3 bed home - Excessive energy usage?
Discussion
Normally the wife handles the energy bills in the house and I am ashamed to say its never something that I have put any thought towards. However, I am between contracts at the moment so I am spending some time in the house during the day.
I noticed on Monday that although the thermostat is set to drop to 12 deg in the unoccupied hours it was still about 22 deg when I came back from the Gym at 1000. Radiators all on full. So I started doing some digging and logged onto the Scottish Power web site and looked at our energy usage.
Ok, so its winter but we are using on average 102 kWh of gas and 41 kWh of electricity daily. in a small 3 bed home with 2 adults and 1 child.
That seems pretty outrageously high for a small 3 bed house that is normally unoccupied during weekdays doesn't it?
I noticed on Monday that although the thermostat is set to drop to 12 deg in the unoccupied hours it was still about 22 deg when I came back from the Gym at 1000. Radiators all on full. So I started doing some digging and logged onto the Scottish Power web site and looked at our energy usage.
Ok, so its winter but we are using on average 102 kWh of gas and 41 kWh of electricity daily. in a small 3 bed home with 2 adults and 1 child. That seems pretty outrageously high for a small 3 bed house that is normally unoccupied during weekdays doesn't it?
Edited by 272BHP on Wednesday 18th January 11:09
272BHP said:
I noticed on Monday that although the thermostat is set to drop to 12 deg in the unoccupied hours it was still about 22 deg when I came back from the Gym at 1000. Radiators all on full.
Suggest you need to amend your timer, sounds like your heating is on for a lot longer than you intend it to be. Would explain the high bills.Yes we have a 25 year old boiler.
We use average of 34kwh Gas a day. Hot water is on for a minimum of 1 hour a day and heating set at 19 degrees in winter.
Electric usage is 8.5kw per day with tumble drier doing 5 loads a week, dishwasher, electric shower and a family of 4 who all watch their own tv and play PlayStation!
We use average of 34kwh Gas a day. Hot water is on for a minimum of 1 hour a day and heating set at 19 degrees in winter.
Electric usage is 8.5kw per day with tumble drier doing 5 loads a week, dishwasher, electric shower and a family of 4 who all watch their own tv and play PlayStation!
Chester draws said:
What period are those daily average figures taken over?
Daily average over the whole year, or current month, or current week?
Our yearly average for gas is 30kWh per day, but December's was 55kWh per day.
The readings were an average over the last 30 days. Thermostat seems to be set right so I assume its knackered.Daily average over the whole year, or current month, or current week?
Our yearly average for gas is 30kWh per day, but December's was 55kWh per day.
We have electric underfloor heating in 3 rooms in the house. I try and set this to only come on for 2 hours a day but inevitably my wife will set it back to a constant 17 degrees as someone in her family has convinced her that this is the most economical way of using it - I would be astonished if that was true.
I was expecting it to be fairly high as the washing machine and dish washer both go on twice a day. Also we have a downlighters in every room in the house and i am guessing these aren't cheap - my wife is also utterly incapable of turning these off when she leaves the house.
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272BHP said:
Also we have a downlighters in every room in the house and i am guessing these aren't cheap - my wife is also utterly incapable of turning these off when she leaves the house.
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If the downlighters are GU10s, they're a nice candidate for a quick win. Halogen ones are normally 50w, and you can reduce this to an LED using 3-5w for around £2 each. I prefer the "Daylight white" you can get LEDs in for a kitchen to the normal yellow of halogens. Makes it feel cleaner somehow. .
Edited by budgie smuggler on Wednesday 18th January 14:54
272BHP said:
I was expecting it to be fairly high as the washing machine and dish washer both go on twice a day.
For two adults and a child that seems a lot.We have a 3 bed house - I like to be warm and my missus also has no idea lights can be turned off. Our gas use is similar to yours - 100Kw is about 9 cu metres but your elec use is 2x ours. And we're both at home all day and often have grandchildren here.
