Viewing 36 posts - 1 through 36 (of 36 total)
  • Electricity bills – one of them things that checks usage…?
  • matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Any suggestions for a (cheap) device that can keep an eye on what is sucking up the electricity in our house?

    We also have ‘old’ meter that needs changing….

    Bearing in mind that nPower mucked us around for ages, and therefore our starting readings were all over the place, we have had a rather large bill for the last couple of quarters since we moved away from them. It is puzzling me, as we don’t use tumble drier much, most of the spots are now LED and everything else is pretty new and efficient (enough)…

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    typical KWh on the bill ?

    footflaps
    Full Member

    We have http://neur.io/ fitted in the house, can monitor usage from smart phone / web anywhere in the world.

    I backed it on Kickstarter, costs $150 now.

    By the minute (you can see the fridge / freezer cycling the pump on and off all through the night, then we wake up and lights / kettle get switched on). The kettle was used twice….

    [url=https://flic.kr/p/yDrsF1]Neurio2[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

    By day:

    [url=https://flic.kr/p/zAtyap]Neurio[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

    In the day one you can see when we were on holiday and then came back and ran the washing machine flat out for a day cleaning walking / biking kit from a week in the Lake District….

    In theory it can identify appliances from their power profile, but we don’t have any that it seems to recognise, mainly as we don’t have any really hungry appliances. It endlessly gets the oven and the kettle confused….

    [url=https://flic.kr/p/ziXUMB]Neurio2[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

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    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Electricity – 2755kwh
    Gas – 2080kwh
    (start of July-Mid Sept)

    Prior to this, and for the prior two years we have estimated readings alongside lots of real readings at various dates. Add in for 6 years prior we were on electric THTC, I have no comparison as to a ‘reasonable’ power use for 5 of us in small 4 bed semi.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Edit~: I does not help we are still on a mechanical meter either, having been promised a new one ‘as soon as we can’…

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    im still on mechanical meter – why would i want to change ?

    Jesus your using alot of leccy.

    is there someone at home all day ?

    Is that estimated or actual ?

    Electric shower and hob ? , is someone using electric heaters to suppliment the radiators ?

    FWIW thats 5 times as much as 2 in a 3 bed semi.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    We use about 5 kWh per day, but them there’s only two of us and gas central heating.

    Edit~: I does not help we are still on a mechanical meter either, having been promised a new one ‘as soon as we can’…

    You can check it if you want. switch off all circuits except one, and just have a single 100W light bulb (old banned filament type) running (as they’re a very good 100W load).

    Then time the meter disc to do 10 full rotations. Divide time by 10 to get the rotation time in seconds. On the meter it will state the conversion rate from revolutions per minute to kWH. Do the math and see if the meter is still accurate. NB Meters are only rated for 10 years maximum life.

    piedidiformaggio
    Free Member

    You can get ones that have a remote sender that clamps onto the meter tails and sends to a reader.

    Have a look here http://efergy.com/uk/products/electricity-monitors

    Alternatively, eBay is bound to have loads of them

    divenwob
    Free Member

    We used 5800kWh last year! 😯 And that is 21% down on the previous year, 2 adults,3 kids in a 3 bed semi.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    It is high – I know that, I just want to nail down *why* and *what*.

    No electric shower, no immersion, no-one home all day, seemingly actual ( I need to go and find my pad with the actual readings on from me though).

    We do run a de-humidifier for a few hours a day in winter, but it has not been on since March. Dishwasher and fridge are both B or C rated, so not *too* bad.

    😕

    2 adults,3 kids in a 3 bed semi.

    That is us – ex 3 bed semi, with downstairs study as kids bedroom, five of us.

    Kryton57
    Full Member

    You’ve got it good. According to my online dashboard at Scottish power we average 45.5 gas KWH and 12.5 Electric KWH per day. Thats 16000 and 4500 KWH respectively.

    Our total bill is about £950 per annum which for family of four in a semi doesn’t feel that bad*

    *My wife prefers the house to be the same temperature as Barbados, I’ve given up with the argument.

    divenwob
    Free Member

    Kryton,
    est bill for electricity £877
    est bill for gas £648
    ouch.

    woody74
    Full Member

    Ive got a Tado smart thermostat and a stand alone energy monitor that just shows really time readings. However I am sue that out energy bills and especially gas have gone up since we got the smart thermostat. Does anyone know off a smart thermostat and a energy monitor that is combined and works for gas and electricity?

    Kryton57
    Full Member

    divenwob – Member
    Kryton,
    est bill for electricity £877
    est bill for gas £648
    ouch.

    Are you using your numbers or mine? FWIW, we pay £82 per month / £984p.a. That is painful if thats yours!

    divenwob
    Free Member

    Direct from my statements,time for a change me thinks!
    Apologies for the sidetrack OP.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Does anyone know off a smart thermostat and a energy monitor that is combined and works for gas and electricity?

    You can get energy monitors which work with Gas, but you need to get your gas meter modded to have a usage output for the meter to read.

