My Energy use Diary

Frugaldom

Just updating, weather here has not been conducive to reducing the need for electricity, that's for sure, although I haven't used the tumble dryer and still have it advertised for sale.

I am currently siting at 'E' and 27/56 in the carbon club, so am assuming the glitch hasn't been fixed yet.
Last week you spent:

• £0.00 on gas
• £30.00 on electricity

Total you have spent on energy since starting imeasure (14 weeks ago):

• £0.00 on gas
• £201.48 on electricity

I'm nowhere near heating our house - the place is still cold enough to see your breath in the hallway at nights, we don't have hot water and all the lightbulbs are energy saving. I'm now counting the days until we move. If the Government wants us to reduce our carbon footprint then they are going to have to do something about landlords, rented accommodation and availability of alternative sources of energy, because I am not going to freeze and I'm not going to bankrupt myself paying for electricity when it is the ONLY source of heating available to us. I am going to turn on the heaters and the hot water to see just how much it costs to maintain 'room temperature' of 16C for a full day, and provide instant hot water, because that's what an employer would need to do if we worked anywhere else. That way, we'll know what can be offset against business use at the end of the year.

Hold onto your hats, this could be SHOCKING!

Back again: Whilst in town, I managed to buy a cheap room thermometer, so I can now confirm that the living room (upstairs, warmest room in the house) is 16C at the moment. I'll see what it drops to as the light fades and the temperature outside drops. I haven't checked kitchen, hallway or bedrooms yet but I have switched on the water heater, the top floor storage heater plus a small convector heater on the ground floor where there's no other source of heating. Tomorrow morning's reading should be a shocker and that's just trying to get the other rooms in the house up to 16 degrees.

cw18

cw18 wrote: »

(my heating should have been running the last couple of weeks, but it appears we have a fault that BG are coming to look at this afternoon -- we're getting hot water OK, but the radiators are point blank refusing to warm up, even when I say I want the house at 30 degrees to try and get it to kick in when the thermostat is telling me the house is currently 14 degrees!!! And there's no airlock in the radiators either, as I've been round with the bleed key twice in the last 48 hours)

We now have heating :T:eek:

Not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing DH definitely needs it due to his long term condition, but I've been busy trying to keep it off/as low as possible for as long as possible. But now DH knows it's working he can turn it on/up anytime he likes :mad:

The problem was a faulty 'box' which is housed in the airing cupboard -- and which was last replaced within the last 8 weeks when our heating has blasting non-stop whenever the water heating was on I knew what the problem was last time, as we used to get the same thing on an annual basis at our last house and it was the second time in this house, but I've never known it stop the heating altogether

Even the chap who came was surprised it was that, as he says they normally last a couple of years (which ties in to what I was told when it was last replaced, which was 29 months after the previous replacment !!!)

It seems that every time I even think about cancelling the contract to save myself over £16/month something goes wrong just to prove we still need it :rolleyes2


So from here on in my gas useage is going to go up, and up, and up, and .......

greenbee

My electricity use has gone up slightly, from 4.85kwH/day to 5kwH/day. However, my gas usage (I'm having to leave the hot water on slightly longer to get it up to temperature, have been having baths rather than showers, so am reheating the whole tank, and have had the heating on a few times when working from home so as to be warm enough to type) has gone up from 12kwH/day to 21kwH/day. I expect it to increase as I need the heating on more and more. I have now set it to come on for an hour in the mornings on work days (not weekends), but it requires a manual start at any other time of day, as I tend to be erratic as to when I get home in the evenings... no point letting it kick in at 7.30pm if I'm not going to get home until 11pm is there!

Frugaldom

Glad you got the problem solved cw18, I've been trying to research optimum room temperatures with regards to health and safety and according to the health related sites, many are quoting 24C and well aired for optimum healthy bedroom/sleeping temperatures! :eek: How can a room be well aired and 24 degrees during winter? Room here is now 15C, so I'm certainly going to need extra heater to get it to maintain 16C. The term, 'room temperature' seems to mean 20-21C on most sites, but I honestly think I'd find that too warm unless I was making TV commercials for sofas or toiletries. :rotfl:

lingojingo

Thanks to everyone who replied yesterday :T

Well, it seems it wasn't the heating pump, tried it in the evening and no neglible difference in electricity usage, as you all thought. I'm so pleased about that seeing as the actual heating is gas, so it would have been awful to have all that electricity on top.

Still can't work out what it was though, so still a bit concerned.

Good news, I'm in the process of switching bank accounts and when I changed the payment details with Eon they dropped my monthly amount by £17, based on the big reductions in usage over the last 6 months ( just had a bill and we're now £235.95in credit ) So that will help a lot for the next quarter, and we can have some heating!

digimortal_2

another update.. entered the reading into the website.. and was quite happy.. almost the same as the prievious week, even tho the cold/windy weather etc.. and whilst the subject seems to be about CH settings/room temp etc.. just thought ild add this link.. i posted it a while back.. for the new MSCC members.. worth a read..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bloom/flash.shtml#/actions/heatingcontrols.shtml
having a new boiler fitted early this summer.. iam keen to see how it will cope this winter.. when the house warms up(dont take long), the owl room temp shows 20+ degrees down stairs.. the boiler is set to kick in 2 hours in the morning, and 3pm-9pm everyday.. @18d on wall Tstat.. just need to work out why our leccy is alittle above average... could be extra TD

C rating - 7/58 mscc
Last week you spent:

• £5.43 on gas
• £9.24 on electricity

Total you have spent on energy since starting imeasure (10 weeks ago):

• £32.57 on gas
• £86.16 on electricity

You chose to compare your household with (All users/All housetypes) - to change your comparison go into your user detail settings.

