What cut backs have you made recently?

[brickwall]

MaxFromage said:

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.

I have never understood why washer/dryers are not more popular. All-in-one cycle or just wash/just dry. What’s not to like?

(Put clothes in the evening, set delayed start to finish at 6am, open in the morning with dry cycle complete.)

[xeny]

Jon39 said:

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.

Alternatively, neither customers want to pay for them on their bills, and shareholders don't want to see the cost of them in reduced dividends?

AIUI the peak demand period is between 16:30 and 18:30 so it isn't too onerous for an adult to aim to avoid running washing machines or similar during that period. Having read the original Times article, that made the point missing from the BBC one that the expectation is that this approach could potentially reduce everyone's bill although obviously with the greatest saving for those who eat the carrot as it were.

[eltawater]

brickwall said:

MaxFromage said:

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.

I have never understood why washer/dryers are not more popular. All-in-one cycle or just wash/just dry. What’s not to like?

(Put clothes in the evening, set delayed start to finish at 6am, open in the morning with dry cycle complete.)

Not everything is suitable for tumble drying so you end up tying up the one machine waiting for the dry cycle to complete when you could have a load drying and a non-tumble-dry load being washed simultaneously.

[ARHarh]

eltawater said:

brickwall said:

MaxFromage said:

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.

I have never understood why washer/dryers are not more popular. All-in-one cycle or just wash/just dry. What’s not to like?

(Put clothes in the evening, set delayed start to finish at 6am, open in the morning with dry cycle complete.)

Not everything is suitable for tumble drying so you end up tying up the one machine waiting for the dry cycle to complete when you could have a load drying and a non-tumble-dry load being washed simultaneously.

Or save money by buying a non drying machine and hanging the washing up to dry, either in the garden or inside if it's raining or cold.

[paralla]

ARHarh said:

eltawater said:

brickwall said:

MaxFromage said:

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.

I have never understood why washer/dryers are not more popular. All-in-one cycle or just wash/just dry. What’s not to like?

(Put clothes in the evening, set delayed start to finish at 6am, open in the morning with dry cycle complete.)

Not everything is suitable for tumble drying so you end up tying up the one machine waiting for the dry cycle to complete when you could have a load drying and a non-tumble-dry load being washed simultaneously.

Or save money by buying a non drying machine and hanging the washing up to dry, either in the garden or inside if it's raining or cold.

The drier bit of washer/drier combos is typically only rated to about half of the washer capacity so you end up doing twice as many half loads which is even less efficient than drying with a normal washer and very inefficient drier.

My airing rack must have saved me a small fortune over the years.

[bmwmike]

Cancelled Prime membership (£79 ish) a month or so ago and haven't noticed any difference to my life whatsoever. In fact, i'm pretty sure i'm ordering less crap.

Also worked out that my local network is costing 30p a day to run (NAS, wifi, routing, etc). Have modified the NAS so it sleeps more, aiming for 15p a day, and will resort to powering stuff off if i have to.

Underfloor heating all turned off.

Towel radiators retimed to 2hr in the moning and 2hr in the evening, they were on all day

And put up a larger rotary washing line.

Edited by bmwmike on Monday 27th June 16:48

[r3g]

ARHarh said:

Or save money by buying a non drying machine and hanging the washing up to dry, either in the garden or inside if it's raining or cold.

But that means extra work having to get the iron out afterwards, which probably costs not far off what the tumble will cost, without needing the iron.

[anonymous-user]

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.

Could be worse. A friend of mine used to work for a bloke who regularly had a rant about extension leads being used around his business workshop by employees. He was convinced that when you used a long extension lead then unplugged it and put it away, it would still be 'full' of electricity along its length which would be wasted. It would leak out or dissipate somehow whilst the lead was hung up, and then when you used it again the electric would have to 'fill' the extension lead again.

If we are being pedantic, yes, extension leads do waste some electricity in heat (depending on the current, wire thickness, etc) but they clearly do not waste electricity in the way he would describe...

I had visions of the bloke saying stuff like "I came into work this morning and there was electricity all over the floor..."

[ARHarh]

r3g said:

ARHarh said:

Or save money by buying a non drying machine and hanging the washing up to dry, either in the garden or inside if it's raining or cold.

