Home energy use.

[markm]

Just wondering if anyone can give me some advice……

We own a 5 bedroom house and have 4 adults. It’s a mid 90’s 4 bedroom build, with an extension. 
 

The washing machine goes a lot. 2 times a day at least (it’s a brand new Bosch). We very rarely use the tumble drier. 
 

My direct debt is £330 a month. We use  around 1/2 the the average gas use, for a 5 bedroom house per year, but around 3x the electric average electricity.  (Plus - we are out all day at work or school). 
 

Whilst on holiday last week, the house used 16KW of power. When we are in the house we use around 20-25. 

 

The usual - modern TVs on stand by, Alexas, ring cameras, etc etc.   

 

Can V1 digital smart meters be wrong?

 

 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2022 by markm

[ph5172]

6 minutes ago, markm said:

Just wondering if anyone can give me some advice……

We own a 5 bedroom house and have 4 adults. It’s a mid 90’s 4 bedroom build, with an extension. 
 

The washing machine goes a lot. 2 times a day at least (it’s a brand new Bosch). We very rarely use the tumble drier. 
 

My direct debt is £330 a month. We use  around 1/2 the the average gas use, for a 5 bedroom house per year, but around 3x the electric average electricity.  (Plus - we are out all day at work or school). 
 

Whilst on holiday last week, the house used 16KW of power. When we are in the house we use around 20-25. 

 

The usual - modern TVs on stand by, Alexas, ring cameras, etc etc.   

 

Can V1 digital smart meters be wrong?

 

 

 

 

The average use is 10kw. 
 

do you have underfloor heating and pumps on the shower?

look at the times your usages goes up. I bet it’s between 5-7 when kettle and oven goes on and again late evening and early morning when the showers are on especially if they are electric and you have teenagers!!! 

Edited June 8, 2022 by ph5172

[markm]

1 minute ago, ph5172 said:

The average use is 10kw. 
 

do you have underfloor heating and pumps on the shower?

look at the times your usages goes up. I bet it’s between 5-7 when kettle abs oven goes on and again late evening and early morning when the showers are on especially if they are electric and you have teenagers!!! 

Thanks for the response.
 

2 small toilets (just toilet) with underfloor heating. We tried turning them off, it made no noticeable difference.
 

Showers are 1x electric and 2 hot water tank (1 is a power shower, other is pressure fed). 
 

Kettle is a qooker (just new in 2021).  
 

We have a early smart meter that was installed by a previous provider and doesn’t work with the current (apparently)  

  

[Minky]

33 minutes ago, markm said:

Just wondering if anyone can give me some advice……

We own a 5 bedroom house and have 4 adults. It’s a mid 90’s 4 bedroom build, with an extension. 
 

The washing machine goes a lot. 2 times a day at least (it’s a brand new Bosch). We very rarely use the tumble drier. 
 

My direct debt is £330 a month. We use  around 1/2 the the average gas use, for a 5 bedroom house per year, but around 3x the electric average electricity.  (Plus - we are out all day at work or school). 
 

Whilst on holiday last week, the house used 16KW of power. When we are in the house we use around 20-25. 

 

The usual - modern TVs on stand by, Alexas, ring cameras, etc 

 

 

 

We've got underfloor heating and it does eat the electric as does anything that is powered up.  Items on standby use almost as much as when on. Basically if you've got it switched on, it's  going to cost you that's a lot of electric.  Running a washing machine twice a day is a lot.  If you use it you have to pay for it.  Still the tax man like you to contribute.

[GingerCat]

My house is 1840's. 3 bed. Solid walls. Everything electric bar heating that is oil. Wife works from home all day on a laptop.  2 kids. We use 20 quid electric a week.  Electric cooker, dishwasher and tumble dryer on all day. At least 3 times for the latter. I get in from work d I like to play on the pc. The gpu doesn't mess about. 

In the winter  about 30 oil and a little bit on the wood burner per week. 

[bruno22rf]

We have a large (by modern standards) 3 bed with a powered log cabin in the garden. Power Shower, Washing Machine and Tumble Dryer on at least twice a day with Gas central heating (old Baxi from 1974), our monthly bill is £94 but we are usually several hundred in credit, we have Solar Panels however so that helps.

