£10 a day on electricity

[Spoodee]

That's what I'm hitting now. On a smart meter and they won't let me change.

Large family, but small terraced house.
It's so stressful.

Anything that produces heat is expensive: the heating mat, oven, tumble dryer, hair dryer.... Those are the things you need to reduce usage of. The CCTV will be very cheap so no need to worry about that

I bought a meter to record electricity usage at the beginning of the year and was shocked to find that the fridge and freezers I’d had for 30 years were costing £750 a year so bought new ones. Leaving TV/free view/sound bar/recorder on standby in 3 rooms was costing around £100 a year - spent £21 on smart plugs to automate switching them off every night as the switches are not easily accessible. DP’s complicated hifi system was switched off apart from when in use. I’ve made sure that all our lightbulbs are low energy LED as the previous owners had installed loads of spotlights in every room.

Our washing machine, tumble drier, dishwasher, oven and hob all draw power when switched on but on standby. It may not be much for each appliance but it all adds up over a year. We have been fortunate to be able to spend money to save money but it started from a place of really understanding where we were using it - and it’s worth knowing that each appliance is different so some don’t draw any or much power.

Overall, we’ve cut our usage from around 25kwh per day to around 10ish last month.

I've just checked mine, and even on a day we used the tumble dryer all day, it didnt reach £7.

Do you have an electric shower? They eat electricity.

Have you a debt you're paying off? If not that's far too much.
Do you have had central heating, if so I'm sure it would be cheaper to put that on do the house is warm and the heating dries, than to run the tumble dryer.
Plus heating the water with gas is much cheaper than electricity.

I did 2 washes yesterday and 3 tumble dries as well as one dishwasher - it was 4.45 yesterday. That is high for us as it is normally just over 3 pounds a day.

You really need to find out how much your different devices are using. There is a device you can plug into each device to find out how much it is using. Maybe somebody you know can lend you it? If not possible, you could check the current consumption on your smart meter whilst running different devices to estimate how much they use.

An old fridge or freezer may use more than it did when new for example, so better to check yourself rather than rely on the figures in the manual.

Once you've found out what is using the most energy you can see what steps you can take.

We have £10 per one week and it seemed to me high.😱

Tumble dryer does use lots of electricity. It may be worth comparing the costs to drying clothes on airer by a radiator. You could turn off the other radiators around the house so not heating rooms not in use.

No knowledge of heat pads, but generally items that generate heat from electricity use quite a lot of electricity, e.g. plug in electric radiators. You may want to double check the 11p figure you quoted upthread.

Could you not invest in one of those heated airers from Aldi? Might warm up one room a bit as well and will save a fortune, it's the dryer that's doing it.

It'll be your tumble dryer.
Spin your load again before taking it out the machine, that gets rid of an extra litre of water. Use an airer and hangers for anything you don't need drying immediately even if you finish it off in the tumble dryer. The less water that needs evaporating the less time you'll need to use the tumble dryer.

Gas is far cheaper than electric so pop the radiators on to both heat your house and dry clothes.

As you replace clothes looks at what you are all wearing and replace with faster drying material. Technical fleeces and tops dry super fast and are cheap from places like Mountain Warehouse. Mooching around the house in jeans is daft as they take forever to dry, swap into something lighter material and get extra wears from clothes.

Restricting console and TV use will do all of us the world of good. We are sort of doing this, unrestricted laptops for homework but otherwise one device on at a time and TV can go on after dinner. This means both DD and I are reading more, playing board games together etc which can only be a good thing. Instead of having the TV on in the background whilst doing other things.

£10 is a lot. Mine is under £30 for the whole week and we don't scrimp. 2 bed terraced. I e don't leave lights on but don't particularly think about it. I definitely think it's the tumble dryer as we don't have one. Things do dry without one, just sower.

Also you would be putting all that water 2-3L per wash into the atmosphere. Damp air is then harder to heat. Also mould. You need to run a dehumidifier if drying washing inside exclusively.

We dry our washing inside 90% if the time in a mid 30s terrace and have never had humidity or mould issues.

I do an extra spin and then hang on a clothes horse spread out and hang some stuff on hangers. After about 12 hours I finish it off by placing/hanging in the airing cupboard. The whole process takes under 24 hours. I’ve always done this and we don’t have a damp
house.

Do you also pay gas?

Have you tried to pinpoint whats using the electric? Has your prepayment meter got debt on it that's being deducted?

That makes no sense at all. SOMETHING is using masses of electricity!

I suggest you turn off one thing at a time to nail down the culprit. From what you have written could it be the fridge freezer? Do you have am American style one cos I've read they're very high useage.

You're using a lot.

My house is 100% electric. So that's water, heating, oven. Everything is electric. We use about £10 a day at the moment. But that's with the heaters on a couple of hours in the morning and evenings. Oven going at least once a day. At least 2 showers everyday (kids don't shower everyday). We don't have a tumble dryer.

My neighbour has a pre-payment meter and pays a similar amount to us. Maybe a quid more a day. (Houses are all from the same build with identical heating set up).

I reckon if you ditched the heat mat and tumble dryer in favour of the heating on a bit, you'd be saving money.

This still sounds a lot. We use about £5 a day
on electricity and we use a lot including my DDs ventilator on all night, consoles on, WFH, tumble dryer. Drying clothes on radiator is a bad idea, releasing too much damp into the air and is bad if you have asthma. We dry clothes on a horse, I have 2, then the following day I finish anything not quite dry in the dryer rather than fully drying in the dryer. We do have a very damp house though, we had to have a unit fitted to circulate air (more electric!) but that was more to do with the house than the washing.

We're in a 3 bed detached and spending 2.8 a day on electricity.

1 x wfh so office set up 8 hours x 5 days
0 x tumble dryer
0 x heating
1 x games console on way too much
3 x big tvs
1 x oven on daily for 20 mins

I struggled to get washing dry and it was smelling musty so bought a dehumidifier from Currys dor £179 and shut it and 2 loads of washing in 1 room drys in 4 to 6 hours at 11p an hour.

Game changer if you can afford the initial outlay.

I also police lights like we were in a blackout!

You’ve not got the immersion on for hot water, have you? That would cost a lot.

Have you got led bulbs in the lights
i hang washing on hangers and hang them on radiators to dry then put the heating on for one hour, cheaper than running tumble drier.

If I turn the heatmat off my animals will die.

I also have solar panels!