Am I doing something wrong (laundry related!)

[alabasterangel]

Trying to cut down on our mega combined fuel bills of almost £200 p/m for a three bed terraced house. (trying to cut down/save money in all ways really, but thats fodder for another thread I think!). Several friends have commented that I seem to do a lot of laundry; I estimate for a household of me, DH, DD(4) and DS(1) I seem to do probably on average 3 or 4 loads a day. I don't think I over-launder, but friends with similar households all seem to say they only do one or maybe two loads max. Heres what I seem to do in a week and in () the loads of washing it creates:

Bedding for our bed, daughters bed, cot. One bed change a week each. (3)
DS's Grobags, prob has a clean one every third night, totalling (1) per week.
Bathsheet and towel each for me and DH, bath towel each for DC's, bathmat. Change weekly (3). Handtowels for both loo's I change twice a week, teatowels prob three a week, so totalling (1). Swimming once a week so 4 lots of swimwear, two grown up towels, two small towels (2).
PJ's and vest for baby (clean every day, so 7 lots) and PJ's for daughter who invariably gets breakfast down hers and it's rare she doesn't have a clean pair most nights, totalling (2). DS's daytime clothes, plus the invariable changes due to leaked nappy, spilt food, bibs etc (1). DD's non-uniform clothes, if shes going to play somewhere after school, weekend wear etc (1)
5 work shirts for DH, 5 t-shirts he wears under work shirts (cold office!) (1)
DD's school uniform, polo shirt, skirt, tights, vest, cardigan. Rarely a day passes where I don't need to wash the whole lot. She's only little and gets lunch on herself, or glue, snot, paint, etc! probably (2) a week although I do have to wash her burgundy cardis seperately as they run.
My work clothes, I have a clean top/blouse every day and try to make trousers last two days, so would guess (1) total a week
non-work clothes for me (wear two nights running, jeans and top for example), weekend clothes, and same for DH (2). PJ's for me, again I invariably end up with baby breakfast and am a bit fussy and change every second night. DH's PJ's once a week so (1). DH is also going a lot of work on the house and garden, and I seem to get a load of work clothes at the end of the weekend too (1)

So thats 21 loads, before anything "incidental" happens - bed accident (rare, but still occasional), changing cot sheets daily when baby has a snotty cold, someones coat needs a wash through, washable sofa covers if something gets spilt, matress covers need a wash, etc, etc.

I wash everything on a 30 minute fast wash where possible. I use a 40 degree slightly longer wash for bedding and towels, and do an extra 10 minute 1600 spin to get them as dry as possible.

And I know I'm a bandit for doing it, but 80% of all the above goes through the dryer too - so therein lies my theory that a significant portion of our fuel costs derive from the above! The dryer is often on for 2+ hours a day.

I'm tight as a wedge with the heating so don't want to start drying stuff on the radiators. Do heated airers work? I don't want another outlay of £30 odd when I really can't afford it unless I will be able to recoup that relatively quickly.

There must be something I can do to cut this back or significantly save money. Anyone got any bright ideas?

"PoppyA - where do you have the pulleymaid? I'm not sure where it would go. Kitchen ceiling is pitched and sloping. Can see how they work though. Quite like the idea! "

Mine is in the utility room ceiling, but I've seen many over kitchen ranges or the top of the stairs, like Tufty said. In fact, I think the stairs would be brilliant as all the heat rises.

I try to use my Pulleymaid for most things (including cloth nappies) and then tumble dry on low heat for 10 minutes to get that "fluffy" feeling

I agree backforgood - it's insane. Our over the road neighbour is detached 4 bed and she pays half what we do, however we have had it checked and we are classed as 'high users'. We are on eons lowest tariff, and that's checking annually with comparison sites. We have a brand new (feb) top of the range Worcester Bosch combi boiler. In the last 6 months we have used 3914kw elec and 14499kw gas. We will do another supplier review in jan, and am hoping that by then our new boiler will have paid dividends, but am seriously fed up with so higher bills.

It is a deceptively big house, big cellar, two big reception rooms, three double bedrooms, 12 radiators, but we do try to rely on the open fires. Heating goes on 5pm till 7pm by which point the upstairs is toasty and we light the fire downstairs. Baby has a top efficiency portable radiator for really chilly nights, although now he is 18 months we prob won't use that again this winter as he'll have to toughen up!

Still at a loss as to where it all goes though otherwise.......

Lightbulbs? Fridge/freezer? How many computers and TVs on?

It is your gas usage that looks huge tbh, I would really look at insulation. We bought some very cheaply in Homebase last winter which DH just rolled out very unscientifically in the loft and it has made a big difference. Windows? Have you got proper draught excluders fitted to the door to your cellar?

I would suggest curtain interlinings ( like mini duvets) in your curtains with thermal blinds, even cheap argos ones.

Close your curtains before dark, 4.30 ish turn your rads down.

If you are really under pressure to cut bills then it might be possible to wean yourself off the tumble dryer altogether. I have never had one and manage absolutely fine :)

Honestly, you can definitely get this bill down! What about oven, do you have that on for long periods of time? That pushes the bills up quite a bit too.

Also, do you have a dishwasher? If so, I hope you are filling that up properly now too :)

typical annual consumption is apparently
gas 16,500
electricity 3,300

so I think you need to look at both, as you are using double the 'average' roughly for gas and electricity.

I've just looked mine up for you alabasterangel

Our elec for year 6640 KW
Our gas for a year 17,415 KW

We have 11 radiators + bathroom heated by a heated towel rail, so same as you give or take, but spread over more rooms. We don't have any open fires to help, and our heating stays on until about 10.30 at night.

So considerably more than you, but £114per month is what we pay.

Am with Scottish Power now, but was exactly the same payment last year with EOn (swapped as they annoyed me about something and then Quidco said they'd give me £30 or something to move)

Lakeland say that their heated airers cost less than 3p an hour to run. And a dehumidifer should be about 3-4p an hour. That's got to be cheaper than the tumble dryer, right, even if it means an initial outlay? You could use those for the washing and not use the tumbler or radiators at all to dry with.

It's got to be the tumbler that is using most of that electricity, but other small things - energy saving light bulbs, turn off lights not being used, switch off electrical things at the socket when not in use, check efficiency of fridge?

As for gas - only heat the rooms you need, use a fire (is that a wood or gas fire?) instead of putting the heating on. Thick curtains everywhere, especially for that glass wall in the kitchen. In fact I don't think I'd bother to heat the kitchen - it sounds far too big to heat.

I just looked at our electricity usage for the last year (don't know about gas as landlord pays it) and it was 4065kwh. That's for 5 adults in a super old house, with a tumble dryer that probably gets used about 6-8 times a week, and three fridges (don't ask) and lot of computers. But it is less than half the average US electricity use (11500kwh) ...

I am really puzzled. Are you certain you haven't got neighbours tapping into your electricity to power a cannabis farm?!

Turn your thermostat/boiler down a degree or 2?

If you have open chimneys, they might be costing you more than you save.

Try not using them for a while and stuffing a chimney balloon up there. Or make do with scrunched newspaper or an old pillow - but be sure to remove before you light fire.

And remove anyway in summer to make sure the chimney dries out (proper chimney balloon does allow small ventilation draft).

Threads like this make me realise that the reason I find it hard to budget is because I don't even consider things like laundry when I'm trying to save money!

I do 2 loads a day and we're a family of 6 with 2 dogs. The dogs bedding gets washed each week as I don't want the house to smell of dog.

Also, I'm really lazy so I throw mixed colours in with each other and I have never, ever had a colour run problem.

Blimey Charlie. We're a family of four and do about 3 loads a week. No dryer so we peg it all out but still don't iron!

I'd say it sounds like you're not filling your machine enough - I get loads more in mine than you've described and our machine isn't big - just average sized I think.

Stick more in and don't use the dryer! Our combined gas + electricity direct debit is £100 a month and I couldn't afford for it to be much higher!

Ah - just seen you're already sticking more in the wash - excellent! We tend to prioritise school uniforms so do 2 of the 3 washes at the weeken - get all school + work clothes for that week done plus one lot of bedding (we change one bed a week). Then the 3 rd wash is usually mid-week for odds and sods, underwear, any towels etc. yes there's always something lurking at the bottom of the washing box, but that's life! Ds's have learned that if they want something in particular washed, they stick it straight in the machine - usually football-related clothes...

I use 5341 Electricity and 18033 Gas over 12 months - we now pay £125 per month as £96 combined wasnt covering our usage. I did a couple of searches and the only other tariff cheaper than mine didnt offer coverage to customers that are served by an IGT (Independent Gas Transporter) which we are. (always costs us a bit extra for gas)

www.energylinx.co.uk/independent_gas_transporters.htm - just for info

Thanks for all the advice. I do agree though, I do feel like something is very wrong somewhere.... another long ramble, sorry....

Yes, it's an old house. We have a long, tiled passageway with the original single glazed victorian door. I can't ditch that for a plastic one, but we have a curtain partway down the hall where there is a big archway and that divides off the cold part of the passage that we don't use. The fires (we have two open downstairs - one is used daily and booms out loads and loads of heat. When it's ever not in use for any period it has a flue-flap thing which is down to prevent draughts. The one in the front room is down all the time and you can't feel any cold there, and the same in the kids rooms although obviously their fireplaces are never used. In fact with theirs, they have the flues shut AND a black bag filled with screwed up newspaper above that to stop bird noises apart from anything. The house is double glazed, apart from the three big front windows which are single glazed sashes. Its a conservation area and non of the other houses have the fronts double glazed either; would look pretty grim. Having said that the neighbours I've talked to with the same windows don't have the bills we seem to have!!! The monster window in the dining room is the room we use the least, until yesterday the radiator was off and the door shut all the time, although I've put the radiator back on now to deal with the laundry. I do have thermal lined curtains in there and shut them every night too. The kids windows are single glazed sashes too, but we have on their windows (get this.....) a sheet of thermal fabric which I stick up flat to the window with velcro every night (blacks the room out too), then a thermal blind, then curtains which are FIVE (yes!!) layers of fabric and superheavy. I'm handy with the machine, so I got them two sets of curtains each, sewed them together back to back with a thermal layer in between. All that lot goes up at sunset, and their rooms are super cosy. All other curtains are thermal lined, and all get closed, with the exception of the kitchen which is semi-conservatory type of thing and has no blinds or curtains but is double glazed.

