How much electricity do you use?
Discussion
I was a bit shocked at our usage. I’ve just started paying attention when Mrs L told me how much our electric bill was 
Reasonable size of house (approx 300m2) but it’s just me, my wife and 16yo daughter in the house these days.
Oil CH and HW (with electric pump obviously)
Electric oven and gas hob
Private water, electric well pump has maybe 15m of head so this is going to be a big contributor when it’s running.
We use on average ~1000kW/h month and it doesn’t vary much between summer and winter. That’s an average of 1.4kW. WTF?
At the moment, 7.30am we are pulling 365W
Well pump not running
Laptop on
2x 32” screens
2x larder fridges set to 4C
1x tall freezer at -18C
Heating and hot water on
Starlink on but shouldn’t be heating (it’s 5C outside)
TV and sky box on standby along with a couple of Apple homepods and a couple of phone chargers but nothing drawing many amps there.
Doesn’t seem too bad and reasonably normal, I WFH, wife is usually in, daughter is out most days at college.
Obviously showers mean the well pump is running. We run the dishwasher every day on an “eco” setting, tumble drier is rarely used, washing machine will get used a couple of times a week I guess. Oven gets used a few times a week, air frier a couple of times a week otherwise everything cooked on a gas hob (propane bottle). All the lights are low energy things. Everything in my shed is off. No outside lights or anything else obviously on all the time and drawing enough to cause death by a thousand cuts.
No electric heaters or anything daft like that.
I’m wondering if this is a wife / daughter hair-drier or crazy long shower issue
Maybe I need to look into solar panels…
What’s your usage?
Reasonable size of house (approx 300m2) but it’s just me, my wife and 16yo daughter in the house these days.
Oil CH and HW (with electric pump obviously)
Electric oven and gas hob
Private water, electric well pump has maybe 15m of head so this is going to be a big contributor when it’s running.
We use on average ~1000kW/h month and it doesn’t vary much between summer and winter. That’s an average of 1.4kW. WTF?
At the moment, 7.30am we are pulling 365W
Well pump not running
Laptop on
2x 32” screens
2x larder fridges set to 4C
1x tall freezer at -18C
Heating and hot water on
Starlink on but shouldn’t be heating (it’s 5C outside)
TV and sky box on standby along with a couple of Apple homepods and a couple of phone chargers but nothing drawing many amps there.
Doesn’t seem too bad and reasonably normal, I WFH, wife is usually in, daughter is out most days at college.
Obviously showers mean the well pump is running. We run the dishwasher every day on an “eco” setting, tumble drier is rarely used, washing machine will get used a couple of times a week I guess. Oven gets used a few times a week, air frier a couple of times a week otherwise everything cooked on a gas hob (propane bottle). All the lights are low energy things. Everything in my shed is off. No outside lights or anything else obviously on all the time and drawing enough to cause death by a thousand cuts.
No electric heaters or anything daft like that.
I’m wondering if this is a wife / daughter hair-drier or crazy long shower issue
Maybe I need to look into solar panels…
What’s your usage?
Don't know the square footage of our house, it's a 2 bed semi, just me and the wife.
Gas heating, water and oven but we use the air frier mostly, no dishwasher, washing machine is probably 5-6 times a week and the wife loves the tumble drier, even in the summer but it is a heat pump one so very efficient.
I'm pretty much out of the house during the day, 5 days a week, the wife works odd hours so is in and out and she loves to leave lights on!
Last year we averaged 181kWh a month, this year we are looking at 165kWh on average per month.
Gas heating, water and oven but we use the air frier mostly, no dishwasher, washing machine is probably 5-6 times a week and the wife loves the tumble drier, even in the summer but it is a heat pump one so very efficient.
I'm pretty much out of the house during the day, 5 days a week, the wife works odd hours so is in and out and she loves to leave lights on!
Last year we averaged 181kWh a month, this year we are looking at 165kWh on average per month.
Edited by HTP99 on Thursday 4th December 08:02
okgo said:
Looks like about an average of 15 KWH per day here. Costs about a ton a month.
Two fridges. Two TVs, about 20 lamps my wife runs, then a load of normal stuff. House about 210 sqm.
Yeah so broadly similar to ours but we re using twice the electrons. Two fridges. Two TVs, about 20 lamps my wife runs, then a load of normal stuff. House about 210 sqm.
This has to be related to the well pump I reckon.
We do have an immersion tank but it s only ever on if there’s a problem with the oil boiler (very rare). And it’s actually off/isolated so isn’t secretly burning cash without my knowledge.
Showers are not electric, they’re fed from the oil boiler.
