What cut backs have you made recently?
Discussion
ChocolateFrog said:
Heating up water takes a lot of energy so I actually thought the saving would be higher. My OH always fills the kettle upto the max and it drives me nuts.
What surprised me was the phone chargers. We've got atleast 4 plugged in permanently so that 24w continous wasted. We've also got baby camera and monitor that are never switched off, ever.
Just measured my phone charger sans phone using one of those plug in watt/energy meters.What surprised me was the phone chargers. We've got atleast 4 plugged in permanently so that 24w continous wasted. We've also got baby camera and monitor that are never switched off, ever.
Nil watts. Does not register. Zilch. That's a generic 2A USB wall wart type. 3or 4 watts charging my Nokia phone.
My TV is 3 years old, Sony. On standby, less than 1 Watt.
Hifi is a few watts, old skool Cambridge and Arcam amps, tend to switch them off anyway. CD player is under a watt on standby, few watts on but idle.
PC is a bit of a villain if it doesn't get turned off.
Hibernating Win10 laptop, 1 watt.
When rudely awakened to beat itself up with Win updates, 32 to 48W.
Kettle is 2.8kW, so about 1kW does 20 minutes of boiling. I'm moderately careful not to overfill it because I'm impatient.
On my boat, where the kettle is heated by camping gaz at £40 a canister, I'm rather more careful!
Specific heat capacity of water is 4200J/K/kg, so boiling 1 litre of water from 20 degC is about 95Wh, call it 1/10kWh or thruppence (decimal).
All adds up I suppose.
Fridge and freezer stack up. We have two fridges which may be worth re-thinking, but then we eat a lot of fresh veg and don't waste much of it.
The 15 year old fridge we ditched about 3 years ago was noticeably doing its best to keep the kitchen warm in winter, maybe bear that in mind?
Other stuff we tend not to think about:
Wireless door bell receiver plugged in 24/7
Landline phone and answering machine
Any cordless tools/vacuums/...?
Internet router modem and any extenders?
We have a Freesat Humax recorder box, that's on the list for the energy meter.
Wondering about the Combi boiler???
I have a couple of Ctek battery maintainers for the bike and boat battery.
Journalists, energy consultancy companies and charities are all making themselves important by plugging a message which may be a long way adrift from reality? For sure, 20 years ago there were some TVs which were thirsty on standby. I think there are standards for modern stuff.
My phone's been on charge while I typed this, now only pulling 2W.
My energy meter plug thingy was £15 from Maplins many years ago, not sure it's ever really told me enough to pay for itself.
It has shown that most '10W' LED bulbs are somewhat less than 10W.
Anyone know what an idling 'boiling water tap' gets through in a day or week? Please! :-)
OutInTheShed said:
Just measured my phone charger sans phone using one of those plug in watt/energy meters.
Nil watts. Does not register. Zilch. That's a generic 2A USB wall wart type. 3or 4 watts charging my Nokia phone.
My TV is 3 years old, Sony. On standby, less than 1 Watt.
Hifi is a few watts, old skool Cambridge and Arcam amps, tend to switch them off anyway. CD player is under a watt on standby, few watts on but idle.
PC is a bit of a villain if it doesn't get turned off.
Hibernating Win10 laptop, 1 watt.
When rudely awakened to beat itself up with Win updates, 32 to 48W.
Kettle is 2.8kW, so about 1kW does 20 minutes of boiling. I'm moderately careful not to overfill it because I'm impatient.
On my boat, where the kettle is heated by camping gaz at £40 a canister, I'm rather more careful!
Specific heat capacity of water is 4200J/K/kg, so boiling 1 litre of water from 20 degC is about 95Wh, call it 1/10kWh or thruppence (decimal).
All adds up I suppose.
Fridge and freezer stack up. We have two fridges which may be worth re-thinking, but then we eat a lot of fresh veg and don't waste much of it.
The 15 year old fridge we ditched about 3 years ago was noticeably doing its best to keep the kitchen warm in winter, maybe bear that in mind?
Other stuff we tend not to think about:
Wireless door bell receiver plugged in 24/7
Landline phone and answering machine
Any cordless tools/vacuums/...?
Internet router modem and any extenders?
We have a Freesat Humax recorder box, that's on the list for the energy meter.
Wondering about the Combi boiler???
I have a couple of Ctek battery maintainers for the bike and boat battery.
Journalists, energy consultancy companies and charities are all making themselves important by plugging a message which may be a long way adrift from reality? For sure, 20 years ago there were some TVs which were thirsty on standby. I think there are standards for modern stuff.
My phone's been on charge while I typed this, now only pulling 2W.
My energy meter plug thingy was £15 from Maplins many years ago, not sure it's ever really told me enough to pay for itself.
It has shown that most '10W' LED bulbs are somewhat less than 10W.
Anyone know what an idling 'boiling water tap' gets through in a day or week? Please! :-)
Has someone crossed the streams or something?Nil watts. Does not register. Zilch. That's a generic 2A USB wall wart type. 3or 4 watts charging my Nokia phone.
My TV is 3 years old, Sony. On standby, less than 1 Watt.
Hifi is a few watts, old skool Cambridge and Arcam amps, tend to switch them off anyway. CD player is under a watt on standby, few watts on but idle.
PC is a bit of a villain if it doesn't get turned off.
Hibernating Win10 laptop, 1 watt.
When rudely awakened to beat itself up with Win updates, 32 to 48W.
Kettle is 2.8kW, so about 1kW does 20 minutes of boiling. I'm moderately careful not to overfill it because I'm impatient.
On my boat, where the kettle is heated by camping gaz at £40 a canister, I'm rather more careful!
Specific heat capacity of water is 4200J/K/kg, so boiling 1 litre of water from 20 degC is about 95Wh, call it 1/10kWh or thruppence (decimal).
All adds up I suppose.
Fridge and freezer stack up. We have two fridges which may be worth re-thinking, but then we eat a lot of fresh veg and don't waste much of it.
The 15 year old fridge we ditched about 3 years ago was noticeably doing its best to keep the kitchen warm in winter, maybe bear that in mind?
Other stuff we tend not to think about:
Wireless door bell receiver plugged in 24/7
Landline phone and answering machine
Any cordless tools/vacuums/...?
Internet router modem and any extenders?
We have a Freesat Humax recorder box, that's on the list for the energy meter.
Wondering about the Combi boiler???
I have a couple of Ctek battery maintainers for the bike and boat battery.
Journalists, energy consultancy companies and charities are all making themselves important by plugging a message which may be a long way adrift from reality? For sure, 20 years ago there were some TVs which were thirsty on standby. I think there are standards for modern stuff.
My phone's been on charge while I typed this, now only pulling 2W.
My energy meter plug thingy was £15 from Maplins many years ago, not sure it's ever really told me enough to pay for itself.
It has shown that most '10W' LED bulbs are somewhat less than 10W.
Anyone know what an idling 'boiling water tap' gets through in a day or week? Please! :-)
Someone using data as evidence on Pistonheads! This place has changed.
My mother not only switches everything “off at the wall” she also unplugs everything.
She ran a 150W halogen up-light for 8 years from dusk to bedtime until I took it to the recycling centre.
paralla said:
Has someone crossed the streams or something?
Someone using data as evidence on Pistonheads! This place has changed.
My mother not only switches everything “off at the wall” she also unplugs everything.
She ran a 150W halogen up-light for 8 years from dusk to bedtime until I took it to the recycling centre.
How much fuel to drive to the recycling centre?Someone using data as evidence on Pistonheads! This place has changed.
My mother not only switches everything “off at the wall” she also unplugs everything.
She ran a 150W halogen up-light for 8 years from dusk to bedtime until I took it to the recycling centre.
:-)
She has a Suzuki Grand Vitara V6 that averages 29mpg
A round trip to the recycling centre from her house is 2.98 miles
Petrol costs AUS$2.05/L which at todays exchange rate is GBP1.16/L
So the total fuel cost for the trip was £0.53
Electricity in Australia costs AUS$0.312/kWh (GB£0.1754/kWh)
The trip to the recycling centre cost the equivalent of around 3kWh of electricity
If she used the 150W lamp for an average of 4 hours/day that’s 0.6kWh/day
After 5 days of average lamp use she is financially better off
I like data, not click bait, scare mongering headlines.
