Talk to me about... smart meters.

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Ahhh if only I only used 7kwh hours a day .... that would be nice. I'm all electric. I used to have calor gas central heating but I ripped all that out, I'm an ex tanker man, I wont have gas in the house. So I replaced all that with an all electric boiler, changing the system to fully pumped for not only the central heating, but hot water as well as that was convection/gravity with the gas boiler. Even so the immersion gets used mostly for hot water. I do my own plumbing and you can buy the control system as a complete bundle, including the three position valve. I'm not a great fan of central heating to be honest which is probably good as the electric boiler climbs up to 9 kw.
The house over there has a bottled gas cooker and an oil-fired range, which will also heat the water in the winter, plus a two-level immersion for the warmer months. Swapping to electric water heating had little effect on the daily total, surprisingly.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
House baseline is near 500w :lorks:
I started 'cutting back' in the mid-80s. Just swapping the most-used lights to CFLs had quite an effect - and I stopped running a freezer. These two measures gave me a big step-down.

I have a fridge-freezer, but it is some weird Danish thing and it has a separate compressor for each compartment, so the freezer could be turned off with the small fridge part left still running - and it meant that temperature control in each compartment was not compromised in normal running, either, but that's another story.

I discovered that kettles, washing machines, etc. were not the huge culprits that they might be thought to be - they might give the meter a good kicking for a short time, but the steady, small things were the cause of a large part of the spinning of the meter disc.

@wmrcomputers once did a series of tests*, comparing the costs of boiling water in electric or gas kettles.

Some less recent computer/TV/audio devices can use rather more than might be expected when they are 'off'.

For more in-depth discussions about energy measuring devices, I believe that @basil has a sister in the business.


* Here - https://www.staffordforum.com/xf/in...-or-gas-kettle-which-is-cheapest-result.5636/
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
That’s… quite high

We have quite a bit going on (Virgin Pure, home server, etc) and our phantom load is only 300w
Yeah, once I'm done with renovations I'll look into it. The pond takes at least 150w though, and I have 2 servers and a nas plus 2 PCs and a mac.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I started a weekly record of the consumption of the house in Ireland - from February on, it never varied much, generally about 7kWh a day - if yours are producing 10+ a day, I could disconnect from the mains...
Just to update this - I'm nearly a year into my weekly recording of the electricity consumption.

The peak weekly consumption was 45.5kWh - this was the first week that the oil heating was shut down - I can't remember why it was so high, possibly water heating or use of garden machinery.

Through this winter, it's been running at around 35/week, by far the highest was 44.5 for the week around Christmas, when I was close to death.

The last two weeks have both been 32.6.

It used 1.7/week whilst the house was empty - a few timers, lights, etc.
 

Cue

Well-Known Forumite
Closer to 100kWh/week here on leccy, but not terribly surprising with us being such a tech-heavy household, a server running 24/7, etc.
 

Alee

Well-Known Forumite
Just got my electric bill … 5640kwh ish for the year …. Is that good or bad ?! Only heating and hot water is gas
 

c0tt0nt0p

Well-Known Forumite
Just got my electric bill … 5640kwh ish for the year …. Is that good or bad ?! Only heating and hot water is gas
Our 3 storey town house on the crossings uses 3500kwh for the year on power. Use Gas for central heating and hot water..... Gas is around 5500kwh for the year
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
Christ, mine seems quite high then for a 2 bed 😱
Our 3 storey town house on the crossings uses 3500kwh for the year on power. Use Gas for central heating and hot water..... Gas is around 5500kwh for the year

:o:o:o Just downloaded all my gas and electric statements for oct 2020=oct 2021 and had to double check the adding up......

Gas 18021.89 kWH Seems hell of a lot from @c0tt0nt0p figures :o

Elect 3430 KWH

Got smart meters , but the gas one has never worked and doesn't send readings to them , so I have to get crawl through the pantry and under the stairs to give the readings.

Got a 3 bed semi on Wildwood, but open plan so the heating gets lost upstairs. Use gas fire and Baxi central heating , but not on constantly.
Only use the gas for water when having a bath as the shower is electric . Boil kettles to wash up as the tap water downstairs takes ages to get warm.

In contrast.... Sons 2 bed 10 year old semi is costing £76 a month in total for both electric and gas .... ours £120 a month . Although sons house is insulated . Hasn't got a gas fire but leaves his central heating on even when out at work to get his washing dry and uses his washing machine every day.
 
