How many units of electric do you use in a 24hr period?

[frazzled101]

After a frightening electric bill I'm trying to cut down our usage. I'm on maternity leave so home with a 6mth old and a 3 year old. My DH also works from home about half the time.

Main usage is appliance, lights and the tv. I'm trying to do no more than about 5 washes per week, barely use the immersion and have stopped using the tumble dryer.

I'm still averaging 12-14 units in a 24 hour period. It's a 3 bed bungalow. Also making sure to switch off all lights etc.

My usage seems much higher than my sisters to has a bigger house, more children etc.

Thanks

Cut down to 8.5kwh per day. We have smart lights throughout but only now turned on after 7pm and I use eco eggs in the tumbler, put on line as much as possible. I like you have an 8 month old and 3 year old so do a laundry wash a day.

About 100kwh a month, so 3 or so a day. We have gas heating, water, stovetop. Adult and teen in a small three bed. I go out to work.

6.5 kWh per day. Gas heating/hot water/stove though. I'm careful with usage and it's just me living here.

7.2 kw per day baseline (0.3 kw/hour) low energy lights and appliances. Have solar PV so use washing machine, dishwasher and tumble dryer during day. Solar surplus diverts to heat water which saves on gas hot water heating.

2-3 of us. 2 working from home 3 bed semi

Our most recent bill is from 4 March to 4 April - 31 days. We used 759 kWh, or 24.5 per day. That is a lot, but we have a big house and we have an electric car. Unfortunately, we don't have a means of measuring how much went into the car (we did once but the meter broke) but the car says that it used 189kWh during March and only about 7 of that was charging away from home. Taking that off, and adding 10% for charging losses, preheating etc means about 200kWh went into the car, making daily use in the house around 18 units. That's still a lot and I need to find out where it is going.

One thing that often gets overlooked is that while many people have gas heating, the water is driven round the radiators by an electric pump, and they are quite power hungry. Because of the size of our house and because we have both water-based underfloor heating in some parts and radiators in others, we have two of them. One seems to be making a noise some of the time so I'm going to need an engineer in to look at it, because if it's not working properly it could be taking even more than it should.

We were using about 13kWh per day over Christmas period but after trying to cut it down we're now at about 10-11kWh per day.

Gas central heating, but electric oven and hob. Big American style fridge freezer will be pretty power hungry, plus two adults working from home, two DC who spend a lot of time on Tv, PS4 etc. We have LED lighting throughout the house, wash a lot but mostly cold/eco washes, use eco setting on the dishwasher, only tumble when we really need to with an efficient heat pump dryer (maybe once a week max on average).

We're getting an electric car later this year so consumption will increase (but obviously fuel costs will drop) and hoping to get solar panels and battery storage fitted this year.

If (big if) you have changed all your lightbulbs to LED, you're not going to save much by turning off the lights. The electricity is being used by something else.

Oh and during March the car (says it) did 818 miles at an average energy consumption of 4.3 miles/kWh (which is quite good). So that's around 7.5p/mile at current prices, compared to the other, diesel, car which does around 18p per mile.

2 bed bungalow. Just me and DD. I'm at home all day every day and use 2 kw per day electricity. And I leave one light on all night because of a security scare we had. I did start using air fryer a lot and noticed it cut down use of electric oven by about 2 hrs a week. Make sure I only run the dishwasher and washer when full / big enough load (so 2 or 3 times week) I only have one or two cups of tea a day too. I know some of my coffee addict extended family are boiling kettle constantly.

8 per day for 3 bed property.
5 on economy 7 tariff and 3 on 'normal'.

gas hob and CH boiler but electric oven.
I work PT, DH retired but goes out a lot for hobbies.

Use washing line in good weather, not tumbler.
Use slo-cooker for quite a few meals.
Use washer, tumbler (when necessary), bread-maker on E7 rate.
Low wattage bulbs wherever we can fit them.
Only boil as much water in kettle as needed.

OP, if DH is self-employed he can claim a % of bills for using his house as an office.

Thanks for these. My usage definitely seems on the high side in comparison. Last summer we got a water pump fitted to improve water pressure so I'm wondering if that's the culprit. Will switch it off for a 24 hour period and see what difference that makes.

On our last bill we used 6.7 units per day. We do use gas for our hot water, hob and heating and used 3.9 units per day. We had made a conscious effort to reduce our usage last month, so not leaving anything on standby, washing on cold cycle, only washing clothes when they actually need it rather than automatically throwing all clothes in the wash at the end of the day, line drying, hand washing the dishes instead of using the dishwasher, using a slow cooker 4-5 nights a week instead of the oven, stopped using the power shower (fortunately have a standard shower in another bathroom everyone can use). Family of 5 in 5 bed house, 4 people home 24/7.

How are you cooking?

Does the immersion heat all your water?

What about your heating?

Do you have gas as well?

It's not always helpful to compare with other people who have different property sizes, heating systems, insulation levels, patterns of behaviour and are on different tariffs.

If you're cooking a lot in the oven, you'd probably save by switching to an air fryer and a slow cooker. We've bought both these items quite cheaply so will probably pay for themselves in no time, plus air fryer is quicker, and slow cooker can be left to it's own devices without supervison, so both useful factors.

Immersion heater is likely to be a big cost, is the tank well insulated?

Have a look through the MSE cost of living help and see what you can do that's relevant to your circumstances.

How are you all getting your kWh? I know what my meter readings are but just have an old meter, not a smart meter.

We have oil heating which is generally on for 1 hour in the morning and same again in the evening which also heats our water. We are trying not to use the immersion at all.

I have a gas hob but would use the oven a few times a week.

@OnlyClothes I can only see my usage at a total level from the meter so I'm been writing it down at 9am every day for a couple of weeks now.

@OnlyClothes

How are you all getting your kWh? I know what my meter readings are but just have an old meter, not a smart meter.

Get my kWh from smart meter. But I think if you have an online account with your provider, you may also be able to extract that info. Or at least get your monthly usage so get average per day.

Alternatively, you can take a reading from your old meter each morning and evening for a week and get the readings that way.

@OnlyClothes

How are you all getting your kWh? I know what my meter readings are but just have an old meter, not a smart meter.

Yearly estimate on bill divided by 365. At the moment it is lower than that, about 2.5 a day over the last month, meter reading minus meter reading divided by number of days.

Ok so thanks for the help, I’ve worked out my electric kWh per day averaged out at 4.4 per day in the week before the price change, (36.2 gas) and 2.2 (9 gas).

I turned the heating off completely, had a slight go at timing my showers and was more on top of lights etc.

All electric house 3 bed end of terrace, 2 adults & 2 toddlers; DH works from home; usage is between 6.5-16.5kwh depending on whether we do a couple of loads of washing and what we’re eating so whether I use the cooker or not.

Thanks everyone. Yesterday was the lowest day I've managed which was 9 units, no washing done and I didn't use the oven.

3 bed here, 5 of us, DH working from home 4 days a week. Gas heating and hob, but electric oven. No tumble dryer, but we do have a dehumidifier we use on days we can't dry washing outside.

I've been tracking our electricity use since the start of March (can't do gas as easily as we don't have a gas smart meter as they couldn't fit one easily).

Daily average ranges from 12.6 kwh for the first week of March, lowest was 9.6 kwh. Lowest actual reading was 6.5 kwh on a day that DH and I were both out all day and DC were at school. I've really noticed that the heating being on makes a big difference to our electricity use as well as gas.

My gas central heating works with electricity too, I think it’s the pump maybe???

Also, do you all have energy saving light bulbs?