Super boring, but how much KwH do you use daily?

[BigPyjamas]

I know, I know, such an exciting topic but please, how many KwH of electricity do you use daily?

We've used 8 since midday. The internet tells me the average house uses 8-10 daily...I can't work out why ours is so high.

Thank you!

Do you have gas? A standard electricity meter? Any electric heating? Anything non standard eg fish pond etc? Is yours house a standard size?

3000ish a year so 8.2 a day average.

No gas, just electric. Biggish house but electricity use is lean: everything turned off when not in use, single light on only in a room.

I can't explain it...we have an old fridge and freezer, a burglar alarm...could that be the issue?

Have you had showers or used the tumble dryer?

If you're heating the house or water with electricity, that's really going to ramp your electric use up compared with the average, as most people use gas for this.

I've been monitoring ours recently (after persuading DH that the radiator in his shed was costing us a fortune!) We use 13-15 per day. 3bed semi, 2 adults 1 child, all three at home every day as I'm WFH just now.

Finally someone asks the real question about electricity! People usually ask how much you pay but the main comparison is in the kwh.

I'll have to check again though. Sorry had to get this rant off my chest first.

We're an all electric 3 bed flat.

Around 8-10 per day in the summer, can be double that in the winter when the heating is on.

The biggie is hot water heating which accounts for half of our usage in the summer (water and heating are on a different meter so I can see what they're costing), and heaters in winter.

About 6-8000 a year so probably 16-20 a day.

We do have storage heaters which use about 3000 of those so taking that out of the equation about 10-12 per day.

We have electric water heating as well but DH reckons the biggest pull is probably our computers as we have 3x gaming computers in the house and a console that is on most days.

Washing machine we run about 4x per week, dishwasher at least once a day, no tumble drier. We use the grill quite a lot which uses a lot of power.

Ok, thank you all.

We seem to be using 1 KwH per hour (measured over 10 hrs) In that time we did have the dishwasher on and the oven for 45 mins, iron for 45 mins but no showers, no heating, no lights, no chargers, no internet, no music, no computers, radio etc etc.

I'm wondering if we have a faulty appliance. I'm going to super sleuth it out tomorrow by turning everything off to check if the meter doesn't move, and then systematically turn off appliances that are suspicious.

Would an electrician be any use in helping if there is no obvious solution? Is there something obvious I've missed?

It's a fairly rambling and old house, so faulty wiring is an option. We used to pay £100 a month and that's with non electric cooking and heating, but now it's £150-£160 a month with no other changes. So something must be faulty, surely? £160 a month !!?!

@JenniferAllisonPhillipaSue can I ask how much that 13-15 is costing you? Not to take away from @HereForThis 's excellent point

We use between 18 and 27 kWh per day which costs between £100- £120 pm.

I've just started to pay attention to this - have looked up eco cycles on washing machine / tumble dryer rating etc.

Am keen to help the climate emergency and also save some money.

How are you measuring yours? Do you have a smart meter or just noting the metre readings in the morning and evening?

12.58 today £2.42

3 bed semi, has heating and water on a combi boiler.

It hits around £7 in winter not sure of kWh

[quote BigPyjamas]**@JenniferAllisonPhillipaSue* can I ask how much that 13-15 is costing you? Not to take away from @HereForThis* 's excellent point [/quote]
No, you're still doing it right. Asking how much after knowing the kwh comparison is part of the 'real question', says me.

I have no idea tbh.

@FusionChefGeoff we had a smart meter installed but the internal screen isn't working yet (1hr said installation man, 2 weeks day electricity company) so I'm out in my slippers to gather readings.

We've reset to 0 on the actual meter itself. Presumably this is normal?

So use since reset, which I'm imagining is midnight, has been 1 kwh.

Assuming this assumption is correct it tells me that the massive electricity drain is either something I turned off last night, or is something we're doing in the day.

More rather boring measurements and analysis to be done today

No idea how much it's costing us for just the electricity. We don't have a smart meter (we did, but it was linked to a previous supplier so when we changed, it became a dumb meter), and our bill is calculated with the gas included too.

You listed the things you had switched on - those are some of the highest consumers of electricity; lights, internet and music are very low level. But definitely go with the method of switching eveyrthing off, watch the meter, then switch each thing on in turn.

I worked out what was using our electricity by taking readings every hour of one day, which showed me that it was something that was on all the time rather than peaks and troughs. From comparing historic bills, I knew it was something that had appeared in the last 18 months (so not fridgefreezer, televisions). So I asked DH about his shed - it's a man cave - and he offered to switch off his oil-filled radiator that I didn't know was on. Hey presto, immediate drop in the hourly readings. Fortunately DH is a moneysaver so once I told him, the radiator stayed off.

You can get a thing you plug in behind the plugs of your appliances to measure the power use. I ordered one but Amazon recalled the package as it got damaged and I never got around to re ordering.

Our average per day in July was 11.5 but it varied between 7.15 and 15.1. The lower values were on days when DH and I were away, leaving just the 2 teenagers, so there was less laundry and oven use on those days. Oven and washing machine are the big consumers of power in our house - our app tracks use per 15 minutes and you can clearly see when I've had the oven on.

August average is 12.5 so far.

We've used 14 kwh in 2 hrs apparently. That's 15 since midnight.

Thats 1x tv for 1hr, 1 hair dryer for 10 mins, 1x shower (not electric/power), 2x phone chargers for 1hr each.

Oh my word. What is going on??

OP, Is your water heater on? 14kwh in 2 hours is ludicrous! It can't be right.

It's an oil powered boiler. A bit grumpy but functioning....or at least I thought so.

Will do a further test today and call a plumber / electrician ASAP if the same results

Such an awful situation - must be stressful. I hope it's sorted for you

Has your tariff changed recently? If you've been on a deal that's ended and you've gone back to the standard rate, that will cause your spend to go up, but probably not by that much.

When you say you're paying £100/160 pm, is that your actual usage, ie number of units x price per unit plus daily standard charge?

If you have a large house that's mainly electric, it could be right. The average is around £100 pm for gas and electricity, but that includes all the people who use much cheaper gas heating, plus those in smaller and better insulated properties.

Definitely start switching individual items (shower, hairdryer etc) on, watch meter, off again. You'll find what it is.