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
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.
.
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.
Ok, from the advice given (much appreciated by the way) I think I really need to sort out my downlighters in the first instance. It appears I have 2 types.
Kitchen and Bedroom 1 has a total of 18 bulbs which are 7GU 10 Dimmable 7W 2700K 40D
The rest of the house is fitted with a total of 38 GU5.3 two pronged bulbs, i appear to have some 50W and some 35W
Could someone be so helpful as to suggest what would be the most sensible way of tackling this changeover? i.e. do I have to change all of a particular type at once or would I have to do a room at a time?
Kitchen and Bedroom 1 has a total of 18 bulbs which are 7GU 10 Dimmable 7W 2700K 40D
The rest of the house is fitted with a total of 38 GU5.3 two pronged bulbs, i appear to have some 50W and some 35W
Could someone be so helpful as to suggest what would be the most sensible way of tackling this changeover? i.e. do I have to change all of a particular type at once or would I have to do a room at a time?
mjb1 said:
They're low voltage (12v) halogen MR16 lamps. Not ideal for swapping to LEDs unfortunately. They will have a mains to 12v transformer to drive them. If the lights are recessed then the transformers will be somewhere in the ceiling void, hopefully fairly accessible. There'll be at least one transformer per room/set of switched lights, maybe more.
The problem you could have is that most of the transformers (the older ones at least) don't like LED bulbs because the load is so much lower than they were designed to drive. I had a 4x MR16 light fitting with the transformer inside it. It would handle 3x LEDs plus one halogen bulb, but if I tried to fit 4x LEDs it stopped working.
First thing to do is remove as many of the bulbs as you can get away with and see how much energy that saves. Take daily meter readings for at least a week before and after.
So, you'll either (probably) have replace the transformers to use LEDs throughout, or change all the light fittings. If they're all recessed ceiling lights, it might be easier, cheaper, better to swap the fittings to GU10 (mains ones). Or a quick and dirty method is to swap as many of the halogen MR16s to LED MR16s as you can before they start misbehaving (typically buzzing, flickering). Obviously you'll have a mixture of light outputs (intensity, beam angle, colour temp) between the halogen and LED. The LEDs probably won't be as bright, especially the cheaper bulbs), if you can stomach that scenario?
Whichever you choose to do, carefully check the beam angle of the LEDs (they typically range from 36 degrees to 120 degrees, spot to wide angle). The narrower the beam, the brighter the light (for the same wattage). I always go for 'warm' colour temperature LEDs, as the cooler ones usually look too cold/harsh, especially coming from halogen/filament lamps, but that's a matter of taste.
Having said all that, unless you leave all the lights on all the time, it's probably only accounting for 10kWh per day at the most. So you're still a bit on the high side. Did you forget to mention your heated swimming pool or hot tub? Next biggest power consumer is an electric shower (up to 10kWh). If you have one of those make sure your missus isn't spending half an hour in there every day!
Thanks for the info. sounds complex with the MR16 i might try a few LEDs in each room and see how I get on. The problem you could have is that most of the transformers (the older ones at least) don't like LED bulbs because the load is so much lower than they were designed to drive. I had a 4x MR16 light fitting with the transformer inside it. It would handle 3x LEDs plus one halogen bulb, but if I tried to fit 4x LEDs it stopped working.
First thing to do is remove as many of the bulbs as you can get away with and see how much energy that saves. Take daily meter readings for at least a week before and after.
So, you'll either (probably) have replace the transformers to use LEDs throughout, or change all the light fittings. If they're all recessed ceiling lights, it might be easier, cheaper, better to swap the fittings to GU10 (mains ones). Or a quick and dirty method is to swap as many of the halogen MR16s to LED MR16s as you can before they start misbehaving (typically buzzing, flickering). Obviously you'll have a mixture of light outputs (intensity, beam angle, colour temp) between the halogen and LED. The LEDs probably won't be as bright, especially the cheaper bulbs), if you can stomach that scenario?
Whichever you choose to do, carefully check the beam angle of the LEDs (they typically range from 36 degrees to 120 degrees, spot to wide angle). The narrower the beam, the brighter the light (for the same wattage). I always go for 'warm' colour temperature LEDs, as the cooler ones usually look too cold/harsh, especially coming from halogen/filament lamps, but that's a matter of taste.
Having said all that, unless you leave all the lights on all the time, it's probably only accounting for 10kWh per day at the most. So you're still a bit on the high side. Did you forget to mention your heated swimming pool or hot tub? Next biggest power consumer is an electric shower (up to 10kWh). If you have one of those make sure your missus isn't spending half an hour in there every day!
10
What about the 7W GU10s are they an easy replacement for LEDs?
Oh, yes we do have an electric shower, I am the only user normally as both my wife and young son prefer the bath.
Edited by 272BHP on Thursday 19th January 16:28
hidetheelephants said:
Replace all the light switches with pneumatic delay switches or motion sensors. 
Now this would be a massive saver for me, I will have to look into itBTW I have found one culprit of the high electricity use. There is a electric towel rail in the bathroom upstairs that appears to be on 24/7. Can't find a switch for it so I suspect it is linked to the underfloor heating thermostat. The wife keeps setting this back to a constant 17 deg so It may be triggering this to stay on permanently. Cant find the power rating of it but it's so hot you can't grip it for more than a second or two!
Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff