The “how much does this cost to run” thread?

[AtomicBlondeRose]

Based on posts about people thinking of using candles instead of electric lights - which is both dangerous and not likely to save any money, I’d like to set this thread up as a place where people can ask how much items in their house cost to run, to let posters make informed decisions about whether or not to keep using them after energy price rises.

If you want to ask, useful information to have is: the energy usage of the item - eg a heater might say on it that it’s 1000w. If you don’t know that the name/model number as accurately as possible. Also to give you a useful estimate it would be good to know your current gas/electricity price tariff price per unit. However it’s easy enough to work out at current and predicted price cap levels.

I can’t promise to answer everything so please can I call upon other numerate MNers to help out? I think this could be a real lifesaver.

I looked at the details for my dryer and they are wildly different from what I have actually found from using it. As I say according to my smart meter it uses 600w but that is not what the details say, but then they say that a cycle is 162 minutes, which is not what I’ve found either.

Dishwashers - apologies in advance if this has already been covered.

Just looking on the Bosch website. If I switch from the Auto programme to the Eco programme, it saves( UP TO) 523 kWh of electric per year (on my tariff, that's over £200 per annum). It holds the final rinse water from one wash in a reservoir to do the pre wash on the next wash so it saves water too. It recommends that the machine should be cleaned on a hot wash periodically to be sure there's no build up of bacteria and the filter must be cleaned monthly.

We use Auto all the time so I will definitely switch, maybe do the hotter Auto wash just once per week instead.

So is that the 3 hour programme instead of cutting it to a shorter programme is cheaper

I have a Siemens or Bosch one

I worked out that my 170w slow cooker costs 4.8p per hour now and 8.63p per hour with Octobers prices. Against my 1500w air fryer - 42.2p/76.15 per hour now and October respectively and my 800w microwave 19.72p/35.52p per hour.

You do need to take into account that you’d be unlikely to use either air fryer or microwave for an hour at a time so would need to divide accordingly

Here's one for you.
My fridge freezer is a small compact one about 20/25 years old. It's in good working order so I don't want to get rid of it until it breaks.
It's 85watts and it's costing me nearly a pound a day. I know it's old and probably working hard but, I've been looking at new ones and even the small compact ones are running on a much higher watts than mine.
So even if mines costing me more to run because it's old it's still going to be cheaper than the cost to run a new one. How is that?

Shameful placemark because I want to read all of this later.

Ive spent ages looking for this thread, I can never seem to find anything on this site

Without going all through it can someone help me work out how much it would cost for a de humidifer to be used for 24 hours. I cant even tell what one we have, it seems to have no markings but we did buy it at Argos a few years back, Its 12 litres I think

So a comparable looking one is about 240 watts, is that a lot and is that expensive, my new rate will be the cap so 60p per electric unit

240 watts is about 1kWh every 4 hours or 6kWh per 24 hours, so will cost £3.60 per day. Do they run at different power levels though?

Crikey.

I was wondering on another thread why we had such high electric output and this might be it

We dont have a tumbledrier and try not to dry on the line because it constantly gets pooped on. So its dried in the utility room with the de humidier on during days when its needed. But a whole load of washing can take a day or two to dry, a couple of loads a week

Thats a lot of money!!

I need to check this out more, thanks

This is bad news, i thouht dehumidifiers were the answer

Well Ive told my OH that I am on a fact finding expedition this winter to see how this works in action

He reckons that he uses this from around October to June, I thought he stopped using it to dry stuff in the spring, so thats problem number one

But its not always used, its only needed if the humidity in the air is high, not if the temperature is low so sometimes washing can dry without it

He reckons that over 12 hours, it can dry all the washing which is about 4 loads and he usually does this in one day/one go, which means that based on the above figures, thats about £1.80, or double that if for some reason the loads have been split up in the week

Bearing in mind thats not all year, so say around 36 weeks of the year, thats around 130 quid.

I dont know how that compares to a tumbledrier because I think a tumbledrier is quicker

But also we always wash heavy items like sofa covers, mattress toppers and protectors, blankets, throws a couple of times of year, so we need to make sure we wash those at the times when we can dry them without the dehumidifier, so high spring and late summer, that means they will only be washed twice a year. Not sure what I think about that

Just remembered...if you have a smart meter and have the IHD it should show you how much you're using at the current time, handy for driers but I'm not sure about washers as it's going to change when the water's heating up you'd have to keep an eye on it.

Is the smart meter showing you you're using more than what the details say?
That's a worry, could companies say the appliances use less than what they do? Something to think about.

No. The smart meter shows I’m using a lot less than they say!

@PriamFarrl really? I thought it was going to be the opposite well that's a bonus!

I plugged our ancient dehumidifier in and watched the smart meter yesterday - it was 2p an hour.

Going back to oil filled radiators we also have an ancient one of those, I’m not sure what wattage it is but it does have a thermostat so I don’t think it would use a full 1000/1500/2500w per hour? It’s hard to find any information on that though (and I’m not plugging it in for an hour and watching the smart meter when it’s still so warm!). We want to work out if it’s cheaper to hear one room during the day when we wfh rather than using the GCH.

Is that at a unit price of 60p per electric unit?

No, we are fixed on 35p

and whats the wattage of your appliance?

No idea sorry, like I said, ancient!

This is the problem, its almost impossible to compare without unit prices and the wattage of the appliance.

I am also interested in dehumidifiers. How can I find out how much it costs.

Second anyone know if it is better to boil a kettle for washing up or to heat up the water in an old fashioned boiler (gas water tank in roof)

@SamBeckettslastleap if you post the model of your dehumidifier here we can tell you how much it costs as they are all different.

I don’t know the hot water costs from a boiler - I’d be happy to hear from anyone who knows how to work this out! I know my boiler has a 15kw output and working full blast will cost £2.25/hr in October but I don’t know whether it uses full power to heat water, if it’s less when fewer radiators are on etc. it’s really hard to find this out!

It is an old B&Q 'compact dehumidifier' must be about 10 years old. All the box says is R10W36 (instructions long gone, only have box as full of train track)

Atomic is full blast on your boiler maximum heat or just when all radiators are on? Thanks for this.