My Energy use Diary

A_fiend_for_life

nykmedia wrote: »

And on a less than frugal note, I'm going to have to switch on the tumble dryer tonight as nothing is drying. I'm thinking of placing a 'wanted' ad on freecycle for one of those old fashioned wooden 'clothes horses'.

Hi nykmedia,

Something that might be worth looking at is the old type stand alone spinner. Not sure if you'd get one on freecycle as I suspect folk wouldn't want to part with them.

Small electrical repair shops or house clearance 'stores' might be worth a try. Old style board?

My parents had one of these an it would leave clothes more or less dry though you had to make sure you didn't use it for too long as they can damage clothes. That said I never had a problem with it.

A_fiend_for_life

Little_Mama wrote: »

nearly relented and used the tumble today as the clothes, despite being out all day, were almost as wet as when they came out the machine.....instead the airer is out in the conservatory in the hope that the much promised morning sun tomorrow will do the job!........wanders off mumbling "I will not use my tumble dryer.....or put my heating on......".......:rotfl:

I had the same problem the other week. I had put them on a low spin and the weather changed. I left them in the close and two or three days later they were nearly dry a t-shirt and a couple of smalls got stale smelling so they had to be washed again. The weather was bad for the three days so a success I think.

Little_Mama

Conservatory worked a treat, all were dry by the time we got up yesterday.

belfastgirl23

Just did my reads for the week and my electric use has gone up to 66KWH from 57KWH last week. Not sure exactly why although I feel like I've been washing more and I have ended up having to finish stuff off in the TD cos the weather hasn't been great. Also I suspect we watched more TV which does add up since we have a plasma. Gas usage stayed exactly the same at 100KWH. I'm expecting it all to go down next week since DH is away for the week. And then hopefully plummet for almost three weeks while we go off and sun ourselves

bigpaws23

mine's still around 110 units a week for electric (we don't have gas). I'm pretty miffed about it because I can't work out what's eating the units.
I think I'll have a good look into this next week and see what I come up with.

Frugaldom

I add my meter readings into i-measure for weeks running Sunday to Sunday, so I though that the latest one was due today, however, site says 01/09/08 so I'm confused. 24/08/08 to 01/09/08 is 8 days and not a week. Has anyone else noticed this?

OK, I'm back after thinking more about this - perhaps it's because it's to include the entire day's readings. I can't get the final 31/08/08 reading until after 11pm when the day meter switches to night rate. However it works out, I'm looking at around 260 kwu for the month of August, so that's an average of 8.38 per day and my target was to get below 10 this month. :j :T :beer: I'll know for sure tonight and, if I'm right, then I'll be aiming to try to stay below 10-a-day during September, despite the continuing loesy weather! It can't possibly keep raining for another full month. :mad:

Re the spin dryer - I did have one of these for a while (until it eventually burned out) but they run on electricity, which is what I'm trying to avoid. I'm thinking of moving the portable greenhouse and drying the clothes in that if the weather doesn't improve. Let's face it, the tomatoes are never going to ripen without the sun and I'm as well getting some use out of it during the winter! :rotfl:

Bigpaws - is your hot water on during the night? Mine uses 6 units to heat the tank, so that's 42 units right away if it's on every night. Mines only on once or rwice per week now and, to be honest, I'm not missing the constant availability of hot water. The shower and kettle heat up enough for us all.

Optimisticpair

nykmedia wrote: »

Well done Belgastgirl!

And on the i-measure front, latest count now shows 93 households and 30 of them appear to be members of the Moneysaving Carbon Club

Cheers!

39 of us now

bigpaws23

nykmedia wrote: »

Bigpaws - is your hot water on during the night? Mine uses 6 units to heat the tank, so that's 42 units right away if it's on every night.

Wow - you're doing brilliantly - well done you!

our water comes on for an hour in the morning and again early evening. Maybe I can go down to once a day instead. I think I'll try that and see.

What I was wondering was if it's economical to have a shower over the bath and use that to heat water for a bath, rather than an immersion tank. Would it take so long to fill that it goes cold before it's deep enough? :rolleyes:

Dh was also considering putting an old shower we had from a friend under the kitchen sink as a kind of 'tankless water heater' idea. That might make a difference; but tbh, perhaps we should take a leaf out of your book and just use the kettle instead.

SuiDreams

Slight improvement this week Electric 4.57 per day and gas 9.55 per day

Frugaldom

Ben84 wrote: »

There are some very good offers for subsidised insulation available from energy companies right now. It makes a big difference, even in old houses that have lots of air leaks.

Thanks for that, unfortunatley I live in short term rented accommodation, otherwise I'd have jumped at the opportunity.

Just added in the meter readings and it was, as I thought, waiting for the full day's readings, so didn't end up as an 8 day week. I'm now sitting at 17/31 in the carbon club and still don't know how it's ranked, but I did notice that there are now 41 of us from MSE feeding in results :T Today, mine says the following:

Last week you spent:

• £0.00 on gas
• £8.16 on electricity

Total you have spent on energy since starting imeasure (6 weeks ago):

• £0.00 on gas
• £46.32 on electricity

I wonder if the i-measure site has increased the unit prices to reflect the increases in gas & electricity that take effect from today? I really do pity those with gas as a 35% increase just seems ludicrous!