Help! Where can we save electricity

[ilkleymoorbartat]

Two adults and two children, adults at home all day working on computers. We're using around 20kw per day of electricity which seems a lot compared to others. I'm fastidious about switching off lights. We're trying not to use the tumble dryer. Dishwasher goes on once a day and a load of washing probably 4 x week.

I didn't think switching off all plug sockets made a difference so I don't do that.

We have a separate water tank that goes on for an hour twice a day.

If you have some spare cash an electric shower is normally cheaper to run, but obviously you need to buy and fit one

Do turn the plugs off at the sockets, lots of things use as much power on stand by as they do when working

Both of these are completely wrong. An electric shower is probably the most power hungry appliance in domestic homes and is way more expensive to run than combi heated water. Possibly immersion water too.

From what the OP has said, it sounds like she's been heating water with an immersion heater and not using it, because of the combi (surely not?) although it would be interesting to see what the plumber says (I don't know if a plumber is the right person, but someone from a plumber/heating engineer/electrian(?) will be able to trace the pipes etc from heater to taps to determine what is going on).

On the matter of standby and sockets, items that are plugged in but off, or even on standby, unless they're really old, because of an EU regulation that requires all items manufactured after a certain date a good while ago to use less than 0.5 W on standby. Which is nothing. Stuff costs pence, or a couple of pounds a year on standby.

OP, what you need to concentrate on is what is heating your home, water or food and to a lesser degree fridges etc, halogen/old fashioned light bulbs and possibly anything like a fish tank pump or gaming PCs with high capacity fans.

Phone chargers, TVs on standby and digital clocks is fiddling round the edges.

Smart meter?
We are 2 adults+2 teens household all on gadgets & devices. We used 4 units/day in the period July-August this year. I can adjust our figures in many ways (eg we have solar panels) but still ... 4 to 20, it's huge difference. Our telly (only one) is on a lot, we use electric cooker including oven 2x/day, too, hot water mostly via oil boiler.

I'd be looking at the electric showers, T-dryer & freezer.

ps: do you have a monster size upright fridge?

@ilkleymoorbartat

20kwh per day does sound like a lot for 4 people. Is this gas+electric or electric only ?

If it is electric only then I think there is a possibility your immersion heater is switched on.

It's an easy mistake to make as the switches often don't have indicators and to most people it is not obvious what the switch does, so some people just press it anyway.

If your plumber is coming I would get them to check for you. Also when they do make sure you note down which is the on and off position !

I have a smart meter so can see when the spikes in use are. Overwhelmingly it is to do with heating (any appliances that heat) or cooling (aircon), so I'd concentrate my efforts on those areas.

I do short showers, rarely use the electric oven, don't turn on heating/aircon often, washing machine at 20c and use the short cycle on the dishwasher. No tumble dryer.

I've also put smart plugs around the place, which switch off things when they are not needed. It all has resulted in quite a reduction in use.

Also I'd suggest to look at how you can keep the heat in with draught proofing. For a very small outlay, you'll see big returns in terms of comfort.

You can buy a device that you plus appliances through to measure usage. Check your fridge freezer (they have a habit of going wrong and eating electricity) and other larger items that are always on. Make sure chargers aren't left plugged in and on when not in use. Check the kids rooms - devices left on etc. get a smart meter

If your light bulbs are hot they're not energy saving. You need LED bulbs.

You say fridge freezer is old. If it is frosted up, that uses more electricity. Opening the fridge door frequently pushes consumption up.

@ilkleymoorbartat do people switch lights off and are your bulbs LED (eg 4w instead of 40w) … can make a difference. My OH habitually puts lights on in daylight - argh. Also TVs and electric oven use quite a lot. Do you have a Smart electric meter? If so, the In Home Display (separate plug in bit) can show you exactly when power is used. If you google, there are lots of articles on what items use more. But basically kettle is likely to be 3kw so that draws more. Size of fuse is an indicator - so something with a 3A fuse uses less power than something with 13A. Electric oven likely draws 40 amps? We did a lot of baking Sunday and our electricity that day was significantly more but immersion heater will be a killer!

First you need to work out how your house is heated and provided with hot water, a bunch of strangers on the internet can't do that for you.

Get the handbooks out for your gas and electricity water heating devices. If you don't have them, get them off the internet.

Tumble drivers, heating water, dishwashers, possibly a knackered fridge and using an immersion heater when quite possibly you don't need to are probably why you use so much.

I know dishwasher companies claim they are cheaper than hand washing, I don't believe them.

Gas is less than a third of the price of electricity, wherever possible use gas for heat.

You say you are not sure if the shower is gas or electric, surely you would know if the gas combi boiler comes on when you use the shower?

Most people have electric showers.

Most things in the home use way less energy than people imagine, it the fact that we are constantly using power in one way or another.

I found this thread useful.
www.mumsnet.com/talk/cost_of_living/4618028-the-how-much-does-this-cost-to-run-thread?page=1

I've never heard of having both a combi boiler and an immersion heater - usually if you have a combi boiler you don't have a hot water tank as the water is just heated as and when you need it. So I'm a bit confused about your set-up.

Do you have a hot water tank?

But I agree with others, if you have an immersion heater you definitely don't want it on 24/7.

@sevenbyseven

You are correct - immersion heater only comes with a hot water cylinder (either vented or unvented).

