I'm thinking about turning my electricity OFF over night

[LaurieFairyCake]

So last night before bed I took a meter reading and right now another

I've used 6 units of electricity over night (only me and Dh, pretty sure the dogs aren't boiling kettles over night)

That works out at £0.85 a night, £25.33 A MONTH

The things that are running every night is fridge freezer, phone chargers, laptop chargers, the clock on the cooker

I've read it's fine to turn off the fridge freezer (no meat in it) as it won't spoil in 8 hours

I can't believe I would save £25 a month doing this !

Anything I've overlooked?

Everything you open the door the cooling unit has to work harder. So I'd focus on first filling empty space in freezer. and opening both fridge and freezer a minimum amount.

"Every time you open" that should read.

Electrical wiring contains free moving delocalized electrons. When you turn something on, electrons flow down the wire. When you turn it off, the electrons are still in the wire, but they don’t move along it.
Since the mains is AC, am I right that they wouldn't move along either, just backwards and forwards - the electrons don't flow out of the plug, down the wire and back again.

Take an insulated bags you have supermarket shopping. Empty into appliance straight away. Keep stuff cold so you don't pay for more cooling than necessary.

Could you get some plug sockets with timers on, like these? You can set them to turn off over night and you wouldn't have to go round turning off the hard to reach switches. You can also get digital ones
I wouldn't get one for the fridge, though.

I don't think you would save all that though. You would need more electricity the next day to cool the fridge/freezer back down again. You also still need to charge your devices, so would pay for that when you charge them.

I wouldn't.

God sake life is too bloody short to put food in insulated bags to save under £30

I wouldn't turn the fridge off overnight. It would work longer in the morning to get back to temperature and could spoil the food. Putting milk etc in the freezer might defrost what's in the freezer if the fridge isn't on. Yes overall the fridge would use less than leaving on all the time but it shouldn't use that much, and spoilt food is even more expensive not to say dangerous.

Might be worth turning it down though or checking it's properly sealed. Might also be worth turning everything else off bar the fridge overnight to see how much is used and do the same for other things to eliminate the culprit.

Any outside lights on overnight or in the garage? Assuming no electric car . Also double check there isn't an immersion switch on, most tanks have them, or an electric towel rail.

@Mrsjayy

God sake life is too bloody short to put food in insulated bags to save under £30

If that is aimed at my advice on shopping and storing freezer food it's just what I do as common sense. 🤷

Templeblossom

This isn't a rental property, this is the house I live in

How is this in poor taste, saving £300 a year

Energy ratings have changed BTW - A or B from 3-4 years ago is not very good. The problem with the old scale is everything kept getting better so they had to keep adding letters, A+, A++, A+++ and it became meaningless as like you, most people assume A/B to be good ratings, even though they are actually 4th/5th from the top.

For example an A++ rated fridge freezer would be an E under the new system.

markselectrical.co.uk/connect/energy-rating-labels-have-changed.html

However, I'm not sure if this would make enough of a difference to explain it.

Turning off the appliance overnight is definitely not the way to go. Nor is it useful to swap milk in and out of the freezer.
If op is on a mission this week to do something however tiny to offset fuel pruce increases she might as well do something slightly effective!🤣

@EmmaH2022 can't quote your reply.
I'm Head of Complaints for a major ISP. Vast majority of complaints are about slow speed. The ones that are caused by the customer switching their router off at night are easily the most frustrating to deal with.
I can't do any thing to fix it. The customer has to believe me, AND stop doing it. Then trust us and wait 7-10 days.

What they actually do is carry on switching it off, deny they are switching it off, and scream at me and my staff for months. Our system logs show the router switching off at night and coming back on again in the morning, but they still deny and won't help themselves.

Please for love of god, don't switch your router off. If you do, and don't seem to experience any issues, then that is great for you. Maybe you just have slow glitchy internet anyway. But switching it off is not how the technology is designed to work.

[quote jessieminto]@EmmaH2022 can't quote your reply.
I'm Head of Complaints for a major ISP. Vast majority of complaints are about slow speed. The ones that are caused by the customer switching their router off at night are easily the most frustrating to deal with.
I can't do any thing to fix it. The customer has to believe me, AND stop doing it. Then trust us and wait 7-10 days.

What they actually do is carry on switching it off, deny they are switching it off, and scream at me and my staff for months. Our system logs show the router switching off at night and coming back on again in the morning, but they still deny and won't help themselves.

Please for love of god, don't switch your router off. If you do, and don't seem to experience any issues, then that is great for you. Maybe you just have slow glitchy internet anyway. But switching it off is not how the technology is designed to work. [/quote]
Not had any problems
It’s not slow or glitchy
Hope I haven’t cursed myself saying that

Neighbours have said we get better internet on the higher floors?

If I do have issues in future, then I’ll remember that and keep it on.

You can turn of circuits, so the kitchen still runs

It's not good for your WiFi router to be turned on and off all the time. I think IIRC it ends up choking your speed of uploads and downloads.

I use wireless remote controlled sockets (not smart sockets) for items plugged in in awkward/inaccessible areas. Means I can turn off the TV, printer, floor lamps and so on that are behind bookshelves or dressers really easily.

They also work well at Christmas for tree lights, and I have them for my bedside lamps and diffuser so I can be lazy at night and just press one button from my bed for them all.

Similar to these (although I got mine from Aldi a while back) Sockets

Since the mains is AC, am I right that they wouldn't move along either, just backwards and forwards - the electrons don't flow out of the plug, down the wire and back again.

Correct. As they move backwards and forwards they create a kind of wave. When you turn the switch off they stop moving and the wave motion stops, but they are still in the wire. Waiting.

Oh I know I'm late to this but I just love the idea of the dogs getting themselves a nice hot cuppa in the middle of the night.

OP do you drive? I bet you could save £25 a month in fuel by not making journeys that could be walked and by the manner of your driving.

I'd keep the fridge and freezer on if I was you.

I make almost all journeys by bus (in London) and have a 17 year old car I only use once a week to do the shopping/pick up prescriptions - my last tank of petrol lasted me 3 months

@Polyanthus2

Isn't the charge less at night - we are being encouraged to use off peak electricity?

At the moment only if you’re an all electric property with economy 7 or 10 meter. In future there are plans that smart metering will lead to higher prices during high usage times and lower rates at lower usage times but it’s not up and running yet.

Faffing round shunting items between fridge and freezer might well use more electricity compared to just leaving both doors shut.

Definitely a good idea to have both fridge and freezer full, though, as a PP said. When I had a fridge too large for me, I used bottles of water to keep it full – although even empty bottles of air would have done the trick. When I opened the door there was less free-flowing cold air to gush out all over me and be replaced by warm air.

High days and holidays when I actually needed the larger capacity were only once or twice a year, so the loss of taking out the cool-holding water bottles and then having to cool them down again afterwards was much outweighed by the other 360 days of the year.

Are your appliances old? If they are they will use more electricity than new ones. 6kw overnight is alot

@ivykaty44

ive now taken a meter reading and set a timer for an hour, with everything turned off bar what would be on at night, curious to see what electric usage is through for an hour

Interested to hear how this experiment went.