How can I show my dh how much we could save if he turned the fecking tv off!

[LazySusan11]

It's on all the bloody time, he works but it goes on before he goes to work dsd puts it on whilst eating breakfast, it goes on as soon as he gets home. When he's off it's on all day. He's not usually watching it it's background noise.

Not only does this teach dsd bad habits and get on my nerves I'm pretty sure it's money wasted.

We have 1 tv in the house, I rarely watch it if there's something I really want to watch I'll watch on my iPad elsewhere. Personally I'd like the tv to disappear!

How can I show my dh money saving figures if the box were to be on a lot less?

Get a smart meter installed - I got one free from British Gas (I'm with them for gas and electricity) and I'm pretty sure most (if not all) energy suppliers have to provide them free at the moment. It's great to make everyone more aware of the energy you're using and the impact that turning off lights/appliances has.

Plus, it acts as your meter, you can link it to apps on your phone and mine sits in my study, so I never have to venture into the cellar to read the meter again!

It tells you how much your electricity and gas is costing per hour, so you can go around the house turning off lights and know instantly how much money it's saved you. And there's a graph that goes red when things like the cooker/washing machine are on, which shows you're using some serious electricity!

google it - there's loads of websites, like this one which give you an answer. But at the most, you'd save 100 pounds a YEAR - which isn't all that much.

some people like background noise, some don't. IT's the kind of thing that people have to compromise over in a marriage.

Yes, was also coming on to say that TV's don't actually use that much electricity: blog.npower.com/2013/02/ever-wondered-how-much-your-appliances-cost-to-run/

I'm the same as your husband I'm afraid, I turn it on as soon as I come in usually, out of habit more than anything and I certainly wouldn't want to watch a programme on a tiny iPad when I've got a big TV in the house!

Don't install a smart meter, they trap you with one supplier or become useless.

Just look up the energy consumption of the TV and work it out with your unit rate.

Wasting anything, however small, is two fingers stuck up to your kids.

This would drive me bonkers, regardless of the waste. Absolutely loathe the tv as background noise!

I have some ADHDish traits and cannot concentrate without background noise and movement. Don't function well in silence.

I chose the radio though which is probably less annoying, but if I was home alone without other family members bimbling about I might have telly on for some background movement so that I could get on with whatever I needed to do

(I do a job somewhere noisy so silence is never an issue there, I'm also so happy that libraries are no longer silent! I can finally use them!)

You can buy small, cheap plug in devices that measure electricity cost, but as others have said, the cost of a TV running is fairly trivial. I agree that it is annoying though, but that seems to be something that some people prefer.

Unfortunately I don't think you have a valid argument re. saving money by turning it off. I have a smart meter and actually most appliances that don't involve heat are so energy efficient these days that they barely register. You'd be saving probably a few pounds a year by turning it off when not in use. Likewise turning lights off and not leaving things on standby - it just doesn't make any difference in terms of cost.

I sympathise about the background noise though - that would drive me absolutely bonkers too!

(For anyone interested, the things that do make a big difference to our bill are the electric shower, the cooker, and the tumble dryer).

Presuming that it's currently on 16 hours/day, that it is the most inefficient tv (around 150wH to run) and you pay a high rate for your electricity (around 20p for kWh) you could save around £100/year if he had it on for about 4 hours/day instead.

The calculations are:

TV consumption (measured in kWh) your electricity rate (pence per kWh) by the amount of hours it's currently on.

The TV consumption will be on the back of the TV (it will be listed in wH not kWh as TVs use between 100-150 wH generally, and a kWh = 1,000 wH)

The price of your electricity will be on any bill and will be listed somewhere between 10-20 pence per kWh.

With those fixed variables you can calculate the savings of having the TV on for less hours/day.

lupa do you know how much the tumble dryer costs, ill admit I use mine a lot but my electric has just went up and I'd like to get it down

bimbobaggins Sorry, only just seen this. I've just put it on for a minute and the rate was 15p per hour while I was watching, but I'm not sure if that stays constant for the whole time or if it fluctuates.