General Chat

AnnC - One of the best items I ever bought was a 12litre Halogen Oven. It has cut my electric bill substantially and together with fitting 7 watt low energy lighting bulbs throughout the house and turning everything off at night makes me a very happy chappy.

GP

PS. I have 2 Halogen Ovens now.

I keep telling OH not to heat up the iron for just 1 item.
Have even seen him iron 1 TIE.
I suppose I should be pleased he does his own ironing, but wish I could get him round to my way of thinking.
Much as I hate it, I iron in bulk.
Our house is all electric & a 2 months bill in the winter was €250.
Bang went my winter fuel payment. :-D :-D

G L,

thought you might have found it was "next doors" attic arboretum

A lot depends on the age of the appliance, the older the appliance the less efficient it is.

Many years ago my dad and I tried in vain to tell my mum that is was cheaper in the long run to leave the immersion heater on, rather than heat a whole tank of water. Was only in the summer as the coal fire heated the water in the winter and only needed the immersion heater occassionally. But she would not listen.

Some years ago, I worked for one of the big energy companies..... and I hated it!

I recall one customer who had the enormous electricity bills, and I mean enormous.
I took him through a process to find the culprit one by one, unplugging all of his appliances etc.

He called me back to say that he had disconnected everything he could think of but his meter was still whirring round at an incredible rate of knots.
I asked him again, if there was anything that he had omitted.
OH, I forgot he said,.....The Hot Tub in the garden, which I keep at a regulated temperature.

Up until then, he had no idea just how much it was costing him.

Mr Greenpen you are quite right that modern tvs / pcs / / monitors / phone chargers are very efficient in sleep/standby. Modern electric ovens, ceramic hobs, fridge freezers are also far better than than older kit. People hanging on to 10-20 year old TVs freezers etc are making an expensive mistake.

There are other things in life than utility bills though and the pleasure of a pulse shower s one of them.

There are many advantages to tumble dryers which is why they are popular. The biggest disadvantage I have found is that the cat has learned how to open the door and dump his fur on the contents so it now has a cat proof lock lol.

The real ruin for electricity bills is any kind of heating device including traditional lighting. Unfortunately homes using electrical heating of any kind often suffer from damp and poor insulation as well which makes things even worse.

Not necessarily.

A computer idling uses about 80% of its normal power but when you put it to sleep the consumption reduces dramatically.

While in use, the average laptop requires 15-60 watts, while desktops use 65-250 watts, plus an additional 15-70 for the monitor. In sleep mode, however, most laptops use a measly 2 watts, and desktops with monitors use 5-10 watts. Hibernate modes on some computers use even less energy.

Similarly a TV uses around 10% power on standby - modern TV's are much better than older ones and use even less.

There is a loss of miss-information, especially in the media, about how much you can save by plugging things out when not in use. The savings are often far less than claimed, often by a factor of 10 or more.....!

Far better to concentrate on of cutting down your usage of the really high power items. For example, if you have an electric shower, reducing your shower time from 10 to 5 minutes each day will save you around £15 a year, whilst plugging out your phone charger, perhaps £1-1.50.

When a computer is on 'sleep' (not shut down) or a tv is on 'stand-by' they use about 80% of the amount of electricity that they would use when fully operational. When switched off properly they don't use any electrcity. ;-)

I've decided it's my computer, so I wonlt leave it on all day

Our night time standby consumption is 110 watts which includes 40 watts for the garden pond pump. Two fridges, two freezers three televisions two DVD players, three clock radios, a router and a low power security light make up the remaining 70 watts.

As already mentioned, anything which generates heat guzzles power. By far the biggest power wasters are tumble dryers. If you have one then only use if if you really have no other alternative. They are absolute killers.

We have a neighbour who has her dryer running for up to two hours, even when the weather is good . Her husband regularly complains about their bills but does nothing to curtail its use.

Electric showers also use a lot of power, so reducing the time you have them on will give a noticeable saving.

Unplugging chargers etc will save electricity but the amount we are talking about is minuscule. In fact most modern chargers use so little that they rarely register on your smart monitor even when they are charging. By all means switch them off but don't expect to save a fortune.

In comparing your unit cost don't forget to take into account the standing charge as this bumps it up by a couple of pence. Forget about the quoted rate, take your take your total bill and divide it by the number of units used. 14-15p per unit is typical.

my gas, electricity, phone and broadband are all from Utility Warehouse - just noticed it says on the bill that came today "you're getting the UKs best value on your home phone calls - our call charges are cheaper than any other supplier" that's nice then :-D

only me in mine :-D

My kettle and the iron. When i switch either of these items on, i can see the dial whizzing round really fast and then when they are switched off, dial is really slow.Nothing else in the house when switched on uses as much as these 2 items.

My electric for summer quarter is.....gulps...£200.00.

i do have oil heating and for water but I switched the heating off a month ago and only have the water on 2 hours a day for shower and washing up. Shower runs off the oil.

I capped my electric at 12p for 2 years, expires dec14

florence
in the hebrides

Edit..there are 4 of us in this house!

When you've finished using a recharger....... UNPLUG IT or TURN IT OFF!!!

If it's still plugged in (even though you've removed the device to be recharged) it is still using electricity.

:-(

We have one of those smart meter monitor thingys' and at present my house is running on about 400 watts, that's just over 6 p an hour

so that is about 15 pence a unit, being 1 Kwh.......... one Kw for a whole hour running

our kettle is a 2 kw jobbie but is only on for a few minutes
it IS likely that heating/cooking and some lighting fittings(security lights)are the power guzzlers..........a 500 watt security light left on uses one unit in two hours...
a bank of 5 50w down lights, a unit every 4 hours
things left on standby/ TV's laptops/pc's, phone chargers, burglar alarms, and power adaptors are the stealthy varmints.....

no I don't :-)

Do you have a standing charge in with that Ann.

This might interest you Ann

http://energy.gov/energysaver/articles/estimating-appliance-and-home-electronic-energy-use

From that site:

Typical Wattages of Various Appliances
Here are some examples of the range of nameplate wattages for various household appliances:

Aquarium = 50–1210 Watts
Clock radio = 10
Coffee maker = 900–1200
Clothes washer = 350–500
Clothes dryer = 1800–5000
Dishwasher = 1200–2400 (using the drying feature greatly increases energy consumption)
Dehumidifier = 785
Electric blanket (Single/Double) = 60 / 100
Fans
Ceiling = 65–175
Window = 55–250
Furnace = 750
Whole house = 240–750
Hair dryer = 1200–1875
Heater (portable) = 750–1500
Clothes iron = 1000–1800
Microwave oven = 750–1100
Personal computer
CPU - awake / asleep = 120 / 30 or less
Monitor - awake / asleep = 150 / 30 or less
Laptop = 50
Radio (stereo) = 70–400
Refrigerator (frost-free, 16 cubic feet) = 725
Televisions (colour)
19" = 65–110
27" = 113
36" = 133
53" - 61" Projection = 170
Flat screen = 120
Toaster = 800–1400
Toaster oven = 1225
VCR/DVD = 17–21 / 20–25
Vacuum cleaner = 1000–1440
Water heater (40 gallon) = 4500–5500
Water pump (deep well) = 250–1100
Water bed (with heater, no cover) = 120–380

rarely use an iron, don't use the tumble drier, hot water via gas boiler, use the dishwasher twice a week and washing machine once a week

For July, Gas £11.69 and electricity £30.63 - is this average for this time of year?

Not my iron............that has very little use :-D