Can we talk electrci usage please? How many Kilowatt hours do you use?

[KatyMac]

Whether per day/month/quarter/year?

I think we are very big users (& I need to cut it down)

But I want to see if I am above average

I mostly turn off the TV/video using the switch at the socket when not in use (dh & dd rarely remember though), and the broadband router at night (it remembers its settings fine). I doubt that it makes much difference though - we have one of those energy monitor thingies and it the difference between off at the wall and off for the TV/video is too small to register as is the difference between on and off for the router. We did find some appliances around the house, most noticably ds's keyboard that made a measurable difference between 'off at the wall' and 'off'.

The other thing that eats electricity in our house is the kettle. I am trying very hard to only boil the right amount of water, but dh especially isn't very good at that.

I suppose I should remember I am running a business not a household (or more realistically both)

I use an average of 45 KWhr a day

Ours averages about 24 kwh a day. That's for a 4-bed semi, 2 adults and 3 children. I think it's quite a lot, considering we have gas heating and water heating.

However, there are two adults at home a lot of the time, including my husband who works from home and has to have at least 2-3 computers on all day and sometimes overnight too. That's without the family computers!

Yes you should remember that Katmac - Both business & home . Also, with your particular business you can't turn the heat down as others might. So weed out any superfluous electrical stuff that you don't need to use and try cutting down on the water heating, but don't compare your consumption to purely domestic residences (especially ones with gas heating!).

Snorkle I have put a mark with tippex on where 2 of our mugs comes to on the kettle. So he has no excuse

Good idea flibbertyjibbet - 'tis done!

870kw per month on average - but this is 50% lower than last year! "Sprawling' (so say our friends) 5 bed detached with 4/5 people, we have an electric Aga which heats the back rooms and we use for cooking (doesn't do hot water though we have a oil boiler for that).
Washing machine/dishwasher once a day, tumble dryer only for emergency use. All bulbs low energy. 1 electric shower per day (rest of us use other shower). Millions of computers etc which dh will not turn off - ever (he works in IT).
I would love a turbine but I hear those attached to houses gently shake the house to bits.
We are thinking of putting up some solar panels (for electricity, we are def. putting up some for water heating)..but dh is concerned about our pattern of usage ie. most of our power we use at night and panels will be producing power in day - and the price paid for power supplied to the grid is too small to make it worthwhile.

ooh Millarkie, what make of solar thermal panels are you looking at (or haven't you got that far yet?). Have you had any cost estimates yet? I'm really thinking quite hard about these, but not much clue where to start.

Snorkle - we have been round some 'energy' roadshows and got loads of leaflets - but no decisions so far. The thermal panels are linked with a loft conversion which we want to do in the next couple of years so at the moment we are getting the architect to draw up plans and he is putting us in touch with a solar expert.
I need to get some calculations of output for pv cells and compare this to our daytime use of energy (I have pointed out to dh that 66% of our use is at night but this is on purpose since we have an economy 7 meter - we could have the Aga charge up during the day and use it as an energy store).

Thanks Millarkie - there's so many solar companies out there & I'm sure some of them at least are cowboys and that some systems work better than others. When you've spoken with your 'solar expert' I'd be interested to know what he recommends. I expect your costs will be a bit lower as your system will probably be being altered anyway with the extension if you see what I mean, so that probably won't be so relevent.

Have a look of the Greenbuilding forum or it'snoteasybeinggreen forum

They have lots of good info

Thanks Katymac.
Is no one else going to admit to huge electricity usage then?

Obviously so shocked at mine

We have been using a device that shuts-down the tv and kids computer games when they are on standby. I don't know how much it is saving us but its easier than climbing under the tv to switch it off each night. It's an Energenie.

We have been using a device that shuts-down the tv and kids computer games when they are on standby. I don't know how much it is saving us but its easier than climbing under the tv to switch it off each night. It's an Energenie.

I have been using a gadget that turns off the tv and kids computer games when they go into standby. Not sure how much we are saving but feel much better and don't have to climb under TV each night to turn it off. It's an Energenie.

Sorry guys! I have posted twice because i couldnt see the first post!

Are electricity 'units' the same as kWh? My bills from EDF only give units, and we use about 4000 a year. That's with an electric cooker, dishwasher, pretty efficient fridge/freezer and washer, and using the tumble drier about twice a year. 2 computers on all the time, but eco-lightbulbs.

Once Squirmy is born I guess I'll be doing a lot more laundry and some tumble-drying, because we have piles of hand-me-down washable nappies and wipes which have worked well on other family babies.

We have gas central heating and used 23000 kWh last year, which is a lot better than the previous year in this house when we still had the ancient outside (!) boiler and system, and used 32500 kWh to be a lot colder! The gas also heats our granny flat which we let out, but the flat has a separate electric meter.

I just hope our loft conversion is done before winter - it's been nice and cool only having a ceiling over me during summer, but soon I won't want the heat to leak out!

Yes notcitrus, electic units are in kWh.

Good idea to consider gas usage as well - we use about 33kWh/day (12300kWh per year) gas, for heating, water and gas hob. With another 9-10kWh/day electric that puts our total kWh consumption similar to yours KatyMac - does that make you feel better?

Thanks snorkle.
Our shower is off the gas, which helps.

I looked into solar panels given we're having a new roof atm and I used to work with sustainable builders, and we have a large south-facing roof, but there's no grants at the moment, we couldn't afford the extra £5k for water-heating ones, and we wouldn't save much having already got a modern condensing boiler. Leccy-generating cells would cost more and save even less.

The builders doing our loft said that adding solar panels in the future is only going to get easier, especially for water-heating ones, so we might as well wait for the tech to improve (this was my conclusion anyway) and just put more insulation in in the meantime.

It does actually I forget you have to add in gas for other people too

I also spend about £240 a year on wood...but that doesn't come in kWhrs