Thermostat in the hall (on the warm side of the curtain) is set to 18. All the radiator therms are set to approx 3 (on a scale of 1-6). Heating comes on for an hour in the morning, and as of today 2 hours at 5pm and by the time it goes off the kids have been bathed and the fire is lit. The radiator in the hall is off, as is the landing and the tiny one in the utlity room. The downstairs loo one was turned off and last winter it got so cold in there as a result that the water in the cistern froze!!!! The kitchen this morning when the heating had been on for 30 mins was 15 degrees (i.e. bloody cold to me!). The kids rooms (baby has a therm on his monitor) get to about 18 lowest overnight which is about right.

There are no laptops plugged in (ipad gets charged once a week and I use my work laptop which holds its charge for hours from being docked at work), only one tv, DVD is off not standby. Lights are always switched off when the room is left. One small lamp with a very, very low wattage low energy bulb is left on the landing overnight so DD can see her way to the loo. We do have a myriad of big lights (6 recessed lights in the bathroom, 12 overhead lights in the kitchen, and 16 bulbs in a mahoosive chandelier on the landing) but honestly, these are never on for any stretch - I'm concious of their cost! Even in the kitchen I only switch one of the sets on depending on which end of the room I'm at and again, off as soon I leave the room. Newish single fridge freezer, dishwasher but again used once a day (i'm anal about it getting filled correctly, unlike the washer!) and it's a super economical one which is run on a 45 minute cycle. Yes, I have a range cooker (dual fuel) but the oven is rarely on. I slowcook everything I can (even chickens!) and the most I'll have it on for is to bake a cake at the weekend or cook fish fingers for tea! I don't boil the kettle endlessly. No electric shower (just pressure driven).

I really can't understand it at all. However our electrician friend has checked the fuseboard and the meter and all is okay. We also asked the Eon man who fitted the meter to see what he thought, and he said "you just seem to be high users".

Ive checked eon and I am £200 in credit, but they suggest that will have dwindled to zero by the end of the winter....

At a loss as to what to try next, but rather cheesed off with it to say the least!!

Good that you are putting more in washing machine as I agree with others on that. I think you are doing well on the windows but it is the kitchen that is the problem. I don't really know how you can help this but maybe depending on design you could use thermal blinds or partition off? Conservatories are just very expensive to heat.

If you haven't already (sorry, may have missed it), get yourself a clip-on energy monitor.

But you'll have made a big change already by getting the laundry under control.

if you are in credit then I would tell them to bugger off with an increase in direct debit. Tell them you will increase the payment when/if you slip into debit with them. We were in debit by £148 and our payment has increase from £96 to £125.

Yes parsingfancy eon provide us with one free. I'm scrutinising it more now than I ever have!

Did you check the washing machine manual to see how much electric each cycles uses?

Does it have an eco setting? takes longer but uses less electric.

Energy monitor is good. I think if I were you I would turn absolutely everything in the house off and check what the baseline is just to make sure there's nothing weird that you don't know about using power. I'm serious about the cannabis farm, actually ...

I also think it's got to be the conservatory that is sucking heat up - is it open to the kitchen or does it have a wall that you could cover up with a curtain? If you are handy at making curtains is there anything you can run up to improve the situation?

I feel determined to get to the bottom of this!

I very often don't wash things in the machine if they're only a bit stained. For example, if DS spills some lunch down his sweatshirt, then I'll just sponge it off and leave it to dry for the next morning, as it's not really dirty, it's just got a stain on it. Also, I was always told not to machine wash swimwear, so I always chuck all the costumes/shorts in a bowl of warm water and just rinse them to get the chlorine out. I probably put them through the machine once a month or so. Also, I only change sheets on beds once a fortnight; I used to do them once a week, but tbh can't see any difference in doing them every two weeks instead. So maybe just cutting down a bit would help.

Scarephylis..... And all.....
It gets more confusing.....we only had our energymonitor in feb, a week after having our superduper new boiler, so today I requested from eon a more accurate 12 month figure of our exact has usage....... Elec 6236 (so as has been said, double the uk average) and gas..... Get this...... 33,000kw !!!!!!!!

I've spoken to our over the road neighbours who are deal friends, and their bill based on the same supplier, 4 bedroom detached house, single glazing throughout, much much bigger hallway and landing to us, houses feel comparably warm, thermostats set to the same....... 12,000 kw usage in their house!!!! And another friend who has the same, 11,000 kw usage!!! Now hey, even if I am slightly more generous with the heat (and I don't think I am) then there is no way on this earth I am using three times more than they are!!! Today we have been freezing again, kitchen and lounge are 15 degrees, I've just about said sod it all and put the heating on now because its extortionate anyway.

If we do want to get this looked at further, has anyone got any ideas as to who would do it? Plumber? Transco? Eon? I'm not sure where to turn for the best.....