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.

@ilkleymoorbartat

My house is all electric and I have an immersion heater and an electric shower. I switched mine off 6 months ago as they are really high usage! It's a giant kettle which just keeps boiling over and over to keep the water at a set temp

I now only use the shower to wash and don't have hot water coming out the taps. I boil a small kettle for washing up once a day

I'd day those are one of the culprits. My kitchen ones that have 3 of the pin lights is quite greedy so I try to remember to turn it off when not in actual use (used to leave it on as a) we're in & out if there &b) it's a nice background light in the hallway/lounge.(kitchen is being replaced & so the light fitting will be changed then)

lounge light uses quite a bit too, but I'm planning on buying different ones to replace it with when it blows.

Heating water is often the culprit, Do you actually use enough hot water to warrant it being in for an hour twice a day. I can't compare mine as mine is now a combi.

do you have a dehumidifier?

you can get the plug in thingys to tell you how much each appliance is using.

@TabithaTittlemouse

maybe not. You need to see. How much YOUR dishwasher is using. Old ones can use a lot, some new ones use surprisingly little.

I don't have one (due to small kitchen/kitchen layout/damage they to do glassware etc). But I can pretty much guarantee it would save me money because doing them by hand properly) uses a lot of water and of course lots of heated water.

@SkylightSkylight true. Ours is quite new. I’ve not stopped using it because I’m too lazy/never here.

I got massive drops using the airfryer instead of the oven, and find laptops use less than the tv, and less than a PC. An extra spin on the washing machine cuts down tumble dryer time and uses less. Plus using the longer eco cycle on the dishwasher helps, as does washing at 30 instead of 40. We are 2 adults, 2 teenagers and 2 primary age in a 5 bed house and have gone from 25kwh/ day to 10.8 with the above changes, despite having an elderly freezer and dh wfh.

This @BarbaraofSeville !!

25 is very high @Howmanysleepsnow

ours is 14/16 and high

Christ knows how people get it to 10 let alone 4/5 as some do

Another little thing is shutting the fridge. Our house was a family (bullshit,I mean the males)of leave it open as you make breakfast or lunch😏we noticed how much this must have used when in the summer it sounded like a bloody hovercraft trying to get its temp back down.
one thing not to turn off is your wifi.
dishwasher Deff costs less

That's a huge saving, £150 a month on the 35p tariff.

I have found the air fryer good too, it saves me about 70p a day - the air fryer paid for itself in 2 months, although it is a cheap one.

I'm going to get a better one when they come back down in price.

Apologies if it’s been mentioned but I noticed a difference when I went round the house and turned everything off that sat on standby. I believe that older appliances eat lots of electric on standby and our microwave is ancient. The Sky box apparently is another culprit. Before bed I go round and essentially the only thing left on is the fridge. I’ve really noticed the difference of around 2kwh a day since doing all of this. Not much on its own but for me that’s £24 a month so a decent enough help. I’ve also been ruthless about lights being off!

2kWh per day is equivalent to a continuous usage of about 80W, so not that much.

Most modern things on standby use about 1-5 watts, but there are some things that can use a lot more. For example games consoles/PCs can probably use 20W or more if you have them in the wrong mode. I don't know about the sky box. My guess is that most of the things you are turning off make little difference, but some are.

My general rule is, if something is warm when it is on standby, or has fans running, then it is probably using quite a lot of electric. This is how I found out my Xbox was using a lot. Otherwise the only other way is to look at the W rating (normally a sticker on the back - but remember this might not be for the standby use) or invest in an energy monitoring plug.

