Electricity Usage Club

[ina]

Sorry to hear about the singleton business TG, hope your alright.

Thanks - never been better! Going up steps two at a time

Good to hear that - I thought you hadn't been around much, but then, neither had I...

Electricity: this council house I've moved into came with a pre-pay meter. So far, I've not had the energy to do anything about it... Took me months just to find who I was getting my electricity from! But it does mean that you automatically know quite well how much you are using, at least in money terms. So far well below £20 per months.

[Big Al]

If you are paying £20 a month on a pre payment then that could well come down to about 14 on a credit meter.

[ina]

If you are paying £20 a month on a pre payment then that could well come down to about 14 on a credit meter.

Actually, it was £13.73 for June (checked yesterday), and £13.70 for May! Not bad, eyh? If I knew I was staying here for a bit I'd have more of an incentive to do something about the pre-pay...

[ellie12022]

Hopefully prices will start coming down for prepayment customers, if they haven't already.

Ina, hello again And you might have to pay for a meter change (and/or wait for ages!) so not worth it if you're not in a place for long..And moving house is very stressful. Hope you have settled in now.

Nice to hear from you, Annpan

I have to say it's my gas usage I've been trying to control more than the electric. Have been away for a few weeks but even when I've been here I should have used less..- I've not had the hot water on every day.

Hello Thurston Garden (wonderful name!) - sounds like you've been through the mill too. What can you use your Rayburn for? We had one for a few years when I was younger, I know my mother cooked on it, my father chopped the wood and we burnt all kinds of things in it!

[Thurston Garden]

I do love my Rayburn despite it costing as much to fit is as it did to buy it! When I had it fitted in 2004, oil was 16p a litre. At that time I calculated that I could get all our heating, cooking and hot water (including showering) for £500 per year. However, at it's peak, oil has cost me 49p a litre (£1500 a year!) - I flatly refused to pay 60p a litre and was running on fumes until the price came down! Fortunately a friend drives one of the oil delivery trucks and he was to call me when the price came below 50p. I will need to buy oil in the next couple of months and expect to be paying about 35p a litre.

So I guess heating, hot water and cooking will now be about £1000 a year or £91 a month. When you add in £17 a month for my leccy, thats £108 a month for me on my own which is.....well.....exhorbitant! That's spread out over a year though - the Rayburn is hardly on in the summer...but this makes the winter even more costly!

My only saving grace is that the Rayburn is 88% efficient, and being in the sticks, it's either LPG or oil. Solid fuel and commiting to Edinburgh just does not work!

[ellie12022]

Crikey, that is a lot! Makes me glad to have mains gas! How much do you have to buy at a time? Must be tough if you have to fork out a lot at a time.

When we had the Rayburn we lived near a forest, and my dad and a friend had the right to go and chop some of the wood there, if I remember right. We had a really old landrover too which I was taken in to my posh girl's school on occasion!

We might have the chimney cleaned in our front room, so we might be able to have the odd fire there in the winter (can't afford anything too fancy). At the moment there's an electric heater there. We don't have the facility to store or collect a lot of fuel at the moment.

[ina]

I'm just wondering what you use all that energy for? Lots of freezers or so? I have less electricity than you, and no other form of energy input... OK, at the moment no heating, but hot water, cooking etc all is electric.

[pumpy]

I do love my Rayburn despite it costing as much to fit is as it did to buy it! When I had it fitted in 2004, oil was 16p a litre. At that time I calculated that I could get all our heating, cooking and hot water (including showering) for £500 per year. However, at it's peak, oil has cost me 49p a litre (£1500 a year!) - I flatly refused to pay 60p a litre and was running on fumes until the price came down! Fortunately a friend drives one of the oil delivery trucks and he was to call me when the price came below 50p. I will need to buy oil in the next couple of months and expect to be paying about 35p a litre.

So I guess heating, hot water and cooking will now be about £1000 a year or £91 a month. When you add in £17 a month for my leccy, thats £108 a month for me on my own which is.....well.....exhorbitant! That's spread out over a year though - the Rayburn is hardly on in the summer...but this makes the winter even more costly!

My only saving grace is that the Rayburn is 88% efficient, and being in the sticks, it's either LPG or oil. Solid fuel and commiting to Edinburgh just does not work!

We are all electric (& yes, 2 people can live as cheaply as one....... it's only the additional shower that costs extra), but our annual bill would be about half of yours, & we have storage heaters. With the price of fuel going the way that it is, ( i notice that oil prices are'nt increasing....... so are we being conned yet again), do you have a realistic alternative?

