Home energy saving tips /ideas...

[quixoticgeek]

The former Mrs Z is moving to a house not dissimilar to mine, but with one extra bedroom, and reckons her bills will be £500/month.  Mine are £200/month including the annual spend on firewood, and I'm in all day.  I honestly don't know how some people use so much.  I am not particularly miserly with energy.

30 days in a month. That's £16.66 per day. Which at 30p kWh is 55.55 kWh.

That's about 5 times the typical 10kwh a day that many use to describe a households energy usage.

If you had electric heating tho. Not impossible. It's just over 2kw per hour, for 24 hours.

Only heating or cooking would typically consume that amount. Maybe Aircon.

J

[rogerzilla]

It's probably the energy provider stoking their bank account.  They are notorious for setting the monthly DD too high.

I did work out my total annual kWh once, but can't find it atm.  I was assuming 1500kg of wood at 5kWh/kg (kiln dried or very, very long-stored) plus metered stuff.  The wood is virtually all the space heating, though.

10kWh/day is improbably low.  I'm using 50kWh/day for space heating in winter, and that's a single stove running at its most efficient output (81% officially but mine is installed with outside air intake*, so may do better).


*I cannot recommend this highly enough: it doesn't suck cold air through every nook and cranny

[Kim]

10kWh/day sounds about right for electricity without space or copious amounts of water heating.

[ian]

It would seem to be significantly more (x3) than our last bill declared for a four-bedroom detached house with two homeworkers and a love for hot (not golden) showers and sudsy baths.

If the smartmeter is to be believed, on our current variable tariff we're currently using between £3-4/day on both electricity and fuel, which still tallies with the last bill (about £350).

[Mrs Pingu]

The app (ECAS) I was using to record my meter readings has an average daily energy use of 7.3 and 36.8 kwh/day for electric and gas respectively. (It was over 78kwh/day for gas in December, mind).

CWI installation day tomorrow. Allegedly.

[Blodwyn Pig]

Smart meter tells us £1.60-£2.07 per day atm. Both fuels.

[Paul H]

The former Mrs Z is moving to a house not dissimilar to mine, but with one extra bedroom, and reckons her bills will be £500/month. 

30 days in a month. That's £16.66 per day. Which at 30p kWh is 55.55 kWh.

The calculation depends on when they're expecting their bills will be £500.

[Mrs Pingu]

The app (ECAS) I was using to record my meter readings has an average daily energy use of 7.3 and 36.8 kwh/day for electric and gas respectively. (It was over 78kwh/day for gas in December, mind).

CWI installation day tomorrow. Allegedly.

While I'm geeking out, comparing the current Pingu Towers with our old flat:
                          Current                                             Previous Igloo
Type                 2 bed 60's semi, part cavity wall   100yo solid stone 1st floor flat (heating from below!), 1 bed,
Insulation        only loft until July                            almost none whatsoever
Heating           GCH & HW but electric shower     GCH & HW & wood stove
Daily gas        36.8                                                    32.3

Not sure how much difference 2 showers a day makes to the gas but interesting to see we're not that much more than in the flat, given we no longer have the stove to help keep cosy). I do really notice the diference in lounge temperature going from 1st floor south facing to a north facing ground floor but hopefully the insulation will help this year.

Looking at the summer gas usage (so hot water) it was 10kwh/day in the last place and only 3kwh/day here where we only have an electric shower. Is an extra 7kwh/day for 2 showers really sensible? Even if we both spent 15m each in the shower that should only be about 5kwh/day for electric shower. (Admittedly I hate the electric shower and can't wait to go back to a proper one.) 

[De Sisti]

Even if we both spent 15m each in the shower

Is that 15m per shower? If so, could that time be reduced?

[Mrs Pingu]

Sure it could, but I plucked that figure out of thin air, no idea what the exact figure is. Just a comparison though.

[Blodwyn Pig]

Even if we both spent 15m each in the shower

Is that 15m per shower? If so, could that time be reduced?

When having a shower…..we place a bucket under the shower head to catch the water as it warms up, and this goes in our water butt ( not needed now so much, but certainly the last 4 months), we have a riser rail with and additional hand held wand thing on a hose that is operated by a knob, and this also cuts off the shower head. So jump in, get warm and wet, turn said knob half way and it cuts all water, lather up, turn knob and rinse, turn knob for a second go if required. Saves gas and water.

