Saving Electricity

dizzie

Hi,

As energy prices rise, I thought I would do an experiment to find out if I can save on our electricity usage, which has been around £600 per year (although this will rise to at least £700 over the coming year due to recent price increases). We have oil central heating and already have low energy light bulbs, so I am interested to see whether we can make any significant reductions. First, I have identified what things consume electricity in our home. Second, I have thought about whether we can reduce energy consumption on any of these items.


Background info:
Four-bed semi-detached house.

Heating: Oil fired CH; supplementary wood burning stoves; underfloor electric heating in ensuite and bathroom.

I have recently turned off the underfloor heating in the bathrooms for (hopefully) the warmer weather months.

Other appliances. The main ones include:

Electric oven,
fridge/freezer,
washing machine,
dishwasher,
microwave,
kettle,
iron.
Tumble drier
second fridge freezer (in garage)
TV,
Kids games console,
HiFis,
DVD player,
SKY box,
computer equipment
lighting,
Electric pump showers

Identify wastage

(i) Appliances left on whilst not in use. E.g kids will leave the TV and/or playstation on when they have gone to play on the computer. People leave lights on everywhere. I will leave the iron on if someone telephones, even though I may be 30 min or so (or longer if talking to my sister:D ) before I get back to it. So there is potential to reduce waste here.

(ii)Standby mode. Lots of appliances (e.g. computer equip, TV equip)on standby mode. Could reduce consumption by turning off at the plug.

(iii) Inefficient use: Washing machine - can I wash at lower temps?, Can I line-dry more clothes rather than use tumble drier? Kettle - although I have got into the habit of putting only the amount of water I need to boil into it, I tend to boil it several times to make just one cup of tea (because I get busy with something else and forget about it). Since I also have plenty of freezer space, I am also wondering if I can cook in batches (i.e. put oven on to cook several things at once - rather than just putting it on for one item).

I intend to monitor our electricity use for one week, before I make any further changes towards reducing consumption. Then, I will make changes to try to reduce cconsumption and will repeat monitoring for the second week to see what the differences are. I will report back. Meanwhile, if anyone has any good energy-saving tips, I'd be pleased to hear them.

Ken68

The tumble drier is a no no, Dizzie.
And steamers and slow cookers could easily replace the oven and hob.
To think , so many on the list are 'new' uses for electric, say in the last 50 years .
On the entertainment front whatever happened to Scrabble and Chess and Draughts and reading and radio. And family discussions, pick a subject, then rattle it to death.

_gav_

I had a shock yesterday, we've just got an electricity monitor, stuck in against our fridge/freezer for 60hrs and it showed it was using 3.1KWh/ day of electricity!! When new fridges are only using 0.34KWh/day that's some saving to be had, it might be time for a new fridge/freezer.

Now going around to all sockets and checking what the use is, this is slightly addictive!! ;-)

JennyW_2

dizzie wrote: »

Hi,

As energy prices rise, I thought I would do an experiment to find out if I can save on our electricity usage, which has been around £600 per year (although this will rise to at least £700 over the coming year due to recent price increases). We have oil central heating and already have low energy light bulbs, so I am interested to see whether we can make any significant reductions. First, I have identified what things consume electricity in our home. Second, I have thought about whether we can reduce energy consumption on any of these items.


Background info:
Four-bed semi-detached house.

Heating: Oil fired CH; supplementary wood burning stoves; underfloor electric heating in ensuite and bathroom.

I have recently turned off the underfloor heating in the bathrooms for (hopefully) the warmer weather months.

Other appliances. The main ones include:

Electric oven,
fridge/freezer,
washing machine,
dishwasher,
microwave,
kettle,
iron.
Tumble drier
second fridge freezer (in garage)
TV,
Kids games console,
HiFis,
DVD player,
SKY box,
computer equipment
lighting,
Electric pump showers

Identify wastage

(i) Appliances left on whilst not in use. E.g kids will leave the TV and/or playstation on when they have gone to play on the computer. People leave lights on everywhere. I will leave the iron on if someone telephones, even though I may be 30 min or so (or longer if talking to my sister:D ) before I get back to it. So there is potential to reduce waste here.

(ii)Standby mode. Lots of appliances (e.g. computer equip, TV equip)on standby mode. Could reduce consumption by turning off at the plug.

(iii) Inefficient use: Washing machine - can I wash at lower temps?, Can I line-dry more clothes rather than use tumble drier? Kettle - although I have got into the habit of putting only the amount of water I need to boil into it, I tend to boil it several times to make just one cup of tea (because I get busy with something else and forget about it). Since I also have plenty of freezer space, I am also wondering if I can cook in batches (i.e. put oven on to cook several things at once - rather than just putting it on for one item).

