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.

Have you got a smart meter?
Do you know the power usage of your appliances and gadgets?
How do you have showers?

Well, the good thing about electricity usage is that if you want to work out how much everything is costing you, it’s really pretty easy to do, just maybe a bit time-consuming. I wouldn’t faff about calculating the small things like lights, kettles etc unless you think there’s something wildly amiss there. Just go round the house and look at each largish appliance. Fridge/freezer possibly quite high - look up your model. TVs/consoles/gaming PCs - very variable. Some PCs are quite power-hungry and some older TVs are too, so look for anything that’s left on for a long time. Hot tub, pond pumps etc can often be something overlooked that are on for a long time. Do you do many more washing loads than average? Is your hot water heated via electricity?

We have a hot water tank and boiler, it's only 10 years old so should be fairly efficient.

Water heats up twice a day.

I do have a smart meter, I know our oven sends it into the red. Usage is currently sitting at 122w as we speak.

What kwh is the fridge freezer? Not sure if a dumb suggestion but do they need to work harder in the hot weather?

Any electric oven would send a smart meter into the red so that doesn’t really tell you very much! They use a lot of electricity - do you use it solely for family meals (not much you can do other than switch to air frier or similar) or do you have people in the house who will stick the oven on for a plateful of chicken nuggets?

We have a large washing machine, so do maybe 4-5 loads a week maybe less.

I checked our fridge freezer and it said it uses approx 358kwh per year to run?? It was an A++ rated appliance when we bought it, and is now an F rated appliance on the new 2021 energy rating system 🤬

I do have a smart meter, I know our oven sends it into the red. Usage is currently sitting at 122w as we speak

It's not the 'red' by itself that's the issue - it's basically power of the devices and the time they are on.

So going red isn't an issue if it's not red for a long time.

Conversely, there could be a lot of gadgets that don't go red but are on for a long time.

I went round my house and turned gadgets on and off to see the effect on the smart meter.

I also have an energy monitor (which I have had for years) which also helps me.

Only for family meals, and not even every day as we eat a lot of pasta based meals courtesy of having a household of fussy children hahaha

So £25.50 on Oct rates?? How do I check if metric?

(Just to say I really appreciate the time it takes to reply, thank you to everyone that spends their time helping others)

Gadgets is probably the main thing I guess. We have TVs in all bedrooms, 2 of which live on standby. Phone and tablet chargers on standby all the time, and the kids have USB powered night lights which are plugged in and on all night.

It should say on the meter

www.gov.uk/guidance/gas-meter-readings-and-bill-calculation

It should also say on any bill

None of that stuff on standby will add up to anything very much unless they’re quite old TVs. I’d be surprised if it was even 1kwh overnight.

I checked our fridge freezer and it said it uses approx 358kwh per year to run?? It was an A++ rated appliance when we bought it, and is now an F rated appliance on the new 2021 energy rating system 🤬

358 is high now (I'm looking for one atm hence keeping an eye on that bit). Not sure what you can do about it if you have one though as wasteful and costly to replace. There are a few A rated standard f/f ones under the new rating system but they're over £1000.

Run the hot water tap in kitchen accidentally

will it then go cold

or just ours which does this

I'd be surprised. Standby doesn't use much and nor does phone charging or lights.

TVs can add up if there are a lot and they are on a lot.

A TV can be 50 - 100 watts - maybe more if bigger.

So a lot of TVs on for a long time can add up

Ditto on tv on standby and iphone chargers

Yeah, we paid out over £1k for this one to get the high A rated one thinking we were making a good choice.

But based on that we’re still basically talking 1kwh per day which is 30 a month so not contributing that much. £15/month at new rates so a bit steep but not ridiculous.

Is it american one? I have it. Normal sized one eats about half, but also takes way less in capacity.

Yes, an American one and a BIG one as we tend to need the space.

Yeah than that is actually efficient for what we get😁

You were making a good choice at the time. Most fridge freezers are still E and F (under new system) but there are now a few A, B and Cs. But it's the annual kwh I'd be looking at as that's what you pay. However, I'm not sure how accurate that is once your fridge starts to get older and the weather gets hotter.

We used 204 kwh last month (household of 4) and 2 of us were away for half the month. Dryer not on. No gamers. Not sure if that is heavy use or not.

Not sure if this has already been mentioned but freezers are most energy efficient when they’re full. So, even filling them with rolled up paper to fill in the gaps actually helps. *

*disclaimer: I read it somewhere and cannot find the original source.

I would believe it. Similarly for fridge. I had some tomatoes freezing in a drawer towards the end of the week. Apparently it is because there was very little left in the drawer. I now have small piece 9f joga mat in a back

Other way round for fridges. Most efficient when less full. (Disclaimer- no idea why!)