Sonic'

Ok, my last electricity bill was quite high, seeing me go from £100 in credit to something like £200 in debit

Now there is a reason for this, as Donna & the kids moved in last year, so I did expect an increase of sorts, but not quite as much as that,

So after recieving that bill, and British Gas putting my monthly payments up by almost double, we went on a bit of an energy saving drive

ALL bulbs in the house got replaced with Energy Saver ones, and kids tv's videos and dvd's are on timers now, and instead of being on all through the night, and on standby all through the day, they are now on timers, and only come on at 7.15 till 8.30pm, lights are usually turned off when not in use, especially the back living room, lights off and TV off etc once the kids are in bed (as we use the front room)

so for the last 6 months we have been on this energy drive, and I received a bill and now I am 230 quid in debit!!!!!!!!, and BG have decided to increase my monthly payments even more to an additional 20 quid a month, so now its over 80 quid a month (gas is about 60 quid a month)

I recently switched suppliers, filled all the forms in, and they phoned to confirm all details, yet I havent appeared to be switched over and still on British Gas

and for being duel fuel I only save 3 quid !!!!!!

How the hell have my bills gone up this much a month, yet my useage has gone down, quite drastically too

De Warrenne

Not growing in the loft are you?

Seriously - I take it you have checked the bill against your meter? If they do agree then there's not much that can be done - the difference in power usage from single bloke (out at work?) to 2 adults plus two kids is going to be significant - washing machine loads alone will probably treble, also increase in use has probably been exacerbated by increased unit charges

Leslie

I have found the same problem, my bill has increased by nearly 85 % on the same time last winter. Never got a warning of increased charges either!

Les

Lydia72

...and tumble dryers can eat electricity pretty quick.

whatyoucando.co.uk - Monitor Your Electricity Use

MattN

what tarriff are you on?

Sonic'

Im not sure tbh, I guess it should be on my bill somewhere

I cant find anything tho, other than I get charged 19.044 pence for the first 207 kWh and then 10.362 pence for the remainder (in this bill it is 1832 kWh)

a total of 2039 Kilowatt hours over 84 days

I get a whopping great discount of 4.16 for Direct Debit, and a further gigantic discount of 3.29 for having gas and electric from British Gas

De Warrenne

uswitch.com - they will help, but keep up the energy efficiency regardless - love the idea of timers on VCRs and DVDs - nice one

Chip Sengravy

That works out to approx 24KWh per day.

or another way is 24 KW in one hour of each day.

Or another way still, is 1 KW per hour, each day.


A wind turbine would cover that, wouldn't it?

De Warrenne

only a flipping big one.....

the 1KW efforts sold by B&Q et al, can only expect a 10% or so load factor, if in a built up area - thus 1KW x 0.1 = 0.1 KW per hour = 2.4 KWh per day, which for £1500 + isn't going to dent your bill - sorry

Brendan Hughes

Not sure if lights are really a big factor. TV standbys aren't, I'm sure.

Washing machines, tumble dryers, dishwashers, kettles (2000w), ironing (1-2000w) are all much, much bigger consumers; and I imagine a single man moving to a family will really raise the usage of those.

Do you have two meters, a day and a night one? We set our dishwasher with a timer to run on the cheap rate during the night. My dad used to do that with the washing machine too, but that's an acquired taste.

What is the consumption difference between your first "family" bill and the second? You might have saved a bit on the lights, but spent a lot more on the above.

IanK Spec C

some actual recorded measurements are on here: Energy Miser Guide

One fact often overlooked by many is that most of the losses in items left on standby are heat and this then contirbutes to the heating of the home saving you energy used to heat your home by other means, therefore you're not really saving much by switching of items on standby. You will see from the above site that the 'common myth' of devices using 50% energy in standby is absurd!

Best regards,

Ian

D.K.1

The washing machine that Sonic had when we moved in was an old one that wasn't energy efficient, but that broke and we now have my new one in here that is energy efficient, more often than not I use the quick wash, which is about 35 mins rather than an hour and a half! So that should really use a lot less.