Edited by Lefty on Thursday 4th December 08:14
120m.sq 1980's build house with sensible insulation, gas central heating and all cooking from electric oven and induction hob and if we exclude the EV charging for the year, we average around 400-450kWh/month of electricity averaged across the year. That's 2 adults, 2 teenagers, WFH, kids gaming in the evening all the usual 'heavy' family usage.
For the number of occupants, 1000kWh does seem strong....do you have smart meters and an app to track usage profiles?
For the number of occupants, 1000kWh does seem strong....do you have smart meters and an app to track usage profiles?
Edited by MattyD803 on Thursday 4th December 08:08
Lefty said:
We use on average ~1000kW/h month and it doesn t vary much between summer and winter. That s an average of 1.4kW. WTF?
Wow that's a lot. We have a similar house and use less than a quarter of that.350 Sqm, maybe a bit more
oil CH
one gas oven, one electric (Also cook off propane tanks for most stuff, electric oven less frequently)
mixer shower
sewerage plant (so air pump running continuously)
2 freezers
2 fridges
We use 200 kWh ish in the Summer to 250ish in the Winter.
Edited by Richard-D on Thursday 4th December 09:02
Hmm, I just ran a tap long enough to trigger the pressure switch to turn the well pump on and it’s 800W.
The way it works is we have a pressure vessel that the pump feeds into, you can wash your hands or flush the bog without the pump coming on but run a tap for more than a minute or so and the pump will fire.
Say 2 hours a day to be conservative, that’s 1.6kWh per day or 48kWh per month. Still nowhere near enough to be pushing us to 1000kWh/month
The way it works is we have a pressure vessel that the pump feeds into, you can wash your hands or flush the bog without the pump coming on but run a tap for more than a minute or so and the pump will fire.
Say 2 hours a day to be conservative, that’s 1.6kWh per day or 48kWh per month. Still nowhere near enough to be pushing us to 1000kWh/month
This has always been Mrs Marks dept and she is always swapping providers to get better deals.
At the moment gas and elec is costing us a grand total of £113 a month. Three bed, 3 adults in a 90 year old house.
We also have solar and have so far this year received about £750 in FIT payments with one more due before Christmas. Dishwasher and washing machine go on separately and only during daylight hours, as its better to use it than sell it.
The energy co also owe us about £200 but that will get soaked up over winter.
There is also about £300 spent on logs most years.
All in all very happy with the Mrs.
At the moment gas and elec is costing us a grand total of £113 a month. Three bed, 3 adults in a 90 year old house.
We also have solar and have so far this year received about £750 in FIT payments with one more due before Christmas. Dishwasher and washing machine go on separately and only during daylight hours, as its better to use it than sell it.
The energy co also owe us about £200 but that will get soaked up over winter.
There is also about £300 spent on logs most years.
All in all very happy with the Mrs.
1000 KWH per month is a lot considering the appliances you list, we have similar including a ground water pump. Washing machine, tumble dryer,dishwasher,hob,oven and microwave are used almost daily and we charge a PHEV once or twice a week . Parasitic load is around 300 watts and average use is around 300 KWH per month if I don’t include our solar energy.
We have a "well-pump". They don't use much power really for what they do, even though ours is over 2kw when running. You may have an hour-meter on it, so you can check it's not running too much.
It looks like you're using about 30kwh+ per day, which without electric heating or EVs seems high.
If you have a smart-meter and viewing widget, then just keep an eye on it to see when it jumps up.
Most likely culprits are things that *heat* e.g. towel rails or boiler immersion switch.
It looks like you're using about 30kwh+ per day, which without electric heating or EVs seems high.
If you have a smart-meter and viewing widget, then just keep an eye on it to see when it jumps up.
Most likely culprits are things that *heat* e.g. towel rails or boiler immersion switch.
I can remember that when I lived on my own I used about 5kWh per day at most (and that was back in the days when we still had incandescent light bulbs!) and was often below 3kWh. I still had fridge freezer, TV (CRT I think!) etc.
Currently we use an average of 12kWh per day - granted a larger house, and obviously twice as many people, but still quite a jump. Can be 15 or 20kWh if there's lots of washing, baking, tumble drying.
Baseload is around 200W. That's one large fridge freezer and one very large chest freezer taking the bulk I imagine.
The electric shower takes about 1kWh by itself; the other half uses the power shower (fed from the gas heated hot water tank) and that also uses 1kWh by dint of running longer despite the water already being heated.
Currently we use an average of 12kWh per day - granted a larger house, and obviously twice as many people, but still quite a jump. Can be 15 or 20kWh if there's lots of washing, baking, tumble drying.
Baseload is around 200W. That's one large fridge freezer and one very large chest freezer taking the bulk I imagine.
The electric shower takes about 1kWh by itself; the other half uses the power shower (fed from the gas heated hot water tank) and that also uses 1kWh by dint of running longer despite the water already being heated.
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