A round trip to the recycling centre from her house is 2.98 miles
Petrol costs AUS$2.05/L which at todays exchange rate is GBP1.16/L
So the total fuel cost for the trip was £0.53
Electricity in Australia costs AUS$0.312/kWh (GB£0.1754/kWh)
The trip to the recycling centre cost the equivalent of around 3kWh of electricity
If she used the 150W lamp for an average of 4 hours/day that’s 0.6kWh/day
After 5 days of average lamp use she is financially better off
I like data, not click bait, scare mongering headlines.
Edited by paralla on Sunday 26th June 19:41
You could have put an LED bulb in it?
We had one of those floorstanding halogen up lighters some years ago, it did give a nice even light for working in the room, and at least in England the waste heat is welcome.
The base and upright got re-purposed as a wild bird feeder support, saving a trip to the dump.
We had one of those floorstanding halogen up lighters some years ago, it did give a nice even light for working in the room, and at least in England the waste heat is welcome.
The base and upright got re-purposed as a wild bird feeder support, saving a trip to the dump.
Mum liked it “because it gave a nice glow” which it did, especially compared to the hideous early adopter, cool white LED’s that were everywhere else in the house.
I moved another lamp there and put a warm white 5W LED bulb in it and she was happy.
I moved another lamp there and put a warm white 5W LED bulb in it and she was happy.
Edited by paralla on Monday 27th June 10:14
Thinking of bulbs, I put an 8ish watt Ikea Tradfri bulb in my lounge at the weekend. Surprised at how much heat it actually generates. Obviously not as much as an incandescent bulb but the base is properly hot after it's been on for a while. thier website claims it also uses 0.25W in standby, I also have about a dozen zigbee smart switches, all using around 0.25-0.5 W, so I'm potentially using about 150 watt hours per day just for the convenience of being able to turn lights off remotely to not waste energy 
I think that's about 7 cents per day I'm wasting!
I think that's about 7 cents per day I'm wasting!Carbon Sasquatch said:
In general, I can't see the problem in filling your kettle from the hot tap. What am I missing ?
In a combi system unless the pipe run from the boiler to the hot tap is extremely short, the hot water that is wasted as left to cool down in the pipework has cost more than the saving in electricity from starting with warmer water in the kettle.In a hot water cylinder system, they're typically fed from a loft cold water tank, which isn't always fantastically sealed against whatever is loose in the loft space/crawls in through the overflow. Of course, you're boiling the water and most people are happy brushing their teeth with it.....
Some recent figures for those who are interested.
U.K. May 2022 Retail Price Index.
Past 12 Months Change = + 11·7%.
Looking at the past 6 months (annualised) RPI = + 14·5%.
Provides a more recent look at the inflation figures.
Some time ago, the Government began announcing Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures, instead of RPI. They say it is their preferred measure.
Since then, the CPI 12 Months Change figures, have always been lower than RPI.
bloomen said:
twing said:
Sorry for the Daily Fail link but it is appropriate...
The kettle one's surprising. Not that I own one. 
We have a Bibo hot/cold water machine in the kitchen at my office.
It claims to be energy efficient but more often than not it's gone into "sleep mode" that turns the heating off so when you want hot water you have to wake it up then wait for it to heat up (just liker a normal kettle).
Presumably it puts itself to sleep to save energy.
It claims to be energy efficient but more often than not it's gone into "sleep mode" that turns the heating off so when you want hot water you have to wake it up then wait for it to heat up (just liker a normal kettle).
Presumably it puts itself to sleep to save energy.
juice said:
bloomen said:
twing said:
Sorry for the Daily Fail link but it is appropriate...
The kettle one's surprising. Not that I own one. Shappers24 said:
I’ve cut back my TV subs, and cancelled membership from a few places to remove some monthly costs.
I really need to get a handle on electricity usage though, my latest bills suggests I’m using 4200kwhr per year, which given I live alone seems massively excessive.
