But will it settle back or will oil and gas producers just reduce supply to keep prices high? The Saudi’s have so far refused to increase production. From their point of view, it’s got to be better to make more money on less export than the other way around. If no-one tries to capture market share by dropping prices…there’s no reason for anyone to drop prices. We’ll settle into a new high price where almost 30-40% of the worlds oil and gas are completely off limits to us and we’re left outbidding each other for what’s left. It’s like covid and PPE all over again.

You shower for 20-30 min!?! What the **** are you doing in there?

Certainly Not spanking the monkey. 🙂

I ain’t doing the 5 mins army shower.

Also not shower everyday. LOL!

There isn’t a shortage of gas, there is a shortage of non Russian gas available at very short notice. This is just a temporary blib.

Define “temporary blip”. 3 years? 5 years? 10 years? It is still a tiny blip in the infinite time.

p/s: I told my father I didn’t shower everyday and he said I could smell like his British army colleagues in Malaya … sour milk and cheese. He said you lot didn’t like to shower (even the officers). Smelly so and so … LOL!

Define “temporary blip”. 3 years? 5 years? 10 years? It is still a tiny blip in the infinite time.

I suspect 1-2 years.

Currently we’re all trying to buy LNG (mainly from the ME) as Europe is trying to fill it’s reservoirs to max whilst not taking any gas piped from Russia. There are plenty of buyers for Russian gas (India, Asia, China, Turkey) but Russia don’t have the LNG capacity or pipelines in place to deliver it immediately. So, Europe’s increased demand for LNG is maxing out LNG prices. Russia will increase LNG capacity and just sell elsewhere and those buyers will stop competing for ME LNG which Europe is mainly buying. The market will re-normalise.

I suspect 1-2 years.

A bit optimistic but let’s hope that’s the case.
As my mum used to say once the price has gone up it hardly go down again for a very long time. Someone somewhere is rubbing their hands with glee.

As my mum used to say once the price has gone up it hardly go down again for a very long time. Someone somewhere is rubbing their hands with glee.

Oil goes up and down all the time….

An interesting aside is India is doing very well out of this. They are buying Russian Oil at a discount of $20/barrel as so many countries don’t want to touch it. They then refine it into Petrol & Diesel etc and sell back to Europe at current (inflated) market rates!

Oil goes up and down all the time….

In the far east it only goes one way that is Up for some reasons even when the price of oil goes down a bit. Well, the Ex-PM and Wife of that country have just been jailed for 12 years and 10 years.

3 bed semi, 4 adults.

Last 12 months

11,500 kWh Electric, 9,000 KWh Gas.

Gas use unlikely to be much down, but we’ve cut electric to around 700KWh a month on average since March (20 KWh a day), so hoping somewhere around 8,000 to 9,000 KWh for the next 12 months (maybe less). It’s still going to be near £400 – £500 per month, currently just around £200.

21 year old son still not listening to ‘turn it off’ message. Got home yesterday (been away) and all downstairs lights had been left on overnight and his PC. He went to work today with PC still running (not on sleep) and two chargers plugged in. This is where the leccy is going. Smart Plugs in his room, so all power is now being cut during the work day !

#ThisMorning has turned completely dystopian and Black Mirror by offering to pay energy bills as a competition prize. pic.twitter.com/hs1DD6NXbo

— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) September 5, 2022

What’s just as shocking as the price rises is how people go days without a shower??
something tells me they must be single and have no intimate contact with other people.

Tell me about energy monitoring plugs.

I was thinking of something I could plug into each socket for a while to measure the consumption of various appliances. Some come with a display, but there are also “Smart” plugs available that can be used by Alexa/Assistant and show consumption via an App. Any opinion on which would be best? (The latter appeal as they at least have an ongoing use).

I was thinking of something I could plug into each socket for a while to measure the consumption of various appliances.

Google the appliance, it’ll give you the consumption, or at least as near as you need to work out which ones use the most (and you probably know that already anyway)

We have a smart power meter clamped to our supply, so can see in real time (and going back years), how much we use.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/yDrsF1]Neurio Energy By Minute[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

I have used it to hunt down where we were leaking power etc and switch things off / change things.

We pay about 200 pcm for 3 bed semi, 2 adults, 2 young kids.

Going to properly insulate the loft.

Whats the deal with cavity wall insulation? I’ve seen to many conflicting views I’m not sure if it’s worth it due to potential problems. We are on South Coast, lots of wind, sometimes with heavy rain (like last night!)

I have used it to hunt down where we were leaking power etc and switch things off / change things.

Any useful insights??

My gut feeling is leaving stuff on standby costs pennies. Really most of the energy is used whereever heat is generated, baths, showers, cookers, kettles, TVs, computers and monitors when they are on.

