily.
Microwave, kettle and deep fat fryer used daily.
2 Fridges (one small, one full size) on 24/7.
Freezer (full size) on 24/7.
Hoover used every 2nd day.
Lights go on throughout the house when it starts getting dark and generally stay on as it's easier than fumbling for switches in the dark.
Usual phone and laptop chargers used daily.
Very occassionally, electric heater when it's cold and fan when it's hot.

The boiler is gas for hot water and heating, and the cooker is also on gas. Gas usage is around 150 units a month.

We don't have loft insulation or wall insulation. I did look into it but they refuse to do it as they say I'd have to empty the garage and loft. I can't empty the garage as have nowhere to put everything that's in there (they're just being awkward, as they could easily just leave doing that wall), and what's in the loft isn't ours as we've never been up there, it obviously was left by the previous owner and the loft hatch is far too small for me to fit through.

Does my usage seem right or could there be a problem with the meter?

If it does seem right, is there any way to reduce it?

[Deleted User]

royroy1 wrote: »

I'm using an average 33 units a day
We don't use a lot, I'd say we're an average house

The computer stays on 24/7 as does the router.
TV goes on around 7pm until around 3am .
Sky box is on 24/7.
DVD recorder used occassionally.
Son has a PS4 and tv which can be used for a few hours a day.
Washing machine used daily, sometimes twice daily.
Tumble dryer used daily.
Microwave, kettle and deep fat fryer used daily.
2 Fridges (one small, one full size) on 24/7.
Freezer (full size) on 24/7.
Hoover used every 2nd day.
Lights go on throughout the house when it starts getting dark and generally stay on as it's easier than fumbling for switches in the dark.
Usual phone and laptop chargers used daily.
Very occassionally, electric heater when it's cold and fan when it's hot.

The boiler is gas for hot water and heating, and the cooker is also on gas. Gas usage is around 150 units a month.


Does my usage seem right or could there be a problem with the meter?

You're using about 3.7 times the average, I'd start looking at the items in red. 150 units of gas? What do you call a unit, not kWh?

royroy1

jack_pott wrote: »

You're using about 3.7 times the average, I'd start looking at the items in red. 150 units of gas? What do you call a unit, not kWh?

I can't do anything about the items in red, fridge and freezer are a necessity as if I turned them off the food would defrost and go bad, the washing machine and tumble are a necessity as clothes, towels and bedding all have to be washed (obviously in summer things can go outside on the line but we've had rain nearly every day for the past few months so no option but to tumble dry). I could turn the lights off in rooms that aren't occupied, I do accept that, but my understanding has always been that lights cost virtually nothing to run and so wouldn't make much of an impact (the reason we leave them on is down to how the house is designed, for instance if we go from living room into the kitchen we have to walk half way across the kitchen going up a small step to get to the light switch and in the dark that isn't ideal so it's easier to just leave the light on).

The 150 units of gas converts to around 1680 kwh, my gas meter read is in units which they then convert by the following process, x 1.02264 x 39.4 ÷ 3.6

lstar337

royroy1 wrote: »

I can't do anything about the items in red, fridge and freezer are a necessity as if I turned them off the food would defrost and go bad, the washing machine and tumble are a necessity as clothes, towels and bedding all have to be washed (obviously in summer things can go outside on the line but we've had rain nearly every day for the past few months so no option but to tumble dry). I could turn the lights off in rooms that aren't occupied, I do accept that, but my understanding has always been that lights cost virtually nothing to run and so wouldn't make much of an impact (the reason we leave them on is down to how the house is designed, for instance if we go from living room into the kitchen we have to walk half way across the kitchen going up a small step to get to the light switch and in the dark that isn't ideal so it's easier to just leave the light on).

The 150 units of gas converts to around 1680 kwh, my gas meter read is in units which they then convert by the following process, x 1.02264 x 39.4 ÷ 3.6

Well, you can't reduce your usage if you are not willing to change your living habits.

Take a look at your appliances, are they efficient?

Can you not replace your two fridges with a single A++ rated one, or store less food? Can you replace your freezer with a better rated one?

How efficient is your washing machine? What washing cycles are you using, can you drop to a lower washing temperature?

Not much you can do about a tumble, but we dropped our usage by using an airer coupled with a dehumidifier.

Unless your lights are very efficient, they will be using some power, and if they are incandescent, they are well worth turning off.

