British Gas smart meter reviewer feedback thread - Month 2. Non testers: Share your pet peeves on wasting energy in your household for a chance to win £100 JL voucher. NOW CLOSED

[KatieBMumsnet]

This thread is for the 3 Mumsnetters and 2 Mumsnet Bloggers who are testing the British Gas smart meters in their home.

Non testers: What annoying energy wasting habits does your family have that really wind you up? Maybe the children leave their games consoles running all night? Or perhaps your partner always takes never ending hot showers? Whatever your pet peeves around energy waste in your household are we'd like to hear from you.

Everyone who adds a comment to this thread by 22nd November will be in with a chance of winning £100 worth of John Lewis vouchers.

Testers
Month 2: Day and Night

This month we're focusing on the energy you use at certain times of day. As you've had smart meters for a couple of months now you should be able to see the history of your consumption over this time using one of two ways:

1 If you’ve received a Smart Energy Report this will show your pattern of consumption.
2 By looking at your historical use data on the smart energy monitor.

Below are a few questions for you to answer but please also add any other comments you may have to the thread.

• When do you and your family consume the most energy?
• Challenge each family member to change the time they use at least one appliance (gas or electricity) - please tell us which family member chose what, and how they’re going to change the times at which this is used
• How did you and your family find making these changes? Was it easy to adapt to or not?
• Do you use your smart energy monitor more now than when you first had smart meters installed, or less?

Thanks and good luck,

MNHQ

PS You can see how the testers got on with the first challenge here.

[KatieBMumsnet]

Thanks for all your comments. The winner of the prize draw is...

Thinkingofmyfabfour

Congratulations, I'll PM you for your details.

[Autismmumma]

I'm a tester and here's my second post : Day and Night with our Smart Meter t.co/wD2nj5aXim
Biggest peeve would be the lights, appliances on standby and my hubbie and the toaster!!

[OrangeMochaFrappucino]

My dh leaves everything on standby, never shuts the laptop down, leaves chargers plugged in with nothing connected..he is so unaware of all of these things even though he is so budget conscious with everything else! Drives me bonkers!

[daisydaisy11]

Non tester. My pet hate is when the dishwasher is turned on half empty because OHs favourite mug is in there. If it is that important to OH then he should take it out and handwash it!

[jennywren123]

Non-tester.

Why, oh why do the children have to leave the lights on in every room in the house!

[milliemoon]

The worst is when my husband puts the water on to warm up and then forgets it's on. oh and he tumble dries (and shrinks, buts that's another annoyance) everything!

[NotAFeminist]

Non-tester: Boiling the kettle for a well earned cup of tea and then being distracted by something else that needs to be done, forgetting about the already boiled water and boiling the darn thing again!!

We thought we'd be all energy efficient and use an electric heater for my son's room before it got reaaaally cold enough to put the central heating on. Then we realised the electric heater was literally eating away ALL of the electricity so we switched the central heating on and am bloody glad we did! Much cheaper and warms the whole house! ;D Though I'm the one who'd put a jumper on and do a little dance to warm up before resorting to the radiators outside of their designated times!!!

People falling asleep with the TV on and it staying on for hours! {Can you get timers for TV's to switch themselves off?!??}

Have to have the baby monitor plugged in all night but it's kind of a necessity so I don't complain about that one!

{I'm guilty of having a too long shower!! And leaving the door open whilst the heating's on when I let the dog out. slaps wrist ;)}

[cornflakegirl]

DH and I used to fight over the thermostat as I like the house to be about 2 degrees warmer than him. Then we had children, and they sided with him - so now I just wear seven jumpers at home

We had solar panels fitted last year, so I am now banned from using the dishwasher and washing machine if the sun isn't shining. Those are probably the only two things where it's easy to change the time when you run them.

[ouryve]

Non-tester.

DS2 has a fascination with lights, at the moment. If he could, he would have every light on in the house. Thankfully we have mostly energy saving bulbs, but I'm not convinced that these really save any money and I'm doubting if they'll last that long when he's turning on all the lights, inspecting them all, then turning them all off again!

[StillNoFuckingEyeDeer]

Oh, and he leaves the fridge/freezer/oven door open all the time. Then turns adjusts the thermostat so that things freeze at the back of the fridge.

[StillNoFuckingEyeDeer]

Non-tester.
The thing that drives me mad is DH turning on every single lamp and light in the house in the mornings and not opening any of the curtains. He also doesn't turn any lights off in the evenings, so he'll have the whole kitchen lit up when we're all in the living room. What makes it worse is his insistence on coming home from work and turning off the overhead light and turning on several lamps so that a) it's
not quite light enough and b) it takes longer to go around turning all the lights off.

[VikingLady]

Non tester.

DH leaving the fridge door open when he is in the kitchen! And ditto the cooker! I go spare about this, I really do. It is a total waste. If I pull him up on it he says it is only for a couple of minutes, but I point out a couple of minutes several times each day really adds up!

[toucancancan]

Non tester: Overfilling the kettle, pans left boiling with water for ages waiting to be used.

