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.

It says cost to the right of the numbers

We have the same one @comfortablyfrumpy

im wondering coz I’m blonde and very untechno that maybe I didn’t rest it after the fish tank

how do you rest it back to no for cost

I just unplug mine !

I did @cakeorwine as moved from fish tank which is just over. Khw a day so was about 30/32p a day

That is what the gadget told me. I will investigate further!

I have been experimenting with my smart plug this afternoon, based on my current rate of 29p per kWh.

Microwave, 5 minutes at high power, 2.6p

Toaster, 2 slices, took 2.5 minutes,1.5p

Mobiles phone, from 50% to 100% in about 2 hours, usage so low it didn't register, so less than 1p.

One of my neighbours has just spent £36 on a solar charger for his mobile phone, it will take years to recover that money.

@Nolongera I despair when I hear things like that! I do actually blame the media a bit though as over the years I have seen SO MANY articles and items about how chargers and stuff on standby is using all this energy blah blah. It’s nonsense, always exaggerated and using out of date info and has made people think charging mobile phones is for some reason a very energy-hungry activity. Ditto all the things about turning lights off makes people think lightbulbs use a lot. Maybe 30 years ago but not now.

While media do bit exaggerate these sometimes I don't think they are the main problem because I haven't seen any big exaggerations tbh.

I blame certain types of influencers online who are oming up with shite like buying solar lights indoor instead of light bulbs😑

And some fault does lie with people themselves, that just has to be said. People rarely check consumption of things. Fine if you don't have to worry about that ever, but when you think you need to worry, you do what people on this thread did and check and ask questions and learn.

Lightbulbs used to use a stack of electricity. Now they use almost nothing. We have 8 bulbs in our hallway and together they use about 10 watts.

It does make me laugh when people say they will charge their phone at work.

Why?

There is a real poor understanding of how devices use power.

On the solar charger for mobile I have one upstairs which I got to use in a jungle area on the equator but never found worked very well and on my next trip I hired a satellite phone but I suppose I should get it out and have another go some time. I also have landlines at home (which means if electricity and wifi go down I can still make calls - although Digital Voice means everyone is being forced off that in a 2 or 3 years sadly).

The bottom line seems to be that your gas central heating (or fan heaters etc) use loads and a lot of the other items are very little compared with that I think although I might be wrong. My power this month is £650 under my new only paying for use in that month - that is EDF's guess for September which seems a bit high to me (used to be £317 when averaged over the year - about £3800 a year) and even that is much more than many people. It is one reason I decided to switch to the bill each month from this month based on actual use which we used to have about 20 years ago. However I have always been fairly careful, switch off lights etc as was brought up with parents who were here during WWII and rationing in the 1950s and I don't like waste for all kinds of reasons too.

This is a very useful thread - thank you.

Basically - heating water (or anything), and using kinetic energy to move things (such as washing machines) needs the most energy.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-bills-support/energy-bills-support-factsheet-8-september-2022

If you’re on a standard variable tariff
The average unit price for dual fuel customers paying by direct debit will be limited to 34.0p/kWh for electricity and 10.3p/kWh for gas, inclusive of VAT, from 1 October.

from the below link

so does this mean we def won’t be paying more than 34p for electricity and 10.3 for gas

Which then leads me to say how much does centra heating cost to run for an hour

how many Khw does it take

what does 10.3p get you @AtomicBlondeRose

or is that like asking for the length of string

3bed semi - have living room x 2 rads , kitchen , hall , bathroom , 3 beds so 8 radiatiors

Yes - it's still 2.5 times more for gas than last year (4p in Jan 22) and 50% more for electric (21p Jan 22) but we do get the £400 back.

You really need to know your usage in KWH for gas.

That's such a hard question to answer - as there are so many variables.

If you take gas meter readings in an evening, you can see how many KWH you use. But it depends on the weather, humidity, insulation, size of room, temperature...

Last year seemed to use sound 480kh heating in Nov Dec averagely

That's very good.

The UK average is 12,000 KWH of gas - I don't know what proportion of that is on heating though but gas is overwhelmingly used for heating water in some form - use for cooking is much lower.

That sounds pretty good. I tend to use the cotton wash at 30 (now, used to be 40 ot 60 depending on the load) as that's the one that sins at 1400. If your machine is similar, I'd be very interested if you test the usage on that cycle.

That’s a 1000 a month

but I seem to be less than that

my bill says yearly is 7820

tho obv winter months use more

I will have to look to see what summer was

12000kwh is annual average use

I will do.
I ran it again on same settings today abd got same result.

I did find my manual.... this is what it says..
Makes a big difference using a lower temperature!

Someone asked on our local Fb does leaving it on a delay so washes at say 5am so ready to hang at 7am when wake up , Costs money . As machine is on and on delays for 8/10hrs

I can’t see how leaving a machine on delayed start uses anything at all. I mean there’s a digital clock in operation but that would be small fractions of a penny to run. Like 0.001p! The machine might be “on” but it’s not magically using power. The movement and heating the water is what uses the electricity.