[Scully]

The secret to low heating bills is insulation, insulation, insulation. 
It doesn’t matter how you heat your house, if it isn’t insulated effectively it’s just wasted energy. 

[Bobba]

I know nothing about smart meters and will not have one. But I am surprised that you recorded about 60% (16kw) of usual consumption (25kw) when the house was empty. I’m not an electrician but have you tried switching off absolutely everything which consumes electricity and seeing whether the meter is still recording consumption? It may help determine whether the metre is faulty.

[discobob]

1 minute ago, Scully said:

The secret to low heating bills is insulation, insulation, insulation. 
It doesn’t matter how you heat your house, if it isn’t insulated effectively it’s just wasted energy. 

I am just going through similar. We have gas for heating, water and hob.

I am using smart plugs that have power monitoring on them and I am using them to monitor where drains of power are occurring. I have just found (this morning) that my son's PC set up has taken 1.2KW overnight and was drawing 130 watts. I have remotely turned off his monitor and hue lights and this has dropped to 95 watts - I won't shut his PC down as he may have something that isn't saved.

I do this by using a smart plug that has energy monitoring (a Meross) along with a smart extension cable that doesn't have monitoring but does have individually remote controlled socket. The extension cable is plugged into the smart plug to monitor the draw.

That at current rates could be £25 per month - I have to do a similar exercise with his Brothers room - if similar then that is £50 per month. 

It is the little drains that add up - our dishwasher uses a bit - but on the grand scheme of things compared to the energy drains it is nothing.

Hopefully this year we are getting a new boiler (current is 18 years old), Solar PV and Battery with maybe following up with a Cylinder to store excess solar if we have any.

You can get smart wall sockets as well, but these I would say are only suitable for deep wall boxes (think Stud walls) and I am going to fit one for our TV in our bedroom as a smart plug will not go behind the wall mounted TV where the socket is.

These smart plugs come in at about £8-£10 per socket - but you can get deals on multipacks from Amazon from time to time - another brand is GoSund that I have got but I find that the interface isn't as good as Meross that doesn't fit on a iphone screen and makes it hard to read what is happening.

Once you have identified a drain you then don't need to have a smart plug with energy monitoring which will save some pennies using the cheapest you can get but make sure they interface with your chosen smart stuff (Alexa, Google, Apple) or if you haven't choose something that you can set schedules on

[Stonepark]

First thing is get everyone out of the house and switch power off at consumer unit for a few hours to check meter is not recording when consumer unit is off.

If it is, meter is faulty and can be reported back to supply company

Effectively try to narrow down the source of the power drain, but it is normally things like laptop adapters, 4 X 65w PSU left plugged in will use up to 6kw per day, a gaming PSU will draw up to 5kw on its own per day etc.

[Luckyshot]

14 hours ago, markm said:

Just wondering if anyone can give me some advice……

We own a 5 bedroom house and have 4 adults. It’s a mid 90’s 4 bedroom build, with an extension. 
 

The washing machine goes a lot. 2 times a day at least (it’s a brand new Bosch). We very rarely use the tumble drier. 
 

My direct debt is £330 a month. We use  around 1/2 the the average gas use, for a 5 bedroom house per year, but around 3x the electric average electricity.  (Plus - we are out all day at work or school). 
 

Whilst on holiday last week, the house used 16KW of power. When we are in the house we use around 20-25. 

 

The usual - modern TVs on stand by, Alexas, ring cameras, etc etc.   

 

Can V1 digital smart meters be wrong?

 

 

 

 

Do you mean kw or kWh as there is a very big difference.

[markm]

16 minutes ago, Luckyshot said:

Do you mean kw or kWh as there is a very big difference.

KWH. 
 

This is electricity so far this month. 

[markm]

Yikes!

[Luckyshot]

Not exactly a fair comparison as I live on my own in a 1 bed bungalow.

[JohnfromUK]

Probably the one KEY thing is that any form of electric heating is expensive.

Secondary thing (based on heat) is that old lights, TVs, computers and old 'wall warts', chargers etc. - anything that runs that run warm/hot uses a lot of energy.

Things that run cool (LED lights, modern PCs, laptops, chargers) - are fairly frugal with energy.

