It's not my gas bill, it's the electric

[lipstickwoman]

So the electric usage for last month was almost £200.. it's usually less than half of that. I'd usually use the oven a lot more and would tumble dry daily. Not this month and it's still massive.

The gas isn't so bad.

I got it all wrong..

My electricity is running at about £40 a week. That's four adults all at home all day WFH in two rooms - laptops, monitors etc on every day. But hot water, heating (not on much) and cooking is all by gas.

We've cut back on electricity - no tumble drying (but dehumidifier on when washing is on airer), stricter about full loads for dishwasher and everything off at the wall overnight. But can't get much lower than about 100kwh a week since clocks went back.

We could, of course, if we sat in the dark, cut back on playstation use etc, but we're not at that point yet. We've cut back on waste and looked for easy wins. Gas is still affordable if we don't use the heating - that's another story.

If your heating is gas and that's just your normal usage, then it's likely to be because the cost of the unit rate has more than doubled in a year - is now around 35 p and I remember that ours was 15 p when we got moved from Avro to Octopus and that was in around October 2021. The standing charge has also increased significantly.

The only way to not pay double what you used to for your electricity is to use a lot less. There's lots of advice around on cutting down, but cooking, drying laundry, replacement of any inefficient appliances (our fridge freezer is well over 20 years old and uses 3 times the amount of a new one so we're replacing it very soon), anything like pumps and heaters for cold blooded pets, gaming PCs and lighting if you have old style 60W+ bulbs or millions of halogen spots anywhere is where to concentrate your efforts.

You need to turn detective and work out where it's all going. Calculate your average current daily use then go round the house room by room and see what appliances are where and what they use.

We worked out last March that 28.5% of out hefty electricity bills were our fridges and freezers and decommissioned a couple, so that was a good start. If you haven't got LED lightbulbs then get them changed pronto. It will be different things for different households, but it's all going somewhere and you can work it out. Then you can decide what you want to do about it. Try and involve all the family so they all own the problem.

Good luck, you can do this. 😊

Fridge freezer uses a lot of electricity especially if you have one of those American style ones. I don’t know why that surprised me.

Same here! Electric has doubled and I conclude it’s the tumble drier and maybe more use of the oven. Tumble dryer will have to be for once a week use I think.

Tumble dryer, freezers, iron, hairdryer and straighteners, oven. They’re the biggest users in our house. Anything that heats or cools.

Last month was £122. Two adults in a 3 small bed flat, no heating, minimal use of oven, but using washing machine and dishwasher maybe twice a week.

Meant to ask after I posted, can anyone tell me what their tariff details are please, just for comparison?

Thank you

I do have one of those and they don’t use too much. Average yearly consumption of ours is about 422kW and I use between 120 and 140 kW of electricity every month for everything.
Two people, 3 bed semi

Buy one of those little plug in monitors & test all your stuff.
I was shocked to discover my dishwasher goes up to around 1500 w for some parts of the cycle.

Meanwhile a King Sized electric under blanket on the bed is 100w on the highest setting, but only 25w on the lowest & an Echo doesn't even hit 10w when streaming videos.

My fridge freezer which is an American style mostly burbles along at about 9-10w then goes up to 125w for a few minutes when the motor kicks on before going back to 9-10w.
It uses about 900w a day.

I've been testing stuff to get another power station at Black Friday prices.

Yes, but your dishwasher will be drawing less power at other times. It's like a coffee maker or kettle - the cost shoots up for two mins, but then drops. Our dishwasher uses less than a kWh for a whole cycle. That said, there is a stark difference between the cheapest and most expensive programmes.

I would look at non-essentials first - the half loads in washing machine and dishwasher, tumble dryer on 'drying days', TV and lights left on for hours in empty rooms ...

Light bulbs, fridges and freezers don't look high use, but they're on for hours at a time, or all the time for fridges and freezers. You can't go by the manufacturer's data - that's only useful for comparing different models. Your own annual usage will depend on how full, how often doors are opened etc. And a fridge and freezer is probably pretty much essential for most of us whereas lights left on in empty rooms are not.

We are the same, last month has was £33, electricity £220. Main culprits I think are washing machine and tumble drier (on once a day and 3 times each weekend day), American fridge freezer, lizards viv, countless pcs, chargers, laptops etc. We are a family of 6, 4 teens, 5 bed house. It’s hard going as I can hardly keep up with the washing as it is with the tumble drier

What sort of power station are you looking at? Solar generators are my surprising new obsession. hobby for 2022. 😂