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Home energy use.


markm
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14 minutes ago, Mice! said:

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. 

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.

What did you use? 

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1 hour ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

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

No doubt I won't Dave, I have heard there are deals popping up though but are disappearing as fast as anything because they get fully subscribed to - 20% I may have been tempted with but I am hoping to make savings as well with the use of smart plugs and getting the kids to turn off their computers when they aren't using them....

I can get my hands on certain documents that would allow me to go onto one of the smart tariffs to charge the home battery up off peak and have it topped up by solar through the day

7 minutes ago, Scully said:

What did you use? 

A builder!! 🙃

Edited by discobob
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28 minutes ago, Scully said:

Yes. 

I want to say Kingspan 200mm but I'm not 100%

Took out some existing floor, insulated and poured the concrete base, you can feel the difference if you walk from one area to the new in bare feet. No underfloor heating. 

The dormer was shocking,  maybe 50mm thick, enough room for a double glazed window and nothing else, so no installation what so ever, that's now gone with proper installation again and new windows, side walls re done to spec and insulated again,  anywhere you could put insulation they did 😀 

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7 minutes ago, Mice! said:

I want to say Kingspan 200mm but I'm not 100%

Took out some existing floor, insulated and poured the concrete base, you can feel the difference if you walk from one area to the new in bare feet. No underfloor heating. 

The dormer was shocking,  maybe 50mm thick, enough room for a double glazed window and nothing else, so no installation what so ever, that's now gone with proper installation again and new windows, side walls re done to spec and insulated again,  anywhere you could put insulation they did 😀 

Thanks. Was just interested. 

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My missus gets fed up with me going round turning off the lights all the time.  Says i'm obsessed

Older TVs use almost as much electricity on standby as they do when they are on.

Standby is a big one to watch out for, PCs games consoles, sound systems left on all the time on standby.

The sound system in my step daughter's bedroom was left permanently on because it displayed the time. I reckon it was costing something like 30-40p a day. Thats £100 a year.

Electric showers cost a f-f-f- fortune as well

Our air conditioning unit is 3.5 Kw. In the summer they leave it on all day with the doors and widows open. No wonder im such a grumpy old ***.

Smart meters are great, they allow you to monitor your usage then change something and see what the effect is  

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When you were away for a week did you switch off the quooker water heater? They are expensive at keeping a few litres at boiling point! I only have a 2 bedroom house of 600 square feet,but my average daily electricity use is 3.8 kw/h,about £1.

Sounds like you have things running somewhere all the time,switch everything off that you can think of and watch if the meter still moves.

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Speaking of meters, it reminds me of a four bedroomed house we built for a local farmer some years ago. It wasn’t ‘passive’ ( we hadn’t got into that back then ) but was Tradis panelled. The wall panels were 300mm and the roof panels 400mm ( biggest we ever went to was 450mm ) fully insulated with blown Warmcel. 
We installed a heat recovery system and When it was finished he had photovoltaics installed. 
It was a standing joke for a while that he used to invite friends around to watch his meters going backwards.

How well it was insulated however, we never believed that…….he didn’t have any friends! 

Edited by Scully
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Just thought….. 

do you have halogen spotlights in the kitchen and hallway and those strange gu9 small bulbs in your wall and living room lights.
 I replaced all of ours with leds bought in multipacks, we broke even after 4 weeks of use 

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20 hours ago, ph5172 said:

Just thought….. 

do you have halogen spotlights in the kitchen and hallway and those strange gu9 small bulbs in your wall and living room lights.
 I replaced all of ours with leds bought in multipacks, we broke even after 4 weeks of use 

LED bulbs through the house. 
 

just started with the energy monitoring plug. 
 

old fridge freezer is costing 50p a day to run. A new one will pay for itself in a year.
 

Going to test the small Chest freezer next. 

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Definitely a good call getting one of those. 
I may well do the same as my smart meter is not so smart as it doesn’t have an in home display but I’m not eligible as I already have one fitted on the very very first roll out. 

