How best to find out high energy culprit
Comments
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I think the water tank in the loft is your cold tank. The one in the house is your hot tank, heated by the boiler with an immersion heater as backup which you're not using.
I think your consumption is average. You need to monitor in Watts, not green bars! LED GLS bulbs are a couple of quid and use 5W instead of 60W.
The fridge freezer thing is all about how many watts it uses and for how many hours a day/week/year. Google the model number, find its specification and see what the manufacturer said it uses a year - it'll be using at least that and more probably. Compare with specification for one you might think about replacing it with. If it's old and struggling to keep temperatures down and it was energy hungry when new, then it's worth thinking about junking it.
Cheers all, I will move to LED GLS bulbs, I already have a few actually installed and yes on the cold tank and hot tank for boiler for hot water.
As for the fridge I checked but the manuals long gone, only thing I found around the internet was this about my model :
Energy consumption (kWh/24 hours): 1.57
Is this high or low ?0 -
Cheers all, I will move to LED GLS bulbs, I already have a few actually installed and yes on the cold tank and hot tank for boiler for hot water.
As for the fridge I checked but the manuals long gone, only thing I found around the internet was this about my model :
Energy consumption (kWh/24 hours): 1.57
Is this high or low ?
That comes to 573kWhr per year, around 15% of your electricity bill - assuming it's still operating as efficiently as it was when it left the factory, which is unlikely. An A++ model might use 240kWhr annually and an A+++ model 180kWhr - all approx figures depending on what size appliance you go for. However, you can buy a lot of electricity for the £400-£700 such a replacement might cost you.
I'd be buying a shiney new A+++ fridge freezer for sure. Then replace every lightbulb you can with LED, and you'll be ok. You'll probably be stuck with the big kitchen light, but get into the habit of turning it off once the cooking & eating is done for the evening.0 -
matelodave wrote: »Forget your IHD - take proper meter readings from the meter. Most IHD's dont work out the costs properly and many dont even accurated give meter readings.
Lets make it easy.
Turn everything off before you go to bed, then read the meter. Read it again in the morning when you get up but before you turn stuff back on again. That will give you a rough idea of what is being used when you arent using much.
If you use more than say 1-2kwh overnight then find out whats using it (Fridge, freezer, sky-box, router, clocks phone chargers, TV on standby, cooker etc) Hopefully you wont have used much gas because you'd turned off the boiler.
Then turn stuff on that you normally have on and read the meter after a couple of hours, you should see what is now using it. as I said before it's not difficult you just need to use a bit of common sense to identify what's using it all.
How many TV's, sky boxes, games consoles, hair dryer and other stuff are in use. Hot water for multiple baths will use a lot of energy, especially if you are having several a day.
If you can't put a bit of effort into taking meter readings and checking whats going on then there's no hope of you reducing your consumption
Cheers for advice I will strive to check more and direct on the meters, was unaware the IHD was that inaccurate for readings.0 -
You're getting there, but these figures won't be accurate if any are estimated. In future, take at least monthly readings from each meter (not the IHD).
Forget all the alleged savings, just compare the projected annual costs with your existing annual costs.
That's £££ down the plughole, get a shower PDQ, and not an instantaneous electric one.
Well, seems like there's no great problem with your overall consumption, seems quite reasonable for your circumstances. Good news in that you haven't been pouring money into a black hole, not such good news if you were looking for a magic bullet to halve your energy costs. BTW, no point in combining the kWh figures, they're basically chalk and cheese.
Like many others, you were probably misled by wonky DD amounts. Forget them, mostly forget green bars, always work in actual kWh usage and then find the best deal.
However, there's a fair bit you may be able to do to reduce your energy consumption if you haven't already done so: all the usual things such as good insulation around the hot tank, cavity wall insulation, loft insulation etc. Then keep checking your consumption to make sure you're still on a cheap tariff !
Cheers, those were the smart meter readings that were sent to british gas and from the bg site via account usage so don't think they were the estimated ones, there was one estimated but that was more recently and a one off.
Yeah great idea will go by direct meter readings even the monthly will show correct usage and go by kwh.
Was not aware a shower was much cheaper then a bath, I did try to have it installed but the bathroom is too small to house it sadly so had to stick with a bath tub sadly.
Yeah I think your spot on with the wonky DD amounts, just seems BG did not give me the proper DD payments for past few years.
I have done a fair bit as much as I currently know at least, but yeah still bit more too go !0 -
That comes to 573kWhr per year, around 15% of your electricity bill - assuming it's still operating as efficiently as it was when it left the factory, which is unlikely. An A++ model might use 240kWhr annually and an A+++ model 180kWhr - all approx figures depending on what size appliance you go for. However, you can buy a lot of electricity for the £400-£700 such a replacement might cost you.
I'd be buying a shiney new A+++ fridge freezer for sure. Then replace every lightbulb you can with LED, and you'll be ok. You'll probably be stuck with the big kitchen light, but get into the habit of turning it off once the cooking & eating is done for the evening.
Thanks, had a feeling the ole fridge may have been a big energy sucker for my home I have been planning on replacing it but the family couldn't decide on a new one.
I did look at the A+++ they are the most expensive naturally but does sound like it makes a difference do you think its a good saving say £100 or 200 per year ? It does have to be cost effective if spending £600-700 on a fridge !0 -
Thanks, had a feeling the ole fridge may have been a big energy sucker for my home I have been planning on replacing it but the family couldn't decide on a new one.
I did look at the A+++ they are the most expensive naturally but does sound like it makes a difference do you think its a good saving say £100 or 200 per year ? It does have to be cost effective if spending £600-700 on a fridge !
On paper the A+++ could save £75-80 annually but I suspect the true figure would be higher because your existing one is probably using more than its "spec sheet" figure.
If you were thinking about a replacement anyway, then the energy savings are a "free" bonus!0 -
Why? https://www.screwfix.com/p/lap-bc-gls-led-light-bulb-806lm-9-5w-5-pack/5894t#_=pUsing old 60w Light bulbs0 -
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The old TV you have will use much more power than new modern ones as well.
From what you have said by replacing a few items you can make some good savings on your energy bills.
You can get LED replacement tubes for your old style kitchen light as well. They are not the cheapest admittedly but they last for thousands of hours and will give a saving over time.
And as said above. You can fit an over bath shower to almost any bath. This will save you money on electric and water.0 -
On paper the A+++ could save £75-80 annually but I suspect the true figure would be higher because your existing one is probably using more than its "spec sheet" figure.
If you were thinking about a replacement anyway, then the energy savings are a "free" bonus!
Yeah it probably is working overtime, I do a manual defrost of it but its not always every year and clean the it regularly especially dust behind it. Guess only so much maintenance you can do, still its a good chunk off the bill as you say, its on the list for sure for replacement.0
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