[Thurston Garden]

Ina I thought £17 for my leccy was pretty good. I have one fridge freezer only. No telly, low energy lights (which are hardly on), washing machine that might be on 6 times a month. My laptop is on every evening, but I use all the battery (charged whilst at work ), but my weakness will be my music - my amplifier and networked music player is on almost all the time I am at home.

Pumpy - there's not much alternative sadly. I live in a listed building away from mains services (bar leccy of course). Small power generation would not be allowed due to the building being listed, and the likes of a ground source heat pump would not be financially wise (I might move house in the next year or two). My only way to reduce my oil consumption is by a. batch cooking and freezing - this means that the Rayburn is on for the minimum of time in the evening for cooking. b. In the winter I shut the living room and spare room off and live in the least possible space. c. I am continually adding to insulation and heavy curtains - sadly with it being a listed building, I can't upgrade the old metal, diamond pane windows, and d. going to as many Masonic meetings during the winter as I can manage - thus not needing the heating or the lights on

[ina]

Ina I thought £17 for my leccy was pretty good. I have one fridge freezer only. No telly, low energy lights (which are hardly on), washing machine that might be on 6 times a month. My laptop is on every evening, but I use all the battery (charged whilst at work ), but my weakness will be my music - my amplifier and networked music player is on almost all the time I am at home.

Maybe it's your fridge-freezer - is it an old one? And the combined ones are supposed to be less efficient than separate, too... OK, and you should definitely start to learn an instrument and make your own music! Not the electric guitar, of course...

I've been paying £13.70/month (pre-pay), and that is for light, cooking, hot water, computer (quite a lot), washing machine (also about 6x/month).

How to save more electricity: eat more raw food - and no food that needs cooling - wear dirty clothes - wash in cold water.... I'd better stop!

[Thurston Garden]

Ina - my FF is 5 years old and was A rated from that Swedish emporium on the outskirts of Edinburgh. I am slowly working my way around my applances with a consumption meter - over the last 5 months, my kettle has cost me £2.80 a month...I rely on it for my caffine fix when the Rayburn is not on during the day. And yes, I am one step away from tipping one mugs worth of water into the kettle to boil

Instruments? Flute, mooth organ, peeeeanna, and drums (upturned biscuit tins and tupperware bowls), but hopeless at the lot!

[ina]

Instruments? Flute, mooth organ, peeeeanna, and drums (upturned biscuit tins and tupperware bowls), but hopeless at the lot!

Hey - that's an entire orchestra! And all without electricity...

Not that you can save a lot on the kettle - but I'm another step further than you on that: the minimum my kettle can boil is half a litre, i.e. two cups. So I have my trusty old flask sitting next to it, and I pour the unused boiling water into that. Still hot enough an hour or so later for another cup of coffee - and if it's tea I want (which does need proper boiling water), I top it up with more water to the minimum again; but this now boils faster, as it's at least warm already... (And now somebody will tell me tea only tastes right if you use fresh, cold water in the kettle each time! )

[Odsox]

(And now somebody will tell me tea only tastes right if you use fresh, cold water in the kettle each time! )

Tea only tastes right if you use freshly drawn cold water ..... there you are, ask and it shall be given

No idea about tea as I don't drink the stuff, but I do know (or so my taste buds tell me) that coffee made from fresh water tastes far better than water out of the loft water tank.
Ina you should get a smaller kettle, I have a Pifco one that is only a 2 mug size full and will boil 1/2 a cup if necessary.

[ina]

(And now somebody will tell me tea only tastes right if you use fresh, cold water in the kettle each time! )

Tea only tastes right if you use freshly drawn cold water ..... there you are, ask and it shall be given

No idea about tea as I don't drink the stuff, but I do know (or so my taste buds tell me) that coffee made from fresh water tastes far better than water out of the loft water tank.
Ina you should get a smaller kettle, I have a Pifco one that is only a 2 mug size full and will boil 1/2 a cup if necessary.

Thank you! And you are right about the water out of the tank. Yuk.

Well, if I buy a new kettle, that will increase my carbon footprint again... And I'd really still need the big one, because sometimes I make a large pot of tea or coffee!

[ellie12022]

Actually i use a flask too. like Ina. I have a flask which keeps water hot enough even overnight - it's an old one. It's brilliant for me, as I cannot drink drinks which are too hot and often waste them because by the time it's cooled down enough there's not enough time to drink it or I forget about it! I have a more modern flask but that doesn't stay warm for as long. I have not been able to compare costs but I feel it must be better to boil the kettle once with more water in than more frequently with smaller amounts.

Thurston Garden, I finally freecycled a flute I had when I was in school - I was pretty rubbish.
I was just wondering - how much does it cost to charge the laptop as compared to having it plugged in when you're using it?