We have no2 daughter and family staying tonight, as they are mid move,and it is astonishing how many lights 2 adults and 2 children can turn on and leave on. It’s like living in Blackpool illuminations, I’m following them round turning them off, they just don’t get it.

[mrcharly-YHT]

We've turned the immersion heater off. Wash up by boiling a kettle.

Haven't measured it, but suspect big energy users will be the washing machine and tumble drier. Both modern A+ devices.

[De Sisti]

When having a shower…..we place a bucket plastic basin under the shower head to catch the water as it warms up,

I do this too. The water is then used to flush the toilet when necessary.

I had a water meter installed on 26th August. The meter reader this morning was 00001. I won't
send it in to Severn Trent Water. I'll wait until they do one of their half-yearly meter readings
(next one due some time this month).

I also took advantage of some of their water-saving devices (two regulate water flow on sink tap
and shower output, plus a plastic bag, which goes in the toilet cistern, and when filled with water,
acts like a large object in there, taking up a large amount of space, thus reducing the amount
of water that has to fill it after a flush.




 

[road-runner]

Who turns their oven on and does a batch of baking - pasta bakes, potatoes, pies, cakes and more - just like my mother used to do once a week?

I am guilty of baking potatoes for Saturday lunch and then on Sunday afternoon my wife bakes a cake. We could be better organised for more fuel-efficient baking.

[tom_e]

I think air fryers are popular for that reason - if you're only wanting to cook a small amount in the oven then they've a lot less to heat up.  Of course, it's another gadget to buy and make space for.  If you already batch cook or have a larger household I can't see there'll be much gain, but for one or two people wanting oven food they look good?

[Cudzoziemiec]

Or in some cases an air fryer might replace a conventional oven, because of limited space among other factors.

[ian]

We have one of those 9-in-1 Ninja cooker things which I use a lot, mostly because there are two of us and it's a perfect size and probably more economical than using the big oven.

[citoyen]

I do baked potatoes in the combi - 350w microwave plus 200C conventional oven. No idea if this saves power. Definitely saves time though.

You can't really batch cook baked potatoes in advance - they don't keep well.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I do baked potatoes in the combi - 350w microwave plus 200C conventional oven. No idea if this saves power. Definitely saves time though.

You can't really batch cook baked potatoes in advance - they don't keep well.

Can you freeze them? I've no idea, it's never occurred to me to even try. I don't know whether batch baking then individual heating in a microwave would even save energy.

[citoyen]

Can you freeze them? I've no idea, it's never occurred to me to even try. I don't know whether batch baking then individual heating in a microwave would even save energy.

You can freeze them, but IME they lose all the qualities of a good baked potato.

Also, yeah, I'm not convinced cooking them twice would really be a great way to save energy.

This also gets me wondering if oven chips are really more cost efficient than heating oil on the hob and frying fresh potatoes.

[Cudzoziemiec]

This also gets me wondering if oven chips are really more cost efficient than heating oil on the hob and frying fresh potatoes.

In that situation there's also the oil itself to think about – its manufacture, transportation and so on. Only part of which is a direct cost to the consumer but all counts in the overall seed-to-mouth energy chain.

[Wowbagger]

I'm a convert to our Ninja thingy, relatively recently acquired. I cook chips in it, and use it for meat and fish instead of the oven. I would imagine it saves a considerable amount of electricity, as I'm heating such a small space.

I've found that roasting pork shoulder steaks in it takes far less time than the normal oven and they tend to dry out.

[ian]

I'm a convert to our Ninja thingy, relatively recently acquired. I cook chips in it, and use it for meat and fish instead of the oven. I would imagine it saves a considerable amount of electricity, as I'm heating such a small space.

I've found that roasting pork shoulder steaks in it takes far less time than the normal oven and they tend to dry out.

The constant blowing (even in bake mode) will do this, so you need to wrap stuff in foil till the end of cooking.

[Paul H]

There's loads of oven stuff that can be done on a hob with the right pan, this isn't new technology, Dutch Ovens have been around since the 17th century.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Our new/second hand cooker has two ovens. One is small and perfectly decent for meals for two (but not pizza).

Got to be more efficient heating a small oven than a large one.