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12 hours ago, markm said:

just started with the energy monitoring plug. 

Last night was the first night that my two lads switched off their computers/monitors without any prompting by me. They consume 130 to 150 watts per hour when left on standby.

Next to tackle is the printer and Sky box. We don't have a smart meter due to the nightmares I have heard people having, and also as @Stonepark says may happen however I will more than likely need one for when/if we get solar.

I am targeting 100KW a month saving which should bring us down to about 3400KW usage a year

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I have just built a new dorma bungalow with 2.5 kw solar and lpg heating and a wood burner . Electric for the last 3 months £30 a month . Gas is the expensive bit ! In the winter I was using nearly 2 47kg cylinders a month until I got my solar fitted properly to the immersion on the hot water tank . Using less than one cylinder every 2 months now but it is almost summer here in cumbria. 👀 ng at battery storage 10 kw is 5 k I was quoted last month 

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18 minutes ago, mowdy said:

Gas is the expensive bit !

You are right.  My electricity works out at an average of 10KWh a day roughly steady all year round, being a mix of cooking, fridges and freezers, washing/laundry and very small amounts of heat/hot water (handbasins, towel rails).

My gas usage (mains gas) is minimal in the summer (hot water only) - but fairly massive in the winter (basically ALL my heating) despite me being quite 'careful' (others say mean) with heating.  Totals 19,500 KWh per year, almost all in the winter.  However, I have a tightly restricted situation.  It is a fairly large house and listed Grade 2 and I have done what I can to mitigate the problem.

  1. Insulation and double glazing has been done as much as is reasonably practical within listed building rules and the practicalities of old buildings needing essential ventilation.  This is mostly roof and under suspended floors as walls are quite thick and by and large cannot be altered within listing constraints.
  2. The heating system is modern, zone controlled and uses a modern high grade Worcester Bosch condensing boiler (42KW).
  3. Alternative sources were looked at, but impractical;
  4. Wood burning (I have some access to wood) required expensive work to existing chimneys (only two remain, both of which would need lining) to meet regs.
  5. Floor work would be needed to allow adequate 'hearth' for wood burners as the old Victorian (made for coal) fireplaces are too shallow for most log based burners and don't have non combustible hearths.
  6. Solar is impractical as the house is much shaded by (tree preservation protected) trees
  7. Air sources heat pumps would need 3 phase power (very expensive to have installed) for the size needed and were predicted to be very costly and noisy - and there is no suitable (to the conservation officer) location
  8. Ground sourced heat pumps cannot have the collecting layout under trees (root problems) and not under trees needs a long run.  Also needs 3 phase power.

The only realistic solution is thermal vests and longjohns!

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26 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:
  • Air sources heat pumps would need 3 phase power (very expensive to have installed) for the size needed and were predicted to be very costly and noisy - and there is no suitable (to the conservation officer) location
  • Ground sourced heat pumps cannot have the collecting layout under trees (root problems) and not under trees needs a long run.  Also needs 3 phase power.

what about geothermal - where they sink a tube straight down for a good distance. Also there are ground source heat pumps that are compact and vertical and can go in a trench.

our gas is 17000 for a 5 bed home with two teenagers - I am quite tight on the heating with it having to be exceptionally cold for me to turn it on in the daytime. What doesn't help is teenagers who seem to be unable to get a shower for less than 20 minutes. One on occaisions has a batch (and it is a bath with a large end for the shower) and then has a shower when he gets up!!!

I am currently getting quotes for a new boiler (ours is 18 years old) but from all the prices I am getting it seems to be that they are working on a £1k to £1.5k mark up - this is the online get a quote and also local fitters 😞 it is somewhat complicated as I may want to add a Cylinder in the future if we get Solar to burn any excess we get rather than exporting - unless it is more cost effective to export.

1 hour ago, mowdy said:

👀 ng at battery storage 10 kw is 5 k I was quoted last month 

Are you getting enough excess to charge the battery - because you would need to see about getting onto something like Octopus Go to enable overnight charging off peak and then top it up. Don't forget the depths of Winter......

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2 minutes ago, discobob said:

what about geothermal - where they sink a tube straight down for a good distance. Also there are ground source heat pumps that are compact and vertical and can go in a trench.

That is a possibility - if a suitable electricity supply could be arranged.  However my house only has a 60 Amp mains supply.  This can only be upgraded as thing stand to 80 Amps apparently.  I am told for the heatpump I would need (to replace a modern 42KW boiler) would need 3 phase - which would have to be installed (at my expense).  I have not myself sought a quote for this, but I have heard that since it is some distance across/under other property/roads - it would be very expensive.  I would either need about 250 Amps single phase (not feasible) or 3 phase at 80 or 100 Amps per phase.  I am also told that the saving over mains gas is unlikely to recover costs.

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21 minutes ago, Papercase said:

article.pdf 2.93 MB · 2 downloads

I have air source on a new build 4 bed - it's no cheaper than gas. our leccy is north of £300pm when the temp drops, colder it gets less efficient it gets. That with wood burning running a fair bit too!

Thanks for the pdf.  It is relevant since I took out a gas Aga when I had the insulation etc. done about 5 years ago.  I had planned to keep it - but complications with the flue not meeting modern building regs (it had been installed by a main Aga agent in the 1970s) which have changed since installation meant that it was not practical.  It was always very expensive to run.  The (non compliant) flue had operated for 45 years without any problems whatsoever!

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A friend of mine has just installed ground source heating but is yet to iron out the glitches. 
An Ex-pats couple I worked for who moved back here from France just before the pandemic told me their ground source heating didn’t work below -3. 🤷‍♂️

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1 minute ago, Scully said:

A friend of mine has just installed ground source heating but is yet to iron out the glitches. 
An Ex-pats couple I worked for who moved back here from France just before the pandemic told me their ground source heating didn’t work below -3. 🤷‍♂️

Someone I know locally has a ground sourced system with a VERY large flat collecting area (under their paddock)  Been in a few years now and I'm told it actually works quite well (in a very well insulated and very large modern house) but was eye wateringly expensive to install (huge area of trenches a metre deep) and is relatively expensive to run - this latter being mitigated by the high level of insulation. 

The owner thinks that 'normal' direct on and off peak electricity would have been MUCH cheaper to install - and not much more to run.  He doesn't think they will ever cover costs, even with the generous grants that were around.

Another local had (quite early, 1990s? so early technology) air sourced with were very unreliable a few years in and ended up (once out of warranty) having enormous ongoing repair costs (pumps, fluids, heat exchangers etc.) - and were taken out and scrapped as the repair and service costs made them totally uneconomic.  Mains gas replaced it.

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I think the mitsubishi units are generally reliable (7 year warranty) however as for everything else we shall see fingers crossed. I do love the underfloor heating all of downstairs but I'm just glad we have it in a thermally efficient house. I don't yearn for harsh winters quite like before that's for sure!

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8 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

Someone I know locally has a ground sourced system with a VERY large flat collecting area (under their paddock)  Been in a few years now and I'm told it actually works quite well (in a very well insulated and very large modern house) but was eye wateringly expensive to install (huge area of trenches a metre deep) and is relatively expensive to run - this latter being mitigated by the high level of insulation. 

The owner thinks that 'normal' direct on and off peak electricity would have been MUCH cheaper to install - and not much more to run.  He doesn't think they will ever cover costs, even with the generous grants that were around.

Another local had (quite early, 1990s? so early technology) air sourced with were very unreliable a few years in and ended up (once out of warranty) having enormous ongoing repair costs (pumps, fluids, heat exchangers etc.) - and were taken out and scrapped as the repair and service costs made them totally uneconomic.  Mains gas replaced it.

I don’t know how old the set up of this couple from France was, but they weren’t that impressed. He said that fortunately in the area they lived in, hard frosts weren’t that common. 
They had no intention of installing similar back here. 

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