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tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
:o:o:o Just downloaded all my gas and electric statements for oct 2020=oct 2021 and had to double check the adding up......

Gas 18021.89 kWH Seems hell of a lot from @c0tt0nt0p figures :o

Elect 3430 KWH

Got smart meters , but the gas one has never worked and doesn't send readings to them , so I have to get crawl through the pantry and under the stairs to give the readings.

Got a 3 bed semi on Wildwood, but open plan so the heating gets lost upstairs. Use gas fire and Baxi central heating , but not on constantly.
Only use the gas for water when having a bath as the shower is electric . Boil kettles to wash up as the tap water downstairs takes ages to get warm.

In contrast.... Sons 2 bed 10 year old semi is costing £76 a month in total for both electric and gas .... ours £120 a month . Although sons house is insulated . Hasn't got a gas fire but leaves his central heating on even when out at work to get his washing dry and uses his washing machine every day.
I use about 12k, 3 bed house with downstairs open plan and a badly insulated extension but temps set to 18c. I now have much better insulation but higher temps due to the child so not sure how this year will go, my electricity use is more like 8k.
 

c0tt0nt0p

Well-Known Forumite
The insulation
:o:o:o Just downloaded all my gas and electric statements for oct 2020=oct 2021 and had to double check the adding up......

Gas 18021.89 kWH Seems hell of a lot from @c0tt0nt0p figures :o

Elect 3430 KWH

Got smart meters , but the gas one has never worked and doesn't send readings to them , so I have to get crawl through the pantry and under the stairs to give the readings.

Got a 3 bed semi on Wildwood, but open plan so the heating gets lost upstairs. Use gas fire and Baxi central heating , but not on constantly.
Only use the gas for water when having a bath as the shower is electric . Boil kettles to wash up as the tap water downstairs takes ages to get warm.

In contrast.... Sons 2 bed 10 year old semi is costing £76 a month in total for both electric and gas .... ours £120 a month . Although sons house is insulated . Hasn't got a gas fire but leaves his central heating on even when out at work to get his washing dry and uses his washing machine every day.
our house is incredibly well insulated, and there's still improvements we could make, like replacing the front door. Being a northerner im certainly a "Wear an extra layer kind of guy". Boiler comes on once in the morning for 30-45 mins and the same in the evening. We might put the heating on during the day once of it's cold(I work from home, other half doesn't have a job). Hot water goes into a Megaflo tank which keeps it hot for an age...

The ground floor is a concrete base so it holds the cold a bit too much for my liking, especially as I work down there....
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
The insulation

our house is incredibly well insulated, and there's still improvements we could make, like replacing the front door. Being a northerner im certainly a "Wear an extra layer kind of guy". Boiler comes on once in the morning for 30-45 mins and the same in the evening. We might put the heating on during the day once of it's cold(I work from home, other half doesn't have a job). Hot water goes into a Megaflo tank which keeps it hot for an age...

The ground floor is a concrete base so it holds the cold a bit too much for my liking, especially as I work down there....
I've just been down to sons and noticed the difference straight away. No draughts at all and the heat's even throughout the house.

Our house is awful , with M&H kitchens putting a fitted kitchen in years ago and leaving big gaps behind the cupboards which lets a gale force wind through. I've got the dogs old coats and old towels rolled up and stuffed down the big gaps.Dusters and sponge scourers in the smaller gaps. As well as sticky tape to seal some gaps. Been like that for years now.

If we are able to move down to Worcester when hubby retires , we'll hopefully save money on heating if we get a smaller and better built house. Going to have to downsize to be able to afford a decent house in a good area by him. Might get a smart meter that actually works as well. Even though our electric meter sends reading to British Gas , the 'smart' monitor to show usage has never worked.
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
I've just been down to sons and noticed the difference straight away. No draughts at all and the heat's even throughout the house.

Our house is awful , with M&H kitchens putting a fitted kitchen in years ago and leaving big gaps behind the cupboards which lets a gale force wind through. I've got the dogs old coats and old towels rolled up and stuffed down the big gaps.Dusters and sponge scourers in the smaller gaps. As well as sticky tape to seal some gaps. Been like that for years now.

If we are able to move down to Worcester when hubby retires , we'll hopefully save money on heating if we get a smaller and better built house. Going to have to downsize to be able to afford a decent house in a good area by him. Might get a smart meter that actually works as well. Even though our electric meter sends reading to British Gas , the 'smart' monitor to show usage has never worked.
Expanding foam?
 
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