According to Which? On 5 Oct 22, the average dishwasher by Energy Rating uses the following electricity:

A+ 292 KWh for 280 cycles, or 0.96 KWh per cycle/load = 33p per load washed
A++ 262 KWh for 280 cycles, or 0.94 KWh per cycle/load= 32p per load washed
A+++ 237 KWh for 280 cycles, or 0.84 KWh per cycle/load= 29p per load washed

• based on 34p per KWh average price cap.

dishwashereview.co.uk/how-much-electricity-and-water-does-a-dishwasher-use/

However, if you have an old dishwasher like I do- mine is a 1900w one and a cycle takes around an hour. That’s a whopping 1.90 KWh per cycle/load and my area the price cap is 35p per KWh, so it’s 67p per load washed. We do around 5 loads/week only when it’s full, so £3.35/week

So it’s quite possible some dishwashers are costing 80p per load in electricity. They do use less water & none of the gas used to heat water that is consumed when washing up by hand so that cost would need to be calculated and deducted.

@Nolongera

110 units, at 10.7p a unit that comes in at less than 12 quid, 40p a day.

? Did you really mean “units”? Because the ~10p cap is per kWh of gas, not per unit of gas as measured by a gas metre.

The gas metre doesn’t measure KWHs. The calculation to convert gas units to gas KWHs for my provider is as follows:

KWh= GAS UNITS USED X CALORIFIC VALUE (39.6) X VOLUME CORRECTION (1.02264) ÷ 3.6

Not sure if your provider has same formula.

But did you mean 110 units of gas or 110 KWHs of gas?

I know the difference between M³ and kWh thank you. I meant kWh.

Thank you for clarifying. You see I’ve only had my heat on for 4hrs in total last month, but I’m running at an average 8 KWh per day for gas, and your average is 3.54 KWh per day then even though you have your heat on. I also don’t take baths. Now I need to find out why I seem to be using twice much as you…l

This is mine - what does it cost me

though whatever it does - it’s worth it. Goes in once a day

@Discovereads But it's unlikely to be running at full power for all the time it is on.

Maybe while it is heating water or drying, but a lot of the time it won't be doing either of those things and will just be pumping water or running the spinny things, which won't take as much energy.

Ours takes nearly 5 hours to run an eco cycle, but the book says it uses 0.7 kWh per cycle, because a lot of the time it's not doing very much, or nothing at all, because after about 3.5 hours it pops the door open to let the steam escape to aid drying and just sits like that for the next hour and 20 mins.

In fairness, we have hardly had it on and the only for 30 mins, perhaps 3 times. It's been a mild, sunny October and if the sun is out, our house is warm. Thinking about it now as it's blowing a hoolie out there and raining hard, 17C in the lounge.

I should add ( and I wish you could edit threads on here) last December we used 100 kWh of gas, but around 50 in the months before and after .

I meant 1000 and 500 those months, sorry!

I thought that sounded low!

At current prices the 100 and the 50 are roughly what 1000 and 500 of kWh gas costs at 10.7p a unit, I was thinking of that.🤣

@Blondeshavemorefun

Ok, so your dishwasher is rated at:
1760-2400W

This usually as a rule of thumb means the Eco function uses 1760W (1.76 KW) to run, and your hot pots and pans wash uses 2400W (2.4 KW ) to run. These ratings are based on how many watts used in an hour. This is not exact, the best way would be to research your dishwasher user manual and energy data sheets, as they’ll usually list the exact KWHs used per cycle but that can be a real pain in the arse to find.

So to very roughly estimate out how much it costs you, time the Eco cycle in hours and multiply the time by 1.76 to get your KWHs per cycle/load.

Example: if the Eco cycle takes 1hr 15mins, multiply 1.76x 1.25= 2.2 KWHs per Eco cycle load. Then times that by your usage rate for electricity- average cap is 34p per KWH- and that would mean a cost of 75p per cycle/load.

The other cycles will fall within that range of 1760W and 1900W. Eco is usually the lowest energy cycle and the pots and pans hot wash is usually the highest energy cycle.

Oh! Yes you are right, when you time your dishwasher only time the churning and burning spraying water around time. You don’t include soak or dry time. That’s a very important point.

We had really old freezer in garage. We bought plug in to see how much each thing was using. That little freezer was using far more than large American fridge freezer in kitchen. We got rid of it and got new one. Will pay for itself in 22 months. After that we will be saving. Buy a pump flask fill with boiling water then use for making tea and coffee. It should stay boiling hot for 5 hours.