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    And while we are here – does anyone know how to convert LPG volume (in cubic metres) to kWH?

    divenwob
    Free Member

    Scotroutes here is an Aussie site of interest
    http://www.elgas.com.au/blog/389-lpg-conversions-kg-litres-mj-kwh-and-m3

    sharkbait
    Free Member

    Electricity – 2755kwh
    Gas – 2080kwh
    (start of July-Mid Sept)

    If it’s any help (as we’ve got solar PV which supplies quite a bit in the summer), in Nov and Dec last year we used 1400Kwh while the Pv supplied 120Kwh so a total of 1600Kwh at the max usage period of the year.
    5 of us (3 teenagers) in a largish detached house.
    Mrs SB does not skimp on the washing/tumble drier and we have 2 freezers and 2 40″ plasmas. I work from home so there’s always a couple of PCs running and bit of electric heating in my office. Heating/water is oil.
    Between May and Oct we import 10Kwh/day.

    So there’s something wrong with your numbers. Best thing I did was to change our downlighters (about 60 in total) to 5W LED. I’m pretty keen on switching off stuff that’s on standby.
    Kettle/washing machine aren’t used enough to make that much difference.

    If you can get a monitor it would help you track down where your usage is mostly.

    kcal
    Full Member

    we got an M&S branded (OWL I think make them) one on eBay for not too much a while back. Works well, clamps oin the meter supply, it’s maybe not super accurate but keep an eye on it for unusual or unexpected usage on a realtime basis – quite handy, you get a feel for ‘normal’ usage and can see if there is something on unexpectedly.

    Can’t recall what our bills are but they’re a bit high – but that’s (or was) 2 adults, 2 children, outbuilding where I work, house occupied usually during the day..

    sharkbait
    Free Member

    Matts house last winter (you looked in the loft Matt?)

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Loft has a good chunk of insulation, house has double glazing, half of which is 5 years old, the other 10 years old.

    sharkbait
    Free Member

    I was thinking more along these lines:

    Well you’ve got to be using the power somewhere – just got to find out where. No electric UFH? You positive about the immersion not being on?

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    No electric UFH? You positive about the immersion not being on?

    Old gas combi boiler. That is it.

    sandwicheater
    Full Member

    If you ask your provider, they may fit a new meter and a monitor thing for free. Well, that was the plan with edl & us. Two attempts and no one showed. To be fair to them, they did give us £50 each time and my wife was home anyway.

    footflaps
    Full Member
    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    2nd hand monitor bought. Warpath on what dodgy things are sucking my energy announced. 😈

    sharkbait
    Free Member

    Keep us posted

    spooky_b329
    Full Member

    Its the background usage that hurts…whilst you are at work and asleep the house could be consuming 10p per hour with a few odds and sods left on.

    Our TV uses naff all so is allowed to stay on standby, my 15yr old Sony Hifi uses 2p an hour so gets unplugged.

    A common one is when you get a new A+++ fridge, but then put your old inefficient one in the utility as a beer fridge and it sits there guzzling away your pennies 24hrs a day.

    I think I got ours down to around 3p an hour although the clip on meters are not that accurate at measuring low currents. I reckon the main consumer is my broadband hub and cordless phone.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    put your old inefficient one in the utility

    Rest assured the oab_household is not profligate enough to own either a utility or two fridges. 😉

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Just came across this factoid…

    Ofgem currently defines “average consumption” as 12,500kWh for gas and 3,100kWh for electricity.

    http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/oct/10/green-star-energy-unlimited-tariff-bills

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    We are 1 pence an hour standby when we are not in .

    Litterally just the fridge/freezer a couple of alarm clocks , bt homehub and a red dot on the tv.

    The oven clock consumed quite a bit so that gets turned off.

    We stuck led bulbs all through the house and when kitting out the house bought all a+ rated appliances ( we were starting afresh

    Does mean i notice heavily the months when im working on projects in the garage. The welder and plasma cutter can fairly eat the juice!

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Our always on is 71W apparently (1.1 pence per hour is), which is top 10% of Neurio homes (but I guess a lot are in the US, so probably more profligate with energy).

    [url=https://flic.kr/p/zmgscd]Neurio Always On[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

    spooky_b329
    Full Member

    Just came across this factoid…

    Ofgem currently defines “average consumption” as 12,500kWh for gas and 3,100kWh for electricity.

    My consumption is going down each month according to my supplier 🙂

    Predicted for the next year:

    Elec – 2300kw/h
    Gas – 4600kw/h
    Logs – 4200kw/h (approx – 2.5sq m of hardwood logs)

    footflaps
    Full Member

    My consumption is going down each month according to my supplier

    Probably has been for everybody this time of year and will now start ramping up for winter….

    CraigW
    Free Member

    You can get a plug in energy meter, to measure what specific appliances are using.
    eg http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/15a-plug-in-energy-saving-monitor-l61aq
    Worth measuring for things you leave on all of the time, eg the fridge. Or anything like TVs left in standby.

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