Computer on 24/7? Is somebody sat at it 24/7? If not, then that is just a waste.

matelodave

Our consumption varies wildly between summer & winter as we are all electric (heating, hot water, cooking, washing, drying etc etc). In summer if we are really frugal we can get it down to 6-7kwh a day but it's normally around 9-10. In the winter on very cold days it's got up to more than 50kwh in a day but it was working against -15 degrees outside.
Our average over the whole year works out at about 22-23kwh a day, just over £2.60/day

royroy1

lstar337 wrote: »

Can you not replace your two fridges with a single A++ rated one, or store less food? Can you replace your freezer with a better rated one?

I couldn't replace the 2 fridges for one fridge as I don't think we'd be able to get one big enough. I couldn't store less food, we struggle as it is, so much so that I've been thinking for a while about getting another freezer and sticking it in the garage. I don't know how some people cope with just one all in one fridge/freezer, they either eat out a lot, shop every second day, or just don't eat at all.

As for rating, there isn't anything visible other than the freezer has a 4 star symbol, so how would I know what rating they were? I very much doubt though that buying better rated appliances would be worthwhile, it's £500 each for a freezer and a fridge so they'd need to reduce my electricity bills by over £1000 to be worthwhile.

lstar337 wrote: »

How efficient is your washing machine? What washing cycles are you using, can you drop to a lower washing temperature?

Not much you can do about a tumble, but we dropped our usage by using an airer coupled with a dehumidifier.

We do have an airer for clothes but it's mainly towels and bedding that go in the tumble (in summer they go outside on the line though). The washing machine is fairly new and as far as I remember it was quite a good rated one. Cycles used are hot washes for towels and bedding and 40 for most clothing which is the correct cycles as most clothes labels say 40 and towels/bedding should always be hot wash for hygeine.

lstar337 wrote: »

Unless your lights are very efficient, they will be using some power, and if they are incandescent, they are well worth turning off.

I understand and agree we could do with turning them off. It's just as I explained before that it's no fun getting to light switches in the dark. But yes, we should make an effort to reduce the lights.

lstar337 wrote: »

Computer on 24/7? Is somebody sat at it 24/7? If not, then that is just a waste.

I work from home and from the computer so yes I use it a lot. I leave it on 24/7 because it isn't good for computers to be turned off, most strain on computers comes from booting up.

lstar337

royroy1 wrote: »

I couldn't replace the 2 fridges for one fridge as I don't think we'd be able to get one big enough. I couldn't store less food, we struggle as it is, so much so that I've been thinking for a while about getting another freezer and sticking it in the garage. I don't know how some people cope with just one all in one fridge/freezer, they either eat out a lot, shop every second day, or just don't eat at all.

How many people in your household? A requirement of two large fridges and two freezers is not very common.

royroy1 wrote: »

Cycles used are hot washes for towels and bedding and 40 for most clothing which is the correct cycles as most clothes labels say 40 and towels/bedding should always be hot wash for hygeine.

You shouldn't need 40 for everyday washes, 30 should be fine.

royroy1 wrote: »

I understand and agree we could do with turning them off. It's just as I explained before that it's no fun getting to light switches in the dark.

Can you not just turn the lights on as you enter the room, and off as you leave? That way there is no need to fumble in the dark.

royroy1

lstar337 wrote: »

How many people in your household? A requirement of two large fridges and two freezers is not very common.

Me, my wife and our teenage son. It's one small fridge which is used just for drinks, one tall fridge for the usual milk, eggs, yogurts, meats, butter, veg etc. One tall freezer at present but whilst it holds a lot it would be nice to have another as it would mean not having to shop quite so often.

lstar337 wrote: »

You shouldn't need 40 for everyday washes, 30 should be fine.

If it says 40 on the label though, won't it damage clothes to wash at 30? If it's not going to do any harm then yes we could certainly switch to washing at 30 rather than 40.

lstar337 wrote: »

Can you not just turn the lights on as you enter the room, and off as you leave? That way there is no need to fumble in the dark.

Yes, that's the commonsense approach but unfortunately it's the positioning of the light switches that are the problem. Most people have the switches by the door, but unfortunately we don't, for instance if we go into the kitchen, we have to walk half way across the kitchen going up a small step to get to the light switch, which in the dark isn't ideal (when we first moved in this house, my wife tripped doing exactly that one night and split her head open from banging it as she fell, so it has just become habit for us since then to leave the lights on once it starts going dark), our bedroom is similar, we have to walk all the way around the bed to get to the light switch which is over by the window. I think the reason for the poor layout is that the previous owner when they had the extension built obviously opted to minimize costs.