Fridges, freezer, fridge freezers use more energy when in a poorly ventilated or warm space.  Again - modern A+ rated are better (obviously).  Nearly empty freezers are relatively expensive to run.

[discobob]

Eldest lad in bed last night - his computer (and two monitors) taking 150 watts - that would have been over 1kw by now except I turned off the socket remotely. Fish tank is going off for 6 hours overnight now that should save a 100 watts. Also turned off the living room TV rather than standby and that should save another couple of hundred watts.

The youngest lad actually seems to have got his head around it and had switched his off last night - but he is currently running at 7.5KWh on his PC set up since Monday with yesterday being the highest usage at 3KWh.

The computers were in sleep mode and the monitors were in standby as well - it is the things you don't think of.

Edited June 10, 2022 by discobob

[JohnfromUK]

6 minutes ago, discobob said:

Also turned off the living room TV rather than standby and that should save another couple of hundred watts.

Are you sure this is right?  A typical TV on standby is around 0.5 to 3 Watts, so much lower than you quote.  Typical consumptions for common appliances are listed here;

https://smarterbusiness.co.uk/blogs/how-much-energy-do-my-appliances-use-infographic/

 

[discobob]

3 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

Are you sure this is right?  A typical TV on standby is around 0.5 to 3 Watts, so much lower than you quote.  Typical consumptions for common appliances are listed here;

https://smarterbusiness.co.uk/blogs/how-much-energy-do-my-appliances-use-infographic/

 

Just going off what the plugs are reporting - there is also a couple of other things hanging off the socket - as well  and the telly is quite old with an external USB HDD which I know doesn't switch off due to the LED's. I'm not flash like @ditchman with his humongous screen!!! 

[dodgyrog]

I am with Eon and my monthly bill for a similar but more modern (well insulated) house was £330 also. This was on a variable tariff.

Two days ago I took Martin Lewis advice and moved to s fixed tariff paying 20% over the cap price. The contract is for one year. All this to beat the anticipated 42% rise in the price cap in October!

I guess it's a gamble but I am happy that it will pay out.

Edited June 10, 2022 by dodgyrog

[discobob]

1 hour ago, dodgyrog said:

I am with Eon and my monthly bill for a similar but more modern (well insulated) house was £330 also. This was on a variable tariff.

Two days ago I took Martin Lewis advice and moved to s fixed tariff paying 20% over the cap price. The contract is for one year. All this to beat the anticipated 42% rise in the price cap in October!

I guess it's a gamble but I am happy that it will pay out.

who was that with??

 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

https://www.moneysupermarket.com/gas-and-electricity/fixed-price-energy/

[discobob]

14 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

https://www.moneysupermarket.com/gas-and-electricity/fixed-price-energy/

Ta - but nothing showing up there that isn't 33% more increase on what we have - TBH - I am looking to take some money from my pension to put Solar and Batteries on the house - along with a new boiler to bring the ongoing costs down 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

1 hour ago, discobob said:

Ta - but nothing showing up there that isn't 33% more increase on what we have - TBH - I am looking to take some money from my pension to put Solar and Batteries on the house - along with a new boiler to bring the ongoing costs down 

Let me know if you can find anything cheaper then, I will not be holding my breath.

[ShootingEgg]

On 09/06/2022 at 08:10, Scully said:

The secret to low heating bills is insulation, insulation, insulation. 
It doesn’t matter how you heat your house, if it isn’t insulated effectively it’s just wasted energy. 

This, also don't have heating on all day at a set temp. Use it to top up temp of house for an hour or two then off. This will save you on both gas's and elec.

Edited June 10, 2022 by ShootingEgg
Spelling....

[Mice!]

On 09/06/2022 at 08:10, Scully said:

The secret to low heating bills is insulation, insulation, insulation. 
It doesn’t matter how you heat your house, if it isn’t insulated effectively it’s just wasted energy. 

We've just had an extension done, new insulated slab, walls all insulated,  dormer removed and changed to a proper insulated roof, and you can certainly tell the difference. 

On 08/06/2022 at 21:39, markm said:

Can V1 digital smart meters be wrong?

I'll have to speak to the boss, but we had to have a new smart meter with the deal we're now on, apparently we're using next to nothing during day, with it going up obviously when ovens/washing cooking goes on.