So Liz truss confirmed as new pm as from tomorrow and the firm rumour is that she will freeze energy prices….so possibly all back to staying on the present cap? Still a 54% rise on last winter iirc, but a big worry lifting for many people, if confirmed.

Any useful insights??

My gut feeling is leaving stuff on standby costs pennies. Really most of the energy is used whereever heat is generated, baths, showers, cookers, kettles, TVs, computers and monitors when they are on.

Nothing you probably wouldn’t guess. It does rank your ‘Always on’ power by household size, so you can see how you stack up.

Main always on are fridge and freezer, which you can see cycling their pumps on and off through the night.

I do occasionally leave the attic lights on and forget and have spotted that via the power meter – they’re fluorescent things so quite energy hungry. Biggest change we made was moving all lights to LEDs. Although I still use CFLs for main overhead bulbs in hallways etc as LEDs just aren’t bright enough.

We did buy an air con unit this year and leaving it on all night on low power used less than I expected – only 900W:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2nHN3xv]Aircon unit at night[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

Those spikes are the kettle. I have up to 20 cups of tea a day….

How much energy does an energy-monitoring smart plug use? 🙂

Seriously though, I’m tempted by some as I’m the only person/fool in this house who seems to care about switching stuff off. I can’t continually keep on top of it, so some smart plugs on schedules might be sensible. On a mission at the moment to cut our electric use back – as alluded to earlier, it seems excessively high for our use (barring that occasional hot tub which is, genuinely, rarely filled let along pump or heat on).

Those spikes are the kettle. I have up to 20 cups of tea a day….

You’re also describing Mrs a11y. I bet if I bought an energy meter I could work out which days she’s at work and which at home simply from the electric use fluctuations.

Those spikes are the kettle. I have up to 20 cups of tea a day….

Have you considered a one cup kettle. Boils and dispenses a cup of water at a time.
try googling Breville Hot Cup (I’m sure other brands are available)

Footflaps, what monitoring system do you use?

20 cups of tea per day, you may well be more efficient getting a boiling water tap. They are ace and more economical than kettle if used frequently.

You shower for 20-30 min!?! What the **** are you doing in there?

That’s insane!
Even when i was full roadie, i could do a full post race shower, including scrubbing off sunblock, shave my head, face AND my legs in less time than that.

I ain’t doing the 5 mins army shower.

I started doing it. Heated water has to be one of the biggest costs. I think they’re called “military showers” – quick blast of hot water all over, water off whilst you do the lathering up, hot water back on to risne off. Probably using 3 mins of hot water. That’s got to be at least 50% reduction in energy used to shower.

Re. the one cup kettle thingys, how are they/are they more efficient than just boiling a normal kettle with enough water for one cup??

We’ve just got two non-smart power monitoring plugs – mentioned earlier in the thread, but just ebay them, that are about £10 each. Also got two TP Link Tapo smart plugs with energy monitoring – these are really good if you can’t get to the plug.

The smart plugs themselves use about a watt.

The coffee pod machine uses 1500w for about the minute it needs to brew the cup – I’m using re-useable pods ! Far cheaper than boiling a cup in the kettle.

Home office, laptop, hub and two monitors, somewhere between 35-55w depending if it’s charging the laptop !

Slow cooker – 250w low, 360w high.

Toaster 1500w

Hot Tub…. 45w on filter pump only, 2000w if heating, and it can take 12 hours to get to 39c from around 20c – stopped using it for now on current prices.

We’ve got BG Home smart wall sockets in my son’s room. Only ‘pain’ for setting up is you’ve got to knock off 5ghz wifi first which is a bit of a faff during set up, then turn back on. The TP Link Tapo plugs didn’t need anything doing, total doddle.

scotroutes
Full Member

Tell me about energy monitoring plugs.

I was thinking of something I could plug into each socket for a while to measure the consumption of various appliances. Some come with a display, but there are also “Smart” plugs available that can be used by Alexa/Assistant and show consumption via an App. Any opinion on which would be best? (The latter appeal as they at least have an ongoing use).

A couple of pages back I posted screenshots from one of my Tapo P110 plugs. That shows basically what it can do. You get a longer term view showing “by day” and roughly the last 24 hours in a finer grained graph. You can control them with the Alexa, Google Home voice control or the Tapo app.

A nice function the app has is the ability to set them to come on and off at random times for freaking out your other half security when you’re away.

Footflaps, what monitoring system do you use?

It is called Neurio. I sponsered them on Kickstarter many years ago.

Available via various retailers etc.

It is very cool, although the detecting which device uses what doesn’t work as it’s set up for US devices – they’d never heard of a 3kW kettle….