I intend to monitor our electricity use for one week, before I make any further changes towards reducing consumption. Then, I will make changes to try to reduce cconsumption and will repeat monitoring for the second week to see what the differences are. I will report back. Meanwhile, if anyone has any good energy-saving tips, I'd be pleased to hear them.

wow! I cant believe you leave the iron on if you take a phone call for 30 minutes :eek: It's not just about the electric but a fire risk. Boiling the kettle for yourself several times isn't doing you any favours. Cant you just stand there for 3 minutes and wait? Yes you can wash most things now at 30 degrees. Just purchase the washing liquid that's suitable. I'm doing this now and can tell no difference. Tumble dryer hasn't been used for the last 4/5 weeks plus clothes smell much nicer when they're on the line.

I tend to use the grill in the microwave if I can instead of using the oven's grill.

yes, bulk cook and then freeze in batches - I do this spag bol, mashed potatoes, curries etc.

phildamb

Do you know what energy category each of your items are?

Can you learn to use the microwave instead of the electric oven as most microwaves are much more energy efficient.

Do you need the 2nd fridge freezer and what number are they all set to (are they on the coldest setting?)

Do you have energy saving light bulbs or mainly low voltage ceiling lights?

As for washing Ive found I can wash pretty much anything at 30 and with a category A washing machine its less than one unit for an entire load...

To save energy turn everything off before you leave the house leaving only the fridge freezers running. I always check my metre when I leave in the morning to ensure it shows "no load" so I know I havent left anything on. I keep the electric shower on a warm setting rather than hot so it uses less electricity. I would start to train your kids to turn off items they dont use otherwise you will be fighting a losing battle with them.

newlywed

We have an iron that turns itself off if it hasn't been moved for a certain amount of time

dizzie

Thanks for all your comments so far.

If the phone rings when I'm ironing...and it isn't a two minute call, I will switch it off from now on. I don't leave the iron unattended when someone rings - I take the call in the same room...and then (depending on who it is), suddenly you realise you've been on the phone for ages.

Ken, I couldn't agree more about entertainment. Actually, the annoying thing is that we are out quite a lot and the "electric" entertainment doesn't actually get used that much....so I must get into the habit of switching it off at the plug, rather than leaving it on standby. Will also keep on nagging at our boys to switch things off when they have finished using them.

When it comes to washing, the children really put the machine through its paces, with grass-stained, mud-smeared, ink-blotched sports kit (they do a lot of sport) and school shirts...seems that they don't like to stay clean.:rolleyes: I have made them wash their own by hand to try to put them off getting quite so dirty, but it hasn't had the desired effect unfortunately. Would love to find a really good cleaning product that could tackle this (I've tried all sorts). The tumble drier is hopefully redundant for the summer when I can put clothes out on the line. Do like the sound of your iron though Newlywed - I'll look out for something like that when it needs replacing.

Phildamb - Thanks for your input. Will check settings of the fridge/freezers. We live in a fairly rural area, so tend to grocery shop once a week. The second (small) fridge and freezer comes in handy to keep a week's worth of milk/fruit juice/bread. I also buy in bulk from our local butcher, which works out cheaper and saves time. Most of our light bulbs are the low energy ones (the ones that take a few minutes to "warm up" sufficiently for you to see anything:rolleyes: ). But we have the little recessed low voltage halogen ones in two rooms.

I do have a slow cooker and use it now and then, but have to admit that I should be more organised and should use it more often. My microwave skills are pretty basic - I just tend to use it for defrosting or reheating, and making the occasional sponge pudding. Will dig out my microwave cookery book and look for some ideas.

newlywed

It's a Rowenta (Focus I think). The one with a tapered point to make ironing round buttons easier - think it was about £30 or so, and so far has been better than our £60 Tefal iron it replaced

CactusPhil

Watch out for fast freeze/boost/super buttons being left on - its not just the temperature setting on the freezer that is important, and most people probably dont know there is such a thing to watch out for.

1carminestocky

If you use your leccy oven a lot, consider purchasing a Remoska. Yes, not exactly cheap to buy but even the biggest version (we have it and regularly cook meals for 5 solely in it!) is only rated at 650 watts. We've had ours for 10 days now and haven't used the Belling leccy double oven once! I've had my plug-in usage monitor monitoring the Remoska's leccy consumption over the last 3 days and it's come out at 13p!

http://www.lakeland.co.uk/F/keyword/remoska?src=gatop&sq=remoska

There's a huge thraed on the Remoska on MSE here:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=10314

Magentasue

My kids are better at switching off consoles and TVs since I started switching everything off at the wall if I found it on. They tend to at least turn the TV off now.

I wash everything apart from one load of whites a week at 30deg. Whites at 90deg. I have the figures somewhere, but there's a huge difference. Even my 40deg quick wash is more expensive than the standard 30deg wash.