But that means extra work having to get the iron out afterwards, which probably costs not far off what the tumble will cost, without needing the iron.

Not if you hang them.up properly. I don't ever use an iron.

[r3g]

juice said:

We got rid of our normal kettle and have had one of these for a few years now. They're great, takes 30 secs to pour one cup of boiling water. Breville hot cup

I saw one of these for the first time a few weeks ago. Was in my mate's garage and he said go make yourself a coffee, there's a machine in the corner. It took me a short while looking around it trying to figure out where you put the coffee .

I must say I was quite impressed. Not that the boiling of cold water is revolutionary or anything, but 20 seconds of near-silence to put an exact amount of boiling water into my mug was just so much better/easier(?) than the whole kettle process and enduring 2 minutes of din.

[r3g]

ARHarh said:

Not if you hang them.up properly. I don't ever use an iron.

I must be missing some trick here because in nearly 50 years I've never once removed an item from a washer that isn't creased so badly that it would be wearable after drying, irrespective of how you hang them. Well, not if you want to look respectable anyway.

[xeny]

non iron shirts for office days and everything else is either fine if hung carefully carefully or invisible in public. I don't think I own an iron any more.

[rossub]

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.

Yeah that’s pretty bad - 11.5 kWh per day

2 of us in a 150m2 house use around 7.5 kWh per day.

[Sticks.]

r3g said:

I must be missing some trick here because in nearly 50 years I've never once removed an item from a washer that isn't creased so badly that it would be wearable after drying, irrespective of how you hang them. Well, not if you want to look respectable anyway.

Agreed. Periodically there'll be posts on the Homes section about condensation and mould. The cause is invariably drying clothes indoors.

I put the washing machine on to finish just as I get up, put stuff in the dryer, all on cheap rate. Load dishwasher during the day, was and empty in morning. Simples. Tidy too

[xeny]

bmwmike said:

Cancelled Prime membership (£79 ish) a month or so ago and haven't noticed any difference to my life whatsoever. In fact, i'm pretty sure i'm ordering less crap.

Also worked out that my local network is costing 30p a day to run (NAS, wifi, routing, etc). Have modified the NAS so it sleeps more, aiming for 15p a day, and will resort to powering stuff off if i have to.

I find Prime delivery useful and there's enough video content that it is the only subscription I have.

Coincidentally I just spent some time fiddling to get my NAS to sleep, and now have various other bits of home network infrastructure on two time switches so they go off either just after I'm likely to have stopped working or after I've gone to bed for the day.

Does anyone have an opinion on the relative consumption of 2.4 vs 5Ghz WiFi for low bandwidth hardware like Echoes? It "feels" as if 2.4 should be slightly lower power but I've not tested.

[Bullett]

Does anyone know how long a Quooker takes to warm up from scratch? or even how much power it uses in steady state vs warm up mode.
Mine is active 24/7 and it doesn't need to be, I don't need boiling water at 4am very often. I'd want to put it on a timer or smart plug and switch it off overnight say 11pm and back on a 6am depending on how long warm up takes.

Should probably look at killing the Microserver I have running. It's not getting much use, most things are backed up online now anyway and Plex gets very little use. A lower powered RaspPi or dedicated NAS is probably better power wise.

[selmahoos]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Increased income.

[survivalist]

Haven’t made any changes yet. Can only assume the mild weather means I’ve not noticed the impact yet.

Guess the good news is that come autumn I’ll have loads if stuff to optimise,

[OldSkoolRS]

selmahoos said:

Increased income.

Ah; you've got a second paper round then...good on you.

[number2]

Bullett said:

Does anyone know how long a Quooker takes to warm up from scratch? or even how much power it uses in steady state vs warm up mode.
Mine is active 24/7 and it doesn't need to be, I don't need boiling water at 4am very often. I'd want to put it on a timer or smart plug and switch it off overnight say 11pm and back on a 6am depending on how long warm up takes.

Should probably look at killing the Microserver I have running. It's not getting much use, most things are backed up online now anyway and Plex gets very little use. A lower powered RaspPi or dedicated NAS is probably better power wise.

3 litre tank takes ten minutes according to this https://www.quooker.co.uk/catalog/tanks

They are quite efficient - the cylinder is cool to the touch and I don't catch it heating that often or for that long.