I bet if I bought an energy meter I could work out which days she’s at work and which at home simply from the electric use fluctuations.

Yep, I can see when someone comes in etc, if I’m away, as turning lights on etc shows up really clearly.

20 cups of tea per day, you may well be more efficient getting a boiling water tap. They are ace and more economical than kettle if used frequently.

I’ve seen those advertised in the Sunday Times etc – they look like an expensive toy which will just die after a couple of years of our ultra hard water.

If you’ve got a smart monitor, you don’t need anything else to monitor energy usage. I can tell you exactly what each of our devices uses in each of it’s power phases. Oven – 150w when not actively heating – 1.8kw whilst heating. lights are 6.7w per bulb for the downlighters. TV is 100w on at level 17/20 brightness and 45w at level 10. Skybox uses 40w in STANDBY! etc, etc. It’s probably not massively accurate, but it’s enough that I know from the baseline house draw, what may have been left on in an evening before I go to bed.

Ours is two years old and been faultless, but we are in a soft water area with no limescale at all. I always thought they were a toy until we got one, it is really good. But I agree, in hard water area could get spendy.

Skybox uses 40w in STANDBY!

That is insane, our total standby usage is about 80 Watts – 2 wife boxes, half a dozen Sonuses, half a dozen IP webcams, oven, microwave, half a dozen Nest etc etc

That is insane, our total standby usage is about 80 Watts – 2 wife boxes, half a dozen Sonuses, half a dozen IP webcams, oven, microwave, half a dozen Nest etc etc

Are you providing heat to your wives when you put them in their boxes? Perhaps just give them a blanket instead. Could they share one box and stave of hypothermia by sharing body heat, like when peasants kept livestock in the croft house.

Could one of your 6 Sounesses help warm up your wives by going in their box?

Are you providing heat to your wives when you put them in their boxes?

Good spot, I’ll disconnect the heating elements immediately.

Good spot, I’ll disconnect the heating elements immediately.

I assume they need to be warm though when performing for the six webcams. Its a balancing act for sure. These are the issues facing people up and down the country

Fossy – can you help me get our Tapo 110 plugs up and running?

I’ve tried to use the “schedule” option to set an automatic turn on / turn off time but it doesn’t seem to work.

When I have programmed “on” to 08:00 using a “custom time” I then find there is no option to set an “off” time – if I set the “off” radio button it shows 08:00 and if I change it to 18:00 and go back to the “on” radio button the time on that has been changed to 18:00.

This is on the IoS app. How does it work on yours assuming it works properly?

I’ve tried it on two plugs and it’s the same on both…

Won a little battle with OVO today that I’ve been fighting since they took on all the SSE customers about my usage and DD size. Got a small rebate and the DD has gone down from £190 to £92 with nearly £600 in credit on the account. Should get me through the winter if I’m sensible. Biggest costs for me are the oven and the storage heaters, hoping for a mild winter!

I started doing it. Heated water has to be one of the biggest costs. I think they’re called “military showers” – quick blast of hot water all over, water off whilst you do the lathering up, hot water back on to risne off. Probably using 3 mins of hot water. That’s got to be at least 50% reduction in energy used to shower.

My shower runs from the hot water tank and that’s on for an hour during the night only, any less and the water isn’t warm! Means I can have a longish shower and not worry about it, still leaves plenty of water for washing the dishes. Annoyingly the washing machine has provision for a hot water intake but there’s no piping for it so that has to heat it’s own water.

My shower runs from the hot water tank and that’s on for an hour during the night only, any less and the water isn’t warm!

If you had a less long shower …. It wouldn’t need to be on so long.

And 80w standby with all the tech stuff on + general house stuff. What’s that measured on ? Inline meter or CT clamp.

What’s just as shocking as the price rises is how people go days without a shower??
something tells me they must be single and have no intimate contact with other people.

Some of us aren’t inherently smelly buggers.

Seriously though, I switched from shower gels full of shite to normal soap and don’t reek any more. Same with shampoo, switched to bars and can go days without getting greasy and manky.

It is also possible to wash without showering.

@olddog my provider is offering the same prize. What a time to be alive.

And 80w standby with all the tech stuff on + general house stuff. What’s that measured on ? Inline meter or CT clamp.

Inductive clamp.

@cheddarchallenged

Fairly similar process for all makes (my BG Home plug sockets are similar.

Click Schedule then the + button.

Custom time then on.

SAVE

THEN click + again, custom time and Off.

You set up two schedules, one for off and one for on.

If you had a less long shower …. It wouldn’t need to be on so long

Surely it would?
The time it’s on for is how long it takes to get to temperature, rather than to do with the volume of water.
The volume of the tank is fixed (it’s not like a kettle where you just put in what you need) so leaving it on longer makes it hotter