My Energy use Diary

THRIFTY_GIRL

I am extremely pleased with the meter readings this week. Sub 100 kwh of gas for the first time this year. Our lowest gas and electricity bill of the year at £7.28.

I do hope the warm weather continues; indeed the double glazing should make a difference to the heating bills now too.

I have also improved in the Imeasure tables with D and C badges; fingers crossed I will go higher with this weeks submission.

cw18

forgot to log my readings when I took them last week, which means I didn't see what my badges were for the previous week.

Just added last weeks readings, and I can tell I'm back into the 'problem' part of the year (where DS's computer useage bumps up our electricity enough to give us poor badges). Against the site as a whole we got an 'E' (D side - actually right on the boundary of the two levels), and against the comparison group (detached g&e) we got a 'D' (smack bang in the middle). Electricity for the week was up by 10kWh (to 59kWh), and gas by 12kWh (to 46kWh). Electricity increase is probably due at least in part to the fact I was home all weekend instead of at OH's

Also entered this weeks readings. Electricity back down by 11kWh and gas exactly the same - but this weeks electricity figures are probably slightly skewed as I went out at 6:15pm on Friday night, nipped through the house at 6:30am Monday morning (to grab a couple of bits I needed for work), and wasn't home until 5:45pm Monday night - so I was effectively "away" for 72 hours.

setmefree2

THRIFTY_GIRL wrote: »

I am extremely pleased with the meter readings this week. Sub 100 kwh of gas for the first time this year. Our lowest gas and electricity bill of the year at £7.28.

well done

cw18

Badges for last week show me with a 'D' (middle of) against all users and a 'C' (very bottom of) against comparison group.

Readings for this week show exactly the same 48kWh for electricity as last week (I was away for 3 nights over the weekend again, so it does look like this was the reason for the 11kWh drop last week), but with a drop of 12kWh for the gas (now down to 34kWh)

cw18

'C' side of 'D' against all users, and 'D' side of 'C' against comparison group for me with last weeks figures.

Electricity up 1kWh this week to 49kWh (DS now home full-time with no more visits to college, and I was only away for 2 nights over the weekend rather than 3 - so actually pretty pleased with this). Gas exactly the same as last week, at 34kWh.


Off to submit readings to Scot power for my latest 4 weekly bill......

HappyMJ

cw18 wrote: »

'C' side of 'D' against all users, and 'D' side of 'C' against comparison group for me with last weeks figures.

Electricity up 1kWh this week to 49kWh (DS now home full-time with no more visits to college, and I was only away for 2 nights over the weekend rather than 3 - so actually pretty pleased with this). Gas exactly the same as last week, at 34kWh.


Off to submit readings to Scot power for my latest 4 weekly bill......

Thanks CW18 and everyone else...I have eventually got around to doing this and I am amazed at how much I'm using compared to the others on this site http://imeasure.org.uk. Me...Single living by myself in a 3 bed house, electric everything and on demand heating but not used this week. I used 40kw last week. (no gas). According to site I am an "E". I thought I was the tightest out of anyone and I'm an E. How? My bills are so low.. In fact last 12 months net cost after Quidco cashbacks for switching (£360) was less than £13 per month. Less than £10 per week without Quidco and that includes heating in the winter.

This is my electric usage for a normal week.........
Small fridge and a Fridge/Freezer 24/7 (unknown power usage)
Laptop max 30 Watts/hour 24/7 (5kw/week)
8KW Shower around 6 minutes/day (5kw/week)
Washing machine 2-3 times/week. (1kw cycle)
All the lights but all energy savers. Probably a total of no more than 4 hrs/night. (0.5kw/week)
Slow cooker (twice a week all day. It's only 65W/hour. 1kw per week.) and Microwave for the other days for just a few minutes.
Toaster/Electric grill and Kettle..not much at all.
2 mobile phone chargers, BT Home Hub and 2 landline phones. 24/7
I rarely watch TV (maybe tops half hour per day) but the sky box is on 24/7.

No hot water. It's created by the electric shower and the kettle when required.

I can't see how it adds up to 40kw/week.

I suppose my question is "Is that normal?", "Why am I rated "E"?". How much does someone use who is rated "A"?, Is it biased to people who use gas for hot water and heating?

Is the only way I'm going to keep the net cost of my bills down is to continuously switch suppliers using cashback offers through Quidco?

The only money saving measure I can see is to have shorter showers but I don't feel clean in any less than 6 minutes/day. I sometimes even have an extra short shower in the evening if I go out but I have counted that in the 6 minutes. Can't turn the laptop off as it also acts as a server when I'm not here. It earns more than it costs to run.

A_fiend_for_life

HappyMJ

There are some exceptionally low users on imeasure at the moment so you shouldn't be disheartened. The stats are relevent to the moneysaving carbon club rather than the national average of 20,500 kWh for gas and 3,300 for electricity per household.

A couple of things stand out.

Try substituting showers for strip washes. eg every second day or cooler showers if poss. I suspect you're doing the latter already.

You live alone so a minimum half litre of water in most kettles maybe too much for one person for a cup of tea. Try flasking the excess. The savings are not huge on a weekly basis but might help a little.

Clothes washes could be done on 30C if you're not doing so already.

You have electric hobs these can be used to capture the residual heat for dishwashing and beverages. Have you any pyrex dishes or metal pans / bowls for the grill to capture the heat for washing etc? This would save on a few boils of the kettle. I just use a breakfast bowl of dilute detergent and cold water for most dish washing as they are done straight away. The spag bol pan is one exception.

I'm not sure how much a sky box uses but outside energy consumption I do wonder whether it is worth it at half an hour a day though. Poor reception? Does sky have a web based catch up service similar to the BBC iplayer?

HappyMJ

Thank you so much for your kind words.

Shower is on the lowest high setting as it's summer. I'll turn it up in winter. If I switch it to the low setting and make it warmer the flow of water is too low.

Yep do that with the kettle. Fill the required mug or mugs with water then put that water in the kettle. I've got extra big mugs and only leave a very small amount of water in the kettle when the mug is filled.

Washing machine is rather old it's nowhere near A rated more like E so old it doesn't have a rating and it's the 40C quick wash cycle that uses just under 1kw. (I'd never dream of using the 90C cycle for anything. Sometimes use the 60C but rarely.) Neither is the fridge or fridge/freezer they are old as well. Are they really worth replacing? I need convincing. I've been playing with the numbers but can't see the value in doing it. £200 for a new A rated WM to save how much? I think it's less than £5 per year. The machine will die before it repays itself so I'll just wait till this one dies although it is rather rubbish.

It's ok with the sky I don't pay for it. It's just the box and it's now freesat from sky for free. I should have said digital set top box. It would be a freeview box otherwise. What annoys me about turning it off it then takes 3-4 minutes to find all the channels on start up. I do put it on standby though and if I forget it goes into standby automatically.

martina123

WOW! Am well impressed with the commitment of everyone on here! I'm really going to talke on board some of the advice and tips and work on reducing my energy bills and carbon footprint. Thanks guys!

THRIFTY_GIRL

Welcome to the thread Happy MJ!

We also use about 40 kwh per week. You will find that the badges are based on average usage per person. So on imeasure, a house with 2 people using 80 kwh is the same as 1 person using 40 kwh.

We are a family of 4 so not doing too badly at the moment. I find it most useful to monitor changes in personal consumption and to get an idea of what the bill will be.

It may be helpful to get a plug in monitor (about £10 on Ebay) to see what uses more/less. You'll find heating/cooling things is most expensive - things like toaster, microwave, iron, hairdryer.