[Thinkingofmyfabfour]

Non tester
Dh never switches things off at the wall, I go round switching off things like dishwasher, washing machine.
He also switches on shower ages before he gets in! No idea why, the water is hot almost straight away!

[IAlwaysThought]

Non tester,

Not the most original but ggggrrrrrrrr!!!! to the kids leaving the lights on.

Also, grrrrrrrrr to teenage girls asking to put the heating on whilst only wearing shorts and a singlet.

And another...gggggrrrrrrr to teenage girls and looooonnnng showers.

I could go on..

[Noideaatall]

DH leaving his phone on charge and the internet box on overnight. He 'needs both to get to sleep'....

[Toffeepoppet]

Non tester -

having to make each cup of tea I drink about three times as get caught up feeding baby/ doing nappies /sorting toddler out! Have cold cups of tea dotted around the house!

[GuyAndStoic]

Non-tester - Our windows are shite. We live in a HA house with field behind our house, and they are rotten and riddled with damp. This morning I noticed that DS's salt-dough dinosaur is soft now.

[BIGWILL5]

My partner puts the gas fire on full whack and then she oopens the windows ???

[ArthurCucumber]

Non-tester

As I've been vociferous on my other thread I might as well say it here as well. My teenage dds and their tendency to go into a kind of trance in the shower. I think it must be the water bouncing off their heads or something. They soap, wash, rinse and then... stand. And stand. And stand a bit more. Dh is nearly as bad. I recently discovered that, partly as a result of all this standing, our energy usage is just over twice the average for our type of property/household. I am on the warpath.

Thank you for creating this space to rant

[Elainey1609]

Non-tester

Leaving the immersion heating on overnight when used to to get some hot warmer (normally when gas has run out)

Falling asleep when reading at night -which means the light gas been left on.

Not willing to put an extra jumper or blanket on to save turning heating on

Leaving the wii on standby despite probably not using it from 1month to the next.

Basically just leaving things on standby in general

[BlackeyedSusan]

oh this is going to be cathartic!

when their dad visits:
he turns lights on instead of opening curtains... (all the lights)
he leaves lights on when he leaaves a room
he boils too much water in the kettle.
he opens windows in stead of turning the heating off.
he opens windows when it is sunny insted of trying to warm the rooms enough so as not to put the heating on later.
he has the hob on so high things boil dry rapidly
he leaves the dvd running overnight.
he leaves the fridge door open while he walks acoss the room to put milk in his coffee.
he leaves the milk out of the fridge and it needs extra energy to recool
he leaves his charger switched on when he has unplugged his phone.
he wastes hot water leaving the tap running on full while he faffs with soap.
he leaves the microwave on at the socket after use.
he throws away stuff that can be recycled
he goes to the launderette and uses the tumble dryers.

what is worse he proclaims to care for the environement

did I mention he is an ex?

[OddSockMonster]

Tester

• When do you and your family consume the most energy?

We have a very definite sharp peak from 7-8am in electricity, when both of us have electric showers and tea & toast. It's also roughly when the heating & hot water come on for their first blast of the day.
We then have a longer period of electricity & gas use from about 4 to 8pm, when we have the heating on again and when we're doing dinners, watching a bit of telly, bath for the boys and etc.
Very noticeable that we use loads more on Sundays throughout the day. Weekdays are definitely lower consumption.

• Challenge each family member to change the time they use at least one appliance (gas or electricity) - please tell us which family member chose what, and how they’re going to change the times at which this is used

DH and I have chosen to put the dishwasher and washing machine on outside of our peak times, i.e. later in the evening or mid-morning. DS1 & 2 are putting off turning on the TV straight away when they come home.

• How did you and your family find making these changes? Was it easy to adapt to or not?
It's taken quite a conscious effort for the dishwasher & washing machine as we tend to just put these on automatically, e.g. straight after dinner, but using the timer button to delay the start by an hour or two after we load them seems to be easier.
A later TV time is easy up to a point, I tend to pop it on while I'm getting their dinner ready so they don't tear the place apart once I'm out of the room - but I've started using that as a reward (TV, not tearing the room apart) for playing nicely when we first get home.

• Do you use your smart energy monitor more now than when you first had smart meters installed, or less?
Probably a little less, though DH finds it quite interesting to see how much we use on different days of the week.

[IncaAztec]

Non testers: What annoying energy wasting habits does your family have that really wind you up? Maybe the children leave their games consoles running all night? Or perhaps your partner always takes never ending hot showers? Whatever your pet peeves around energy waste in your household are we'd like to hear from you.

Leaving things on charge. Endless gadgets and then never, ever remembering to take them off charge! Aaarrggh!

[Madamecastafiore]

Not a tester (electric and gas from British Gas but supplied on someone else's infrastructure so could not be a tester!).

My pet peeve is things being left on standby or plugged in. I know it sounds sill but I realised after the recent storms when we were running on low wattage power just how much power things use just by being on standby and plugged in. I couldn't boil a kettle but after going around the house switching absolutely everything off and unplugging everything got a cup of tea from a very slow boiling kettle.

Now I have turned into 'Grandpa' walking around unplugging everything and hearing the kids moan about me when their toast doesn't pop down or they put the kettle on and it doesn't boil.