Your results are being compared with the averages of 161 households.
Carbon emissions Kg CO2
Last weekLast MonthLast QuarterPer person24 (30)23 (27)0 (22)Per household72 (79)70 (71)0 (55)
Gas use as kWh
Last weekLast MonthLast QuarterPer Person52 (83)48 (70)0 (49)Per Household155 (215)144 (175)0 (118)
Electricity use as kWh
Last weekLast MonthLast QuarterPer Person26 (26)26 (25)0 (23)Per Household77 (69)77 (66)0 (58)

A_fiend_for_life

I'm on 23 / 58 at the moment and on a D again. I'm surprised as I only used 24 units of electricity and 55 gas. Got below a fiver on total fuel use according to imeasure too.:)

I think it would be good to be able to compare with the national average so we can see how much we are reducing too.

Imeasure Results

You have been taking readings for 13 weeks
Since you started measuring your total household -

Energy use is 811 kWh (Gas: 499kWh | Electricity: 312kWh)
Carbon emissions are 266 Kg CO2 (Gas: 103 Kg CO2 | Electricity: 163 Kg CO2)

Last week you spent:
* £1.93 on gas
* £2.88 on electricity

Total you have spent on energy since starting imeasure

(13 weeks ago):
* £17.45 on gas
* £37.44 on electricity

Carbon emissions Kg CO2
...............Last week..Last Month..Last Quarter
Per person.....24 (30)....28 (27).....20 (22)
Per household..24 (80)....28 (71).....20 (55)

Gas use as kWh
...............Last week..Last Month..Last Quarter
Per Person.....55 (84)....69 (70).....38 (49)
Per Household..55 (216)...69 (175)....38 (118)

Electricity use as kWh
...............Last week..Last Month..Last Quarter
Per Person.....24 (26)....26 (25).....24 (23)
Per Household..24 (69)....26 (66).....24 (58)

CaroB_2

Oh my word, I'm scared now...

Since you started measuring your total household -
Energy use is 1,280 kWh (Gas: 847kWh | Electricity: 433kWh)
Carbon emissions are 401 Kg CO2 (Gas: 174 Kg CO2 | Electricity: 226 Kg CO2)

Last week you spent:

• £6.58 on gas
• £4.68 on electricity

Total you have spent on energy since starting imeasure (13 weeks ago):

• £29.63 on gas
• £51.96 on electricity

Our gas use has leapt up this week! Although the outside temperature has been fairly mild it's been so windy that the flat has been cold - we're in the top floor of a tenement, very exposed, and with lots of draughts. Therefore we've not been able to turn the heating off this week and it's been on for 3 hours a day (1 hour in the morning and 2 in the evening). For the first time we've used more than the average of the 8 households we're being compared to (admittedly no doubt they're not in Scotland or high-ceilinged Victorian tenements!). Gulp! And now of course it's cold cold cold up here - my hat's made it out of the cupboard, the winter coat is on and the temperature is near freezing overnight.

However, the heating's on for less time than last year so that's a good thing!

lingojingo

just posting this to be able to compare gas use when we start to have the heating on, which I expect will be any day now.

Last week you spent:

• £1.09 on gas
• £6.24 on electricity

Total you have spent on energy since starting imeasure (14 weeks ago):

• £24.14 on gas
• £94.68 on electricity

average over the 14 weeks - gas £1.72 elec £6.76

ticking-over

:hello:Evening Everyone, Well I figured it was time to stop 'lurking' and come in an say hello.... I spent quite a while on sunday reading all the posts in this thread an decided to take a look at the imeasure site you were talking about.
After a couple of hours of dithering about I figured out how to read my meters.... and discovered a wonderful wind tunnel behind the gas meter:mad: which may explain why the kitchen feels like the flippin arctic during the winter........ Another complaint on the list for the Housing Assoc:eek:
Yep there's nothing like crawling around on your hands an knees with a torch at 4am to make you appreciate how stupid the position of the gas meter is an how cold it is in the kitchen when you're not cooking..... then I found out how cold it was in the stairwell when I went out to read the leccy meter:snow_laug
After the about whether or not the gas was cubic feet or meters..... more crawling on hands n knees in arctic to find it's m3..... I've got to wait till next week 3rd Nov to repeat process (Oh joy) in order to find out how much is used an how it compares to everyone else.......
I don't think we do too badly but I know it jumps when himself is home cos he hates being cold, and until the HA get round to fixing the stupid storage heaters we only only really have the gas fire in the front room for heating, :mad:
Anyway, just wanted to say I'm really impressed by the reductions you've all been making :TKeep up the good work but remember to put your health first.

Oh yeah an if you listen closely you can hear some of the energy suppliers starting to sweat about their profit margins.... now isn't that a nice sound:rotfl: