My Energy use Diary

A_fiend_for_life

Mornin' !

Slightly higher this week - 'the nights are certainly drawing in'. I used 17 kwh of electricity and no gas. So about 9kg of CO2 and a B on both badges.

I'm 2nd out of 41 so it looks like I'd have to switch everything off to get an A.

Frugaldom

I only just noticed the column for totals, AFFL, so that explains why I have had problmes seeing it! I hadn't scrolled that far down the page often enough, I guess. Doh!

114kw,
59kg carbon,£12.22 + standing charge spent

It's still a lot more than previous years but electricity prices keep going up. I wonder what that single penny increase on the meter charges will bring in for Scottish Power and why do they never pass on any reductions to pre-payment customers? :mad: My average unit rate is now working out at 12.19p!!

A_fiend_for_life

Nyk,

I haven't heard of the penny increase on meter charges. What's that all about?

My unit rate at the moment is 13.72 single meter with ebico. I think ebico worked out £60 to £100 cheaper than SP. npower DD would be another £40 cheaper but there is no way i'm touching DD or big 6 and certainly not going near price sculpting.

cw18

Just number crunched my meter readings from Tuesday.....

Electricity down 5kWh on last week - and back to the previous weeks figure of 60kWh. Still not as low as I have been (53kWh), but at least it's a step in the right direction - especially given we've had lousy weather which has meant lights on more/earlier in the evenings.

Gas has shot down. 34kWh a week for the last 3 readings - which was an all-time low - but this week is a meagre 23kWh :T

Hoping to improve on my badges from last week which were both on 'E' :eek:


I'm also at a point I can compare useage with last year for the May thru July period. Last year I averaged 13kWh/day for electricity and 11kWh/day for gas. This year I've averaged 8kWh for each

However some of this is due to a reduction in headcount in the house...... There were 3 of us here full-time last year (now only 2) and elder DS was coming home for weekends/weeks (but has only been home for 3 days in this period this year).


But things aren't as good on a full year check Over the last year I've daily averages of 10kWh for electricity and 21kWh for gas -- but while the comparable 2007-2008 period for electricity was 14kWh (so a good reduction here), the gas was only 19kWh meaning this has increased

The only reason I can see for the increase in gas is the fact my heating has been running until later in the morning and coming on earlier in the evenings (during really cold periods) due to having my GDs around school since November. The only things I have that use gas are my heating (including water, which I've turned well down in terms of times it runs this year - now on for 20 mins a day instead of closer to 3 hours! - so I suppose my figure could have been much worse :eek: ) and my hob.

setmefree2

Lots of good news there Cheryl :T:T:T

Frugaldom

A_fiend_for_life wrote: »

Nyk,

I haven't heard of the penny increase on meter charges. What's that all about?

My unit rate at the moment is 13.72 single meter with ebico. I think ebico worked out £60 to £100 cheaper than SP. npower DD would be another £40 cheaper but there is no way i'm touching DD or big 6 and certainly not going near price sculpting.

ComfortPlus Control through Scottish Power means we have 3 different rates and pay a standing charge for the prepayment meter. When I moved into this house last November, the rates on the prepayment meter were as follows:

November 2008

Standing charge - £1.53/week (21.88p per day)
Storage heaters - 4.93p per kWh
Night time units - 5.56p per kWh
Day time units - 12.266p per kWh

They are now reading

Standing charge - £1.61/week (23p per day)
Storage heaters - 5.18p per kWh
Night time units - 5.84p per kWh
Day time units - 12.88p per kWh

These new meters are controlled remotely by Scottish Power, so they can apparently be changed without us knowing about it. I couldn't even tell you when the changes took place, just that those are the charges set on the meter. It was a brand new meter fitted for us moving in, so I had all the readings from Scottish Power at the time. However, I don't think I received any written notification about the price change, which amounts to approximately 5% increase this year, so far.