I'd imagine the elec underfloor heating inflating your use significantly.
budgie smuggler said:
If the downlighters are GU10s, they're a nice candidate for a quick win. Halogen ones are normally 50w, and you can reduce this to an LED using 3-5w for around £2 each. I prefer the "Daylight white" you can get LEDs in for a kitchen to the normal yellow of halogens. Makes it feel cleaner somehow.
Yes, this has been on the list of things to do for quite awhile. I will have to get round to this now.Edited by budgie smuggler on Wednesday 18th January 14:54
Just done a little bit of experimenting. We have a glass kitchen unit that has 3 x strip lights behind it. Very un-scientific but with the lights switched off the electricity meter would flash every 15secs, when I switched it on the time went down to 8 secs. This is another thing that can often be left on all day.
We are getting a smart meter installed next week, hopefully this will enable me to start sorting this energy drain out.
I live in a 1930s 2-bed terrace with o/h.
At the moment, we're using around 7-10 kw p/d on electricity and 40-50 kw on gas. The radiators are on a bit for much of the day and cooking is done with electricity.
We're with British Gas and our tariff gives are free electricity between 9&5 on Sunday, so we rinse it for washing / tumbledrying.
At the moment, we're using around 7-10 kw p/d on electricity and 40-50 kw on gas. The radiators are on a bit for much of the day and cooking is done with electricity.
We're with British Gas and our tariff gives are free electricity between 9&5 on Sunday, so we rinse it for washing / tumbledrying.
272BHP said:
Normally the wife handles the energy bills in the house and I am ashamed to say its never something that I have put any thought towards. However, I am between contracts at the moment so I am spending some time in the house during the day.
I noticed on Monday that although the thermostat is set to drop to 12 deg in the unoccupied hours it was still about 22 deg when I came back from the Gym at 1000. Radiators all on full. So I started doing some digging and logged onto the Scottish Power web site and looked at our energy usage. Ok, so its winter but we are using on average 102 kWh of gas and 41 kWh of electricity daily. in a small 3 bed home with 2 adults and 1 child.
That seems pretty outrageously high for a small 3 bed house that is normally unoccupied during weekdays doesn't it?
Just for easy comparison, what are you paying a month for gas and electricity?I noticed on Monday that although the thermostat is set to drop to 12 deg in the unoccupied hours it was still about 22 deg when I came back from the Gym at 1000. Radiators all on full. So I started doing some digging and logged onto the Scottish Power web site and looked at our energy usage.
Ok, so its winter but we are using on average 102 kWh of gas and 41 kWh of electricity daily. in a small 3 bed home with 2 adults and 1 child. That seems pretty outrageously high for a small 3 bed house that is normally unoccupied during weekdays doesn't it?
Edited by 272BHP on Wednesday 18th January 11:09
Have you compared the usage when staying at home all day (with heating on) and just keeping it at a minimum (perhaps working upstairs)? It made a huge difference for me - recall getting >£1000 bills per quarter before I managed the situation! My comfort level is 19C and home insulation is decent - unfortunately the tall Edwardian rooms take ages to heat up - I might get a thermal analysis done this year to see if any obvious improvements can be made.
I'll agree they seem high. (But not when you consider you have a lovely toasty 22ºC indoors.)
We're 4 bed (link detached, 1970's, average insulation / windows) in north hampshire and with 2 adults and 2 kids used average (through december of 8.5 kWh electric / day and 55 kWh of gas).
Thermostat never gets set about 19ºC and drops in hallway to maybe 15ºC overnight.
Electric underfloor heating can be notoriously inefficient (especially depending on what (insulation?) is under it.
We're 4 bed (link detached, 1970's, average insulation / windows) in north hampshire and with 2 adults and 2 kids used average (through december of 8.5 kWh electric / day and 55 kWh of gas).
Thermostat never gets set about 19ºC and drops in hallway to maybe 15ºC overnight.
Electric underfloor heating can be notoriously inefficient (especially depending on what (insulation?) is under it.
Edited by Chester draws on Wednesday 18th January 16:09
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