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Energy Use

8 replies

sunnyside238 · 28/06/2022 17:24

Cut back as much as possible and currently still using around £3 of electric a day and around £1 of gas

How are we going to cope in the winter?

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Oceanus · 28/06/2022 22:23

Try to unplug things you're not using (like lamps in the guest room) and s.
I'm not in the UK but the things that made the most difference to my bill were:

  1. getting a heat pump (bill went down by almost 20% which shows the magnitude of it, though I had an electric water heater not a gas one).
  2. LEDs - replace all the incandescent/hallogen (99% most of mine were halogen , they're hot when you touch them because they lose energy, they're not very efficient) light bulbs with LED
  3. getting a small induction instead of using the large one (mine was electric though)
  4. I lowered the power factor.
  5. I had a small studio flat back in the day and I had gas and electricity. Because I was alone I was paying a sh+t load of fixed fees/taxes (before you add what you've used) for gas even though I hardly used it, so at the time I had a gas boiler but I replaced it with an electri water heater so I only paid electricity. The bill went up but it was still lower than those fees I paid for gas. I'm not sure this would work for a big family though.
Oceanus · 28/06/2022 22:25

Sorry, I didn't lower the power factor. I lowered the Power supplied.

BarbaraofSeville · 29/06/2022 06:19

Nearly 50 p of the electricity is the standing charge so you can't do anything about that.

However the rest sounds like quite a lot. Do you have an electric shower? They cost a lot so you might need to be more careful with usage. No standing there for ages, get on with it.

Or are you using the washing machine and tumble dryer a lot? Some Mumsnetters talk about doing more washing than you'd think possible and tumble dry when they could peg out. If this is you, stop.

If you have an electric oven that is used for heating small items, think about buying an air fryer, they are cheaper to run.

KangarooKenny · 29/06/2022 06:23

Some people are using solar lights in the house, rather than having a light on. So a string of solar fairy lights in the bathroom rather than leaving a light on all night. But I doubt that would save much.

sunnyside238 · 29/06/2022 08:36

@BarbaraofSeville we are using between 6 and 9 kWh a day.. the average is over 10 kWh a day so we are below average users but we are on the price cap which is why it is so high

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FlippityFlippityFlop · 01/07/2022 11:12

So for the gas - I'm assuming that you haven't got the heating on at all. For the hot water - are you heating it once or twice a day? We found that we only needed it on for 1.5 hours once a day and that lasted the whole day.

PuzzledObserver · 03/07/2022 09:46

You don’t mention how many people in the house, but certainly your usage of 6-9kWh per day of electricity is not excessive. It may be possible to shave a bit off though. We recently had two short breaks away, so I was able to see what the house was using when it was empty. The first trip it was 3.4kWh on the empty day. The second trip, I turned off at the plug everything I could reach - TV and peripherals, computers, Sonos units, even the microwave. Average usage was under 2.5kWh per day. So there’s up to 1kWh per day that could be saved by not leaving things on standby.

Obviously turning things on and off at the plug all the time can be a right faff, so I plan on getting a smart plug when the one comes out which integrates with my solar monitoring system. I’ll initially move it round to see how much the various devices are using in standby. Then I will set a timer for it only to be on during sensible hours, starting with the devices which use the most, maybe adding further ones if I think it’s worthwhile.

On gas - do you have a combi boiler? If so, check that the hot water is set to “Eco” rather than “Comfort” mode - might be called something different. Basically, Comfort mode keeps a little bit of water warm all the time, so that you get hot water quicker when you turn the tap on. I switched that off, and we were instantly using 2kWh less gas per day, which is about 14p, or £1 a week. Apparently it saves more in the winter when the water is colder to start with.

Also for the winter, reduce the flow temperature on your boiler, they are mostly set too high and can’t work in condensing mode. We saved about 5% of our gas usage last winter.

sunnyside238 · 03/07/2022 10:59

@PuzzledObserver sorry I should of said, 4 bed house and 2 adults and 1 toddler. We are all here everyday as my partner works from home and I am on unpaid leave from work looking after our toddler.

I'll check our combi boiler but I think the gas man put it to keep warm when he was last here. But I'll have a look at it thank you.

I just can't imagine how much it is going to be in winter when we need to have the heating on Sad

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