I've done several comparisons on the various usw!tch type websites but SP is still our best option, as we need to have the prepayment meter to satisfy terms of our lease agreement with landlords. If anyone else has same system as us, I'd be interested in hearing what your meter settings are.

belfastgirl23

Oh dear well our gas usage went up this week by about 20kwh when it should have gone down because we were away for a few days. We had the heat on for half an hour the night before we went and DH put the boiler on timer rather than turning it off :mad: which I only discovered when we got back. Still at least I had the temp turned away down and had reduced the timings a while back so not as bad as it could have been.

Elec is pretty much around usual when I had hoped it would drop a bit,but I did end up doing a lot of washing I guess.

Anyway overall use 131kwh and total cost of £13.88. E and E again too

I'm only a month or so away from my imeasure birthday

Frugaldom

Good Monday morning meter watchers

I'm showing as E and E too, Belfastgirl, and not managing to reduce by much at all. This week's figures:

Your household's total energy spend over the last 32 weeks is £628.38

For week ending 19th July, 2009 your household spent £12.02 in total (+ £1.61 standing charge)

Electricity A Rate: £9.92
Electricity B Rate: £2.10
Electricity C Rate: £0.00
Standing charge 0 £1.61
TOTAL - £13.63 / 113kWh /59g Carbon

(Almost 'snap!' Belfastgirl, my actual meter reading shows £13.69 including the standing charge )

Average per week year to date - £21.24
Average unit cost over the year - 8.73p per kWh
Average unit cost over the week - 12.06p per kWh

I've allowed an average of £23 per week over the year (£1200) but with coal & logs still to buy, my annual fuel bill is working out around £1,700. On my £4k per year challenge, fuel takes up 42.5% of my entire annual budget, with food for the household coming in at 30%. For number-crunching junkies like me, that means it costs 1.4 times more for heating than eating, but which would you rather be? Hungry or cold? That's what it's coming to, isn't it?

I'm now £1.76 BELOW my average weekly budget :j:j:j

cw18

Just checked my badges from last week - and they've both improved from the 'E' of last week to a 'D' this week (though I'm on the 'E' side of a 'D' for both )

I'm expecting my readings for this week (tomorrow) and the next 2 weeks to drop me back to at least 'E' ratings though Younger DS decided to tidy his room yesterday ( :T - no complaints from me), and ended up with enough washing to do more than 2 loads - which made up to 3 with my stuff. (And lets not mention how long he had the vaccuum on for, nor how many times he had to empty the cyldiner before he finished :eek: ) We still have a lot of rain here, so that meant 2 loads through the dryer as well (towels and jeans - everything else is on the clothes horse in the cloakroom, much to DS's disgust as most of it says it will go through a dryer!) And over the course of this week and next I need to blitz several rooms in the house so that I have a 'spare' bedroom for next month - which includes a long overdue washing of curtains & couch covers, plus cleaning of carpets.

But I hope to see an improvement on my badges (even if not a reduction in useage) next month, as elder DS will be home for the whole of August. He's stayed with friends the last couple of times he's been home (his choice), but the plan is for me to clear up so he can stay here this time. If he does, then for 4 weeks I can increase the household headcount to 3 - and that should see a big improvement in my badges I shouldn't use any more fuel for freezers or for cooking, nor for the heating although I may need to boost the hot water a couple of times (as he's "addicted" to showers since joining the Army), so the drop 'per person' on those should hopefully more than offset him running a laptop and/or X-Box several hours a day :rolleyes2

lingojingo

Well, I have now done a full year on imeasure.
According to them I would have spent £663.53 but in fact it has been £791.61:eek:
The good news is that when divided by 12 it works out at £65.9675 per month, and Eon altered my payments down to £65 a couple of months ago. As we've decreased our usage quite a lot over the year I'm hoping to be quids in again.
This week will be higher as DS and GF are staying - he always brings huge amounts of washing with him, towels included:eek:), but then DD is off to her Dad's and then Spain, so we will use less again.