Reducing our energy consumption.

[Wolf Hunting]

It's been in the headlines for a while and recently, it is of course a daily hot topic. We're doing several things to reduce our consumption so I just thought it would be a useful and helpful discussion to see what everyone else is doing.

 

[Sniffer]

Stolen from the Fizz thread.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1566697053446721537

 

[Wolf Hunting]

Over here the Kwh price is €0.26 cents (26 cents per unit). That's 22p for you guys.
What is your unit price?

 

[b3h]

Turn off the mains smoke alarms, turn off the CCTV, use a normal instead of electric toothbrush and shaver, dildo>vibrator, eat pre-packaged cold food, stop growing weed, share bath water, install a wood burner and steal logs, break into your neighbours and find the wifi code and maybe even sneak a wire from their outdoor plug to your house

EZ

 

[Sniffer]

26.31p p Kwh with a £13 per month standing charge for electricity.

 

[Wolf Hunting]

My darling (and quite worried) wife has been going around for the last month or so turning off all the lights in any of the 9 rooms we have that doesn't have a person in it. Drives me nuts, stumbling through a dark house fumbling around for a light switch!
I remember the old adage (that in principal is correct) that appliances that USE electricity, don't really use that much of it.
Tv's, radio, computers, routers, lights etc
Things that BURN electricity use loads. Kettles, hair dryers, washing machines, dishwashers, tumble driers, immersion heaters, basically anything that has a heating element.
So in order to reduce our usage, yesterday I itemised every single appliance, established its power input when it's on and roughly calculated how long each item might be used for.
We have LED lights throughout, but it was a surprise to her that using her hair drier for an extra 2 minutes more than wiped out the saving for leaving both our hall lights on for nearly 2 hours.
I'm always being reminded that I've left the sound system on in the workshop (3 hours). It actually cost 2.5 cents, but yes I suppose they all add up...

 

[b3h]

9 rooms! Let's all move into WH mansion and share leccy bills

 

[Wolf Hunting]

26.31p p Kwh with a £13 per month standing charge for electricity.

Ah yes, the fucking 'Standing charge' Can someone tell me why that has doubled?
Now running at €40 a month.

 

[sycophantia]

We had a smart meter fitted a few weeks ago, it does open your eyes to how certain appliances are energy monsters. Tbf we are fairly frugal, although it has lead to me going round turning lights off (I was terrible for leaving lights on all overvther house) not sure that will mitigate the increase of 80% increase in bills every 3 months.

 

[Wolf Hunting]

9 rooms! Let's all move into WH mansion and share leccy bills

It's not that big! It's a bungalow and we recently converted the garage (my old workshop) into a nice 2nd lounge.
When working from home kicks in (1 or 2 days per week) there's room in there for her desk etc.
Then we have a lounge, Utility room inc wc, Kitchen/diner, Hall, 3 beds and a bathroom.
Fairly standard?

 

[sycophantia]

It's not that big! It's a bungalow and we recently converted the garage (my old workshop) into a nice 2nd lounge.
When working from home kicks in (1 or 2 days per week) there's room in there for her desk etc.
Then we have a lounge, Utility room inc wc, Kitchen/diner, Hall, 3 beds and a bathroom.
Fairly standard?

Fairly standard for you wealthy types

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

We had a smart meter fitted a few weeks ago, it does open your eyes to how certain appliances are energy monsters. Tbf we are fairly frugal, although it has lead to me going round turning lights off (I was terrible for leaving lights on all overvther house) not sure that will mitigate the increase of 80% increase in bills every 3 months.

It won't.

All these measures are the equivalent of having a leaking fuel tank in your car and getting your mate to chase behind with a bucket.

 

[Tony Towner]

Lights, leaving teles on standby etc are all pretty negligible in the overall scheme of things. It's the large white appliances that take up the cost.
Pegging clothes on the line rather than shoving them in the tumble dryer and washing up rather than using a dishwasher will save a lot more than turning lights off

 

[Wolf Hunting]

We had a smart meter fitted a few weeks ago, it does open your eyes to how certain appliances are energy monsters. Tbf we are fairly frugal, although it has lead to me going round turning lights off (I was terrible for leaving lights on all overvther house) not sure that will mitigate the increase of 80% increase in bills every 3 months.

Lights are almost for nothing though! (I found out yesterday)
I know there's a difference in currency but here it is.
Most of our LED bulbs are around 3.5 watts, so, say you have a room with 2 ceiling lights on + a sidelamp so you have 10.5watts, I know you'll almost never have them on for 6 hours, but just for the calculation, 10 watts left on for 6 hours = 2 cents.
Basic unit price is 1,000 watts per hour = 0.26c
It's almost for nothing!
My mate's wife at dinner time turns the oven on to 'get up to temperature' then goes and sits down.
He'll mention to her, 'Did you turn the oven on an hour ago?'
'Yes, I'm waiting for you to tell me what you want for dinner...!
Now that at 4,000watts per hour just used over €1.
But leaving a light on....?

 

[Wolf Hunting]

Lights, leaving teles on standby etc are all pretty negligible in the overall scheme of things. It's the large white appliances that take up the cost.
Pegging clothes on the line rather than shoving them in the tumble dryer and washing up rather than using a dishwasher will save a lot more than turning lights off

Dishwasher (mine) costs 0.46c per 2 hour cycle. Once a day.
Tumble drier costs me 0.78c for 1 hour. Though washing almost always goes outside.

 

[sycophantia]

Yeah I was being a bit sarcastic about the lighting offsetting the mammoth price rises
As I said to the guy installing the new meters, I doubt it will have any impact on our usage.
We don't have a dishwasher (apart from me) or tumble dryer. Coffee machine goes on twice a day for a few minutes.
I'll drop the the thermostat on the heating by a few degrees when the winter comes...not much else we can do. Basically when it comes to reducing our energy use, wim fucked.

 

[Tredman]

Make changes to what you can change - some things are fixed items that just are what they are, but its easy to switch lights off and cumulatively they do make a difference so do it. Where a smart meter helps is with incremental small changes - not with the massive fuck off change like an 80% increase in price.

Worth looking at off-peak tariffs if you can too - we get 7.5p/kwh at night and do all our washing etc during that period.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

No dishwasher here either and we've had the washing machine for two years - there is a dryer on it but I don't think we've used it once.

Easier to do that when it's only two adults though, less so for a family.

 

[sycophantia]

Yeah there's only 2 of us so not as bad as a family, I suspect our heating will only go on for 2 hours in the morning and about 3 in the evening unless the grandkids are around

 

[Kenny]

We have a constantly cold 80 year old living with us! Aces for the winter but she does at least bring a small contribution with her winter fuel payment. The £600 should cover the first week of November this year

Currently adding smart valves to the radiators so we can can control each room when the heating is on.
Also the log burner in our living room will get more use this year.. Plenty of local companies who do some cracking deals on the wood in bulk.

Have a dishwasher but that only runs once and that is when we go to bed. Having to train the previously mentioned snow woman that she doesn't need to pop a wash on when she sees a pair of jeans in the washing basket