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.

The gas seems high too. Granted we are only two but our annual gas was only 980 units. This last month we used 19 units!

Well that is VERY unusual. We are low use and use about 8500 a year

Actually that brings a question of @iwishiwasafish safish do you heat or cook on electric? I just realised your gas is very low.

I just switched with EDF to paying for what I use in a month (I am not suggesting everyone does that as for most people averaging use over winter and summer is very wise) but I am certainly preferring. They sent their various letters over a week with last bill under old system and letter about new system. They still have a monthly amount they will take if I don't submit a meter reading each month (which I will ensure I definitely do) but it all seems clearer to me and as I am older I certainly remember its being like this decades ago - high bills in winter and low in summer. It will be interesting to see how it works. I think their summer estimate for this month is high, even since the price rises of a few months ago.

I cannot really work out in summer why our bills are so high, no heating on at all ever, 3 small showers a day for 3 of us. There will be electronics on all day and a few lights as I work from home as do my sons I suppose.
I doubt things like playing computer games (my sons) costs very much online.

I have always thought it was our heating (we have 2 boilers and a big, just under 5000 sq ft house)

980 units?

I live in a small flat - and we use about 6000 units.

On the lightbulb front, this shows you how much you can save per year PER BULB if you switch from regular incandescent bulbs to LED. The costs are based on the previous price cap so once they’ve adjusted the numbers (website says this will be done by 1st Oct) the numbers will be even bigger.

The average home has something like 40 bulbs in it, so you can see that the potential savings are massive.

@CaveMum this is true but seeing as 100W incandescent bulbs haven’t been sold for many years the number of them still in use must be very small. I’m sure my house has had lower energy bulbs for at least 10 years.

That is true @AtomicBlondeRose they put up the cost of switching halogen to LED (below) but not the saving from CFL to LED, though I understand it’s about 20% which is not as significant but a saving is a saving.

“Units” of gas are cubic meters. You need to convert to kWh for the price comparison.

annoyingly some providers quote unit consumption and some quote kWh consumption.

@PriamFarrl i suspect your consumption was 980 units ie 11,135 kwh

@cakeorwine yours looks like 6000 kWh ie 567 units (cubic meters)

My monthly gas consumption is 50m3 or
530kwh (600 units or 6,330 kWh annually), so comparable to @cakeorwine

ours looks like 6000 kWh ie 567 units (cubic meters

Mine is 6000 units - 6000 KWH of gas. I know how to convert from cubic metres to KWH using the calorific value.

My point was that your units and the other poster’s units are different, and both correct. That makes it hard for people to compare and leads to the type of confusion upthread.

Good point. Will make sure to use kwh

Just wondering, what is everyone’s “baseline” electricity usage - ie how many watts are you drawing when everything is switched off, barring things that can’t be turned off like fridges, freezers, WiFi router, etc? I’m just trying to figure out where we fall in terms of average consumption and if we’ve got something drawing too much electric - we have a 10yr old fridge freezer in the house plus a 15yr old fridge freezer and 4 year old chest freezer in the garage!

My Smart Meter says our baseline is 206w or 3p per hour. It sounds low but I guess 3pph quickly becomes 72p per day (we’re on an old fixed rate that expires 31st Oct 😩). Once we come off the fix that’s quickly going to become close to £3 per day before we switch anything on!

I hope people realise that they use KWH - as that's the price quoted with the price cap - now going to 15p per KWH for gas.

People will be in for a big shock if they use the volume for their calculations

When we left for holidays house used just slightly over 1.3kwh a day.
That was american type fridge and VERY low wattage lights in the evening on timer.
Oh and things like charger in sockets. Again though that's basically negligible.

33 watts - I spent a long time at 45 watts and then changed a setting on the You View box so now it's on eco mode. Saved 12 watts

Oh heck @cakeorwine that makes ours look very high! Think I’m going to buy one of those usage monitors to check the fridge/freezer!

I have light fittings that hold 2 or 3 lightbulbs. Is it cheaper to just put 1 or 2 bulbs in, or is this pointless?

Depends. I have 40w equivalent they use 6kwh in 1000 hours. That's very little overal even with 3 in

How annoying that gas has two different measures. Here is my usage for interest.

For electricity our baseline is about 60w.

My light has 5 x low watt bulbs so I bought a cheap second hand lamp which should pay for itself in electricity savings by the end of winter if it’s used approx 3-4 hours a day

Just when I think I'm beginning to understand, the difference between my gas meter reading on 1st Aug and 1st Sept is 15, so 15 what? Thanks

Have we covered heated airers, if so I shall scroll back.

On your gas meter, it will be 15 cubic metres.

On your bill, there is a conversion equation to convert to kilowatt hours. It depends on the area you live in

www.theenergyshop.com/guides/how-to-convert-gas-units-to-kwh

(Assuming it's metric - but just double check)

Multiply by the volume correction factor (1.02264).
Multiply by calorific value (40.0).
Divide by kWh conversion factor (3.6).

So 15 m3 = 170 KWH

A Smart Meter will show the KWH used - and that's the price that is currently 7p but is going to 15p per KWH

Our electricity usage feels huge, we used 400kwh in Jan 22, although we were tumble drying with willful abandonment!

Last month though was 247kwh even without drying. Granted, house full of people and it's a large 4 bed with 5 people. Gadgets galore, 2 xboxes, big american fridge freezer etc.

No idea how I'll get that down any lower tbh. I will be stopping using our tumbler as much as possible but I honestly didnt think we were crazy energy users. Clearly I was wrong.