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’ve just used my microwave for 12m

plus says this

does that mean it cost me £1.56 🙀🙀🙀🙀

I’ve made pic brighter

That shouldn't. What cost per kwh you have there?

At 27p/kwh and running for 0.2h to cost £1.56 it would need to use 29kw which can’t possibly be right so I suspect you’re at least a factor of 10 out. But I don’t know how those plug things work or what you entered in.

@AtomicBlondeRose it runs for 15 mins if just sterilising, and 45 mins if sterilising and drying.

I am 28.08p per Khw

Can you take pic from back pls? There should be sticker

I will try. It’s not easily accessible plus I’m a slob I have lots of stuff on it

I mean the "meter" 😁 don't move your microwave! Sorry!

It's 156 W, the W will be for watts. So about one sixth of a kWh, so less than 5p.

It’s this one

someone on this thread linked it from amazing amAzon so I got it

I have now of one of those too, thanks to this thread.

It is not the most user friendly gadget but really useful! It is currently interrogating my washing machine, and if I am feeling brave I will introduce it to my new fridge freezer to see how accurate the manufacturer's energy use claims are.....

Thanks @AtomicBlondeRose

Is that the microwave? So yeah, it’s 2900w, so there’s a decimal point in the wrong place somewhere and it should have been 15.6p.

I have been using my smart plug to check out how many Watts devices actually use, until recently manufacturers used to boast about it.

Our "800W" hoover is only 600W when you switch it on then reduces to just over 500W.

The numbers quoted on the stickers are an absolute maximum which the item won't exceed, not necessarily the amount used in normal use.

Agree with pp that it's wrongly set on the thingy. 2900 is max the microwave will use on only some programmes so it will differ.

Not sure how I’ve set it wrong

I followed the booklet saying how to put price in per kWh which for me is 28p

Well, when I worked backwards from £1.56 it seemed like your microwave used 29kw - it uses 2.9kw so there is an error somewhere but I don’t know enough about how the meter things work to tell you.

for the record there is no device in a uk household that could use £1.56 of electricity at 28p/kwh in 12 minutes! Or even in an hour (except maybe an immersion heater).

There was a big argument a while ago - about EU directives to make items more efficient.

So much misunderstanding and misinformation.

But if you supply a 1000 watts to a device, then you want as much of that to go to useful energy instead of being wasted energy.

And you also want to ensure that you supply enough energy to do the job without wasting much energy.

It might be a pence vs pounds error?

The number you displayed could be the watts it was running at the time?

Mine shows the watts, the current, the voltage, the frequency, KWH used so far and the cost so far.

So my guess it was on a low power setting?

The picture posted shows the number of watts used, not the price. If it's anything like my device, you need to scroll though the readings to get to the price in pennies.

Can someone sense check this for me?
This was 30 degree mixed load on eco setting (just over an hour).
It looks to me as of it has used 0.195 kWh and cost just over 10p (I have set it to October rates)

I was expecting far more!

Where are you getting the .195 kWh from?

If the machine says 0.195 KWH, then that makes sense with the price.

If you know the model of the machine, it should tell you the power usage for an eco wash.