3 bed home - Excessive energy usage?
Discussion
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Looks like Zep1 are either 10 or 15w each. So 7 of them in a room are going to take as much input power as 1x 100w incandescent light bulb. Obviously the LEDs are significantly more efficient, so you'll be getting much more light for the same power consumption. In fact, one single 15w Zep1 has about the same brightness output as a traditional 100w light bulb. Trouble is that the Zep1s are narrow beam spot lights (as are most downlighters/GU10s, etc), whereas a standard incandescent bulb puts out that brightness of light in an almost spherical pattern. So you get a much more even light output, meaning a whole (small) room can be lit from a single source. I prefer LED panel lights for general room lighting, they give a much more even spread of light with far less effort than trying to place spot lights. So they're easier certainly for retrofitting in a room that doesn't already have ceiling spots. iambigred said:
Just as a comparison my 4 bed house built in 2005 uses approx 80 kWh gas / 8.5 kWh per day in Winter, which averages out to be approx £100 on a fairly decent Scottish Power fixed tariff which is ending in 3 months time.
That's with my wife home all day looking after our new born baby so heating is on 20 degrees all day, then 21.5 in the evening.
Interesting! We moved back in August last year to a 1970's built 4 bed detach. Following this thread I went and checked the meters first the time since we moved supplier in October (19th to be exact).That's with my wife home all day looking after our new born baby so heating is on 20 degrees all day, then 21.5 in the evening.
No of days 93 days inclusive.
Gas - 610 units (so 6.6 units or 73KWh p/day if i've converted it correctly). That's for gas central heating on an 8 year old boiler (controlled by Tado / set at 18.5 degrees) with wife and 2 young children home all day + 2 hrs of hot water
Electric - 1730 units (18.6 units p/day). Typically the washer and tumbler dryer (A+) will be on once a day during the week and twice at the weekend. Kitchen lighting is non LED downlighters
Lots of kit running in the background (2x Fridge Freezers, Sonos, B/Band router, 2x sky boxes etc) so standby usage is 320KWh.
Some work to be done this summer to bring it all down a little.
Interestingly looking at a similar period for last year (26th Sept - 26th Jan (123 days)) in the previous house (4 bed 1950's end of terrace) which from memory was a lot milder we used 17.89 units of electric p/day and 1.65 units of gas (although that was 2.74 units p/day for January)
captainzep said:
British Gas (our electricity supplier) fitted a smart meter for us before Christmas.
It's taught me a lot about our usage (and can make you paranoid with it's display showing soaring cost when the kettle, oven or shower goes on). Basically you watch the meter at it's lowest usage rate (about 2p an hour for us) and get the kids to go and switch different things on. Kettle knocks it up to 36p and shower to 77p an hour. We seem to be ranging between £1.80 - £2.30 a day (4 bed house, 2 kids 2 adults in winter).
Some things on standby are more expensive than you'd think. Xbox costs £40 a year aparently.
Plugging VW GTE Milf Float hybrid in to charge is costly (same as putting kettle on) but still cheaper than the petrol costs for equivalent mileage.
Wife is finding this new-found KwH scrutinising nerdery coupled with financial tightness a turn-off though. Only downside.
Those figures are prob not strictly correct, the kettle and shower would cost 36p & 77p, but only if they were on for an hour, unlikely unless you like your tea very hot! It's taught me a lot about our usage (and can make you paranoid with it's display showing soaring cost when the kettle, oven or shower goes on). Basically you watch the meter at it's lowest usage rate (about 2p an hour for us) and get the kids to go and switch different things on. Kettle knocks it up to 36p and shower to 77p an hour. We seem to be ranging between £1.80 - £2.30 a day (4 bed house, 2 kids 2 adults in winter).
Some things on standby are more expensive than you'd think. Xbox costs £40 a year aparently.
Plugging VW GTE Milf Float hybrid in to charge is costly (same as putting kettle on) but still cheaper than the petrol costs for equivalent mileage.
Wife is finding this new-found KwH scrutinising nerdery coupled with financial tightness a turn-off though. Only downside.
Trustmeimadoctor said:
An update for mine yesterday 5 year old 4 bed detached 2 adults
![](http://thumbsnap.com/sc/YIP28xsb.png[/img]</a> <a href="http://thumbsnap.com/uS6mQq5W" Target="_blank" rel="nofollow">[img]http://thumbsnap.com/t/uS6mQq5W.jpg)
Does the loop monitor come with a display you can put in a room or is it all via a smartphone interface?Can you also select your tariff information easily or does it have to be manually setup?
Edit: Just checked their site and its not available
KTF said:
Does the loop monitor come with a display you can put in a room or is it all via a smartphone interface?
Can you also select your tariff information easily or does it have to be manually setup?
Edit: Just checked their site and its not available
Via phone/website it lists all tariffs just select itCan you also select your tariff information easily or does it have to be manually setup?
Edit: Just checked their site and its not available
Trustmeimadoctor said:
Seems I only used 43p in electricity on Sunday ?? and I was in all day
That's about 3kWh - most households' background load would be more than that.Have you cross-checked the monitor with the actual reading? Although it shouldn't be miles out, they're only meant for comparison purpose rather than absolute values.
On the single day view it's a bit odd that the line looks completely flat, but of occupying the house consists of turning on a couple of LED lamps then maybe it's right.
BatForcePC said:
1979 4 bed detached, 2 kids and wife at home.... looks like we average 22kw per day. Oil fired boiler on from 6.30 am to 9.00 pm, hot water topped up on economy 7 over night and dehumidifier on in garage 24/7 
About the same for me, with a 3 bedroom Victorian semi. We hover around 20-22KW per week day in the winter, largely due to things like the tumble drier. At the weekend we're typically 5KW per day lower as we're out of the house more, and do less laundry!I'm also an Owl Intuition user :-)
I always find the variation in energy usage, whenever these threads come up, pretty amazing. The background load for our house is around 500W, so that's 12KW a day just doing "nothing". But that includes:
Fridge, Freezer, Quooker, 2xVirgin boxes, 2xTVs on standby, 2x radios on standby, PC on standby, router/wireless network stuff, ~10x small devices running off USB chargers, gate controller, garage door controller, MVHR system, underfloor Central heating with 8x powered thermostats.
We use 20KW on average in the winter, so the discretionary usage is not too bad, given we have all electric cooking. I've looked at reducing the background usage, but there's nothing there that I really want to give up that would make a significant difference. First world problems thread
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