But I think the OP is a little confused over what system they actually have !

From their description I believe they have a system boiler with an unvented cylinder NOT a combi boiler. So they would typically have an immersion heater - I have the same.

That makes sense... Still if they have gas you'd expect the hot water cylinder to be gas-heated and the immersion switch only to be used in "emergencies" when you've run out of hot water.

@sevenbyseven

Well yes. Assuming that people actually know what the switch is, what it is there for and no-ones kid goes and accidentally presses it leaving it on permanently !

People with gas boilers generally use the immersion heaters so little they hardly know what they are. My boiler broke down last year and I tried mine - the first time it was used in about 15 years I guess. It smelt a bit (my guess is it was scaled up) and the cable got a bit hot but it did the job for a couple of weeks.

I have an emersion heater,yes it's 3kwh,but it heats up the tank in 20 minutes,so is relative. We have gas condenser boiler, not interested in combi, I use my airing cupboard bottom shelves to dry washing. We had an electric shower in our last house,7kwh, 2 kids still at home... don't!!!! Plenty of lagging pipes ,thick loft insulation,thick winter curtains.

We have the same boiler as you and no immersion heater. You don’t need one. The boiler heats the water as you use it. Get rid of the immersion.

We also have the same amount of people as you and I’m home all day (dh works in an office). I do 1/2 loads of washing most days and the dishwasher goes on 2 times a day. We all have showers in our 10.5kw shower. Our electric is about 13-15kw most days.

Why would you want to get rid of an immersion heater with a vented/unvented cylinder ?

It's great to have as a backup in case your boiler fails. Trust me on this one.

Plus to "get rid" of it would cost you a load of money. And how would you plug the hole in the cylinder it left ? You'd have to buy a complete new cylinder. I'm not even sure if they make ones without spaces for an immersion heater !

Just turn it off. Normally you can turn them off in the electrical consumer unit/fuse box as well if you are worried about small hands pushing the switches.

GasPanic is correct. You'd have a hard job to remove it anyway as usually the immersion heater is inside the hot water cylinder.

We have a Vaillant boiler in the kitchen and hot water cylinder inside the airing cupboard. The cylinder is wired to an electric point on the wall inside the airing cupboard.

The electric switch is off all the time. The Vaillant boiler heats the water and central heating on timers.

If the boiler is faulty, we flick the switch in the airing cupboard for an hour and have hot water for the shower and taps.

You need to ask your plumber to explain it all to you.

Just to clarify things for you, there are two different kinds of boiler.
Combi boilers which produce hot water as you run a hot tap (the boiler fires up when you run the hot taps, there is a very small storage tank inside the boiler)
and
System boilers which heat the water in the hot water cylinder.

System boilers are typically installed in homes with multiple bathrooms because Combi boilers cannot provide sufficient hot water for several showers/baths simultaneously.

You cannot remove the hot water cylinder and think you will still have hot water. You must have a system boiler.

Incredibly helpful feedback here. Thank you again everyone for taking the time to reply. The guy who fitted our boiler is coming round tonight hopefully to talk us through everything. So I'll definitely update.

The fridge freezer is the other big one that I think could be eating up energy. It was inherited either the house, but the problem is we can't really replace that at the moment because it's a weird size and it's the only place it can go in the kitchen. So I think we might be stuck with it until we do a kitchen refurb.

If you do have an immersion tank, keep it, it's always useful as a back up.

Someone up thread suggested using a flask to save money, please don't do that, it saves you nothing if you only boil what you need.

2 teas has just cost us 2.04p in electricity, yes the kettle draws nearly 3000W but it's only on just over a minute.

A full boil, 1.7 litres, cost 6.5p. 1.7 litres makes 6 teas.

These prices are based on 34p per kWh.

I haven't read the thread so don't know if this has been suggested but I have a smart meter and have recently stopped using the dishwasher and now washing up by hand ( family of 7 so lots of dishes) I'm saving around 80p electricity a day.

I've just read you have spotlights, we've found ours aren't very energy efficient at all so could be that, I tend to keep mine off and use a lamp instead.

Bulbs - our old spotlight bulbs in kitchen and bathroom cost a fortune - now we have light fittings using low energy bulbs.

Dishwasher - I have put my size 5 down on this. It doesn't need to go on every day for us - it was just being put on because it was evening. We now run a load every day or two rather than daily.

Standby - costs pennies per hour, but it's hour after hour every day, and it's a no cost, no loss solution, so I've started doing it for three TVs and two playstations plus various peripherals.

In Sept we used 380kwh. In Aug, we used 505. Some of that will be not using fans, but I have started using a heated throw and electric blanket in the evenings. Three of us WFH in this month. Only two last month.

We are average 14 /16 a day which is high as many are 10/12

aome on other threads are 3/4. Christ knows how

and bills always high

I brought a smart plug meter thing off Amazon fir £20

fridge freezer are about 50p a day so £15 a month. We have 3 so that’s £45 gulps

fish tank I did do. Was about a kWh a day but that was old price. Will redo it

water boiler

dh says better to leave on all day continuous so heating up small bit all the time

I think better to do twice a day fir 30m. That’s enough fir showers and baths

but dh says it uses more to heat every tine from cold

so who is right

please say not him

i don’t see the point in having water heating all the time