The boy still wets the bed and I was struggling to keep up with the washing, so put him back in nappies as it has to be cheaper than all the extra use of the washer and dryer and soap powder! It is on most days though, often more than once, although I only use the dryer now for towels only, nothing else, so it'sonly used 3 times a week max, not every day like before...

I have a de humidifyer at the top of the stairs, I have no idea how much energy that uses, it's on for most of every day. We have a few laptops and computers running/ plugged in most of the time, 2 fishtanks, one vivarium, that had 2 lights in, but now I only use the one day time light and the heater , which is on a dimming thermostat. 2 chest freezers since before christmas have been running too (as well as the fridge freezer), we're trying to run one down though. The kettle is used several times a day and the iron every day...

DCI Gene Hunt

Have you dropped acid

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

I cant think where all your electricity could be going

Brendan Hughes

Clucking bell - a dryer 3x per week! 2 chest freezers, a dehumidifyer (200w maybe? Like two bright lights on for 24/7), and what's the average power consumption for "a few" computers?

I'm with STi wanna subaru...

DCI Gene Hunt

D.K.1's carbon footprint must be like coco the clowns

D.K.1

It's not my fault Sonic's always doing stuff on his computers! 3 times a week for the dryer is good considering I was using it 2 or 3 times a day! We need the de humidifyer with the clothes drying up stairs ...

I can't turn the light off in the viv (which is only on a few hours a day on a timer) because it's needed to mimic daytime and th thermostat needs to be on too for the heat mat so it doesn't get too hot or too cold. All these things have been going on since I moved in and only gone up since we starated making cut backs! Plus, my washer is an energy efficient one, so will use a lot less electric for the same amount of washes the other one did and about an hour less a load as well!

What we meant to do, use candles and wear dirty clothes?

DCI Gene Hunt

Do you only have one set of clothes

D.K.1

No, but we need clean ones each day, my lad's a right messy ****

The washing is cut down not having to wash all of his bedding daily now he's back in nappies

DCI Gene Hunt

Can't you buy the snake a jumper, or woolen tube?

D.K.1

No

Brendan Hughes

Do you have a reasonable sized garden? Can you hang the towels somewhere under a roof to dry?

If you then buy more towels so you don't need to dry the washed ones so quickly, then you can dump the dryer and the dehumidifier. If the chest freezer then goes as well, that should be a fair chunk.

A final trick might be to boil a large amount of hot water in the morning, keep it in a large flask, and use it for various things during the day (kettle, iron). Anything that heats water uses huge amounts of electricity. But that's a bit extreme.

Finally, get on a parenting website (er, or SN?) and ask other families with two kids what their bills are. If not so dissimilar to yours, that may be what you're stuck with.

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

Lets not underestimate the different usage of appliances by men and women.

Ironing - Men.. grab shirt from wardrobe. turn iron on, iron shirt, iron off. Done!

Women.. Grab a load of things they think they'll wear that week. turn iron on... turn TV to watch while they Iron... boil a cuppa to enjoy while doing the Ironing... Start to Iron, best mate phone (No, not the dead horse!)... leave Tv on and Iron on while you natter for 10 mins.... hang up... drink tea. Tea is cold... bung in Microwave for 30 seconds... Start to iron.... Good bit in Eastenders! Stop Ironing and watch for 5 minutes.... Start Ironing again... finish clothes for the week safe in the knowledge you're efficient and have done it all in one quick go.

Next day.. look at clothes you've ironed and decide non looks right with your new shoes....

Iron another top....


and that's just for one household chore!

I wont go into the routine for having a shower

DCI Gene Hunt

Get one of these mysnakecostsafortunetoheat

D.K.1

STI.... I only get the clothes needed for the next day, they get ironed and that's that, no looking for something different to wear As soon as I have finished, it gets unplugged

Chip Sengravy

so what you are saying, is that although its rated at 1KW, there is only ever enough windpower to generate 0.1KW?

De Warrenne

Not quite, just that on average, in a built up area, it will only be generating 1KW for 10% of the time.

large wind farms (sited in really windy places - not usually towns) have avaliabilities of 20 - 30%. i.e. a 2MW turbine could be expected to deliver 2MW for 20-30% of the time.

Similar to cars - although my scoob may be rated at 216bhp, it only ever delivers that output from time to time.