Cut back on the double posts and you can halve your bill?I really need to get a handle on electricity usage though, my latest bills suggests I’m using 4200kwhr per year, which given I live alone seems massively excessive.
Jon39 said:
valiant said:
... Got a smart meter being installed next week so I can see where we’re wasting gas and elec but we’re getting better at usage awareness and our consumption has decreased compared to same period last year. ...
Be wary of those things. They cannot save you money. You can analyse usage now, with your existing meters.
However, what does not tend to be mentioned, is that Smart Meters have the capability of applying different tariffs throughout the day. When enough households have them, we will be paying more to use energy at busy times every day. Well I won't, because I don't want one. Guess when most people need to use gas and electricity ? At high consumption times. The hope is that people might do their washing when most people are asleep. Power generation then becomes easier and hopefully not too many washing machines, or tumble dryers catch fire.
The Smart Meter phone salesman used to repeatedly ring me and describe how I could save lots of money.
I told him that I already had a gadget which could do that, ----- pause ----- "It is called a switch".
Fortunately I must have annoyed him sufficiently, because he never calls now.
"Households with smart meters could get discounts on electricity bills if they use less energy at peak times."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61949246
eltawater said:
Jon39 said:
valiant said:
... Got a smart meter being installed next week so I can see where we’re wasting gas and elec but we’re getting better at usage awareness and our consumption has decreased compared to same period last year. ...
Be wary of those things. They cannot save you money. You can analyse usage now, with your existing meters.
However, what does not tend to be mentioned, is that Smart Meters have the capability of applying different tariffs throughout the day. When enough households have them, we will be paying more to use energy at busy times every day. Well I won't, because I don't want one. Guess when most people need to use gas and electricity ? At high consumption times. The hope is that people might do their washing when most people are asleep. Power generation then becomes easier and hopefully not too many washing machines, or tumble dryers catch fire.
The Smart Meter phone salesman used to repeatedly ring me and describe how I could save lots of money.
I told him that I already had a gadget which could do that, ----- pause ----- "It is called a switch".
Fortunately I must have annoyed him sufficiently, because he never calls now.
"Households with smart meters could get discounts on electricity bills if they use less energy at peak times."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61949246
Excellent, who doesn't want to set the washing machine for a midnight start, then get up and put the clothes in the tumble dryer at 2am and grab a quick shower before going back to bed 
With a decent washer/heat pump tumble dryer, the figures are fairly pointless. EV charging appears to be the only real saver.
With a decent washer/heat pump tumble dryer, the figures are fairly pointless. EV charging appears to be the only real saver.
TCX said:
eltawater said:
Jon39 said:
valiant said:
... Got a smart meter being installed next week so I can see where we’re wasting gas and elec but we’re getting better at usage awareness and our consumption has decreased compared to same period last year. ...
Be wary of those things. They cannot save you money. You can analyse usage now, with your existing meters.
However, what does not tend to be mentioned, is that Smart Meters have the capability of applying different tariffs throughout the day. When enough households have them, we will be paying more to use energy at busy times every day. Well I won't, because I don't want one. Guess when most people need to use gas and electricity ? At high consumption times. The hope is that people might do their washing when most people are asleep. Power generation then becomes easier and hopefully not too many washing machines, or tumble dryers catch fire.
The Smart Meter phone salesman used to repeatedly ring me and describe how I could save lots of money.
I told him that I already had a gadget which could do that, ----- pause ----- "It is called a switch".
Fortunately I must have annoyed him sufficiently, because he never calls now.
And so it begins.
"Households with smart meters could get discounts on electricity bills if they use less energy at peak times."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61949246
Thought the other side to this s was 'surge charges ' if you use at busier times?
Mentioning electricity discounts is of course a far better way (especially now), to achieve mass acceptance of smart meters.
Shhhh, never mention increased prices for peak times (eg. just after getting home from work). That obviously is the 'stick' to reduce demand, which is the main aim. Don't want too many conventional power stations idle on standby, ready for low daylight and light wind periods.
Edited by Jon39 on Monday 27th June 14:49
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