Author Topic: How much electricity/gas does your household use?  (Read 11819 times)

vand

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How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« on: October 19, 2020, 09:32:15 AM »
Been reviewing all our bills both current and historic pending our house move, as well as doing my due dilligence on a possible solar PV conversion.

Do you have any idea how much energy your household uses?

Just reviewing our bills we seem to use roughly 12-13KwHs per day, so between 4.4k - 4.7k KwHs a year. This is in our current flat where everything runs on electric (no gas).  In our previous flat before that we used about 3.5k KwHs/yr although that place had gas too and I didn't have any old gas bills from that far back.

This seems to be pretty much in line with average quoted figures for UK homes. Don't know if that's reassuring or could do better... feels strange to be just average.

ExitViaTheCashRamp

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2020, 02:02:05 PM »
Interesting idea...

 We use: 5.6kWh per year on elec & 14kWh on gas...  and although you didn't ask 119m3 water.  Building was made in 1899 and so insulation is not really present ( e.g. solid not cavity walls) .

 

SpreadsheetMan

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2020, 03:01:18 PM »
We use 2k kwh elec and 14k kwh gas. 1930s semi with solid walls, so not great on energy efficiency.

I've made as many energy saving measures as are practical, but the construction of the house means it can't be economically improved much.

vand

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2020, 10:52:08 PM »
I found some bills from 2013 telling me that we had used 5.5k Kwh over the previous 12 months. Damn, that is higher than I thought.

Have to admit its not surprising though. We never do stuff like turn plug sockets off at the mains, and we hate energy efficient bulbs so all our lights are nomal halogen. I guess it all adds up.

SpreadsheetMan

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2020, 11:33:29 PM »
I found some bills from 2013 telling me that we had used 5.5k Kwh over the previous 12 months. Damn, that is higher than I thought.

Have to admit its not surprising though. We never do stuff like turn plug sockets off at the mains, and we hate energy efficient bulbs so all our lights are nomal halogen. I guess it all adds up.
I didn’t like the poor colour temperatures of led halogen replacements either. A couple of years back I found the Integral Lighting “real colour” high cri gu10 led lamps really  are indistinguishable from halogen, I replaced all my 50w halogen with them and it made a big power saving.

Chuck Ditallin

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #5 on: October 20, 2020, 10:14:04 AM »
We use about 3.6kWH a year and about 2500l of heating oil (no mains gas...)

We've done all the sensible things; our bulbs are warm white LEDs, our heating is underfloor (at least downstairs), we've insulated the walls, which are 9" single skin, we've added extra insulation to the loft, we bought solar panels about 4 years ago and try to run appliances when the sun's shining...

... but we live in the country and it's just a lot colder in winter than in an urban heat island.

Netting out the FIT payments against the electricity bill, we pay less than £100 a year in electricity costs (and sometimes nothing if the sun shines a lot!) The heating oil probably costs about £500-£800 depending on the oil price at the time; we paid 19.5p/l when we topped up last, but it's 26.25p/l at the moment.

TacheTastic

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #6 on: October 20, 2020, 02:58:47 PM »
Ooh, interesting topic. You made me look. Like ExitViaTheCashRamp my house was built in 1899 or thereabouts, so single skin brick. 2 bed terrace, double glazing but the contents of the loft are a mystery. Electric oven and hob. Gas central heating and water. Single occupant.

My electric bills says I have used 1010 kWh this year. My gas bill says my usage is up to about 8500 kWh per year, but that two years ago it was nearer 6500. I am horrified at myself. I have got very lax at setting the heating to go off when I am not here.

I am about to change some radiators which will hopefully make things better, but also I have got rid of the gas fire and (bodged) boarded the fireplace temporarily.

PhilB

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #7 on: October 20, 2020, 04:04:56 PM »
Just checked and we used 4,100 kWh over the last 12 months - higher than normal because of fewer holidays.  No mains gas, but about one 47kg propane cylinder a year for the hob.  Around 1,000 litres of heating oil and 2- 3 cubic metres of wood for the woodburner.  Oil consumption probably halved when we installed the woodburner.

Slow road to freedom

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #8 on: October 26, 2020, 03:11:35 PM »
About 12k - 14k kWh pa; although that does include charging our car.

We’ve been experimenting with half-hourly ‘market’ electricity rates, and had our first ‘price plunge’ yesterday when we were paid to use excess grid power (overnight).*

We’ve also been toying with solar and battery, but the payback doesn’t work for me at present (for southern England).

Slow road


* if anyone is remotely interested, feel free to DM me.

Ducknald Don

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #9 on: October 30, 2020, 03:25:43 AM »
11,854 kWh. Most of it goes on the storage heaters and hot water. We are planning to move in the next couple of years so I don't have the inclination to change it.

CrabbitDutchie

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #10 on: November 01, 2020, 12:42:10 PM »
Electric 3 bed flat, with storage heaters and both of us home full time since the start of march.

Electric use is just over 4,000 kWh over the last 12 months. Higher than usual for us, but maybe still not too bad overall

PhilB

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #11 on: November 03, 2020, 12:42:20 AM »
I just had an email from my provider increasing my Direct Debit from £43 a month to £52 a month.  Eeyore was affronted for a moment, until I pointed out we were away for 10 weeks last year and none this so I think that's pretty reasonable.

skip207

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #12 on: November 11, 2020, 02:25:30 AM »
We use 9-10,000kWh a year I think.

Works out about £100 a month.

Main costs are EUFH in the winter and hot tub for a couple of months in the summer.

If you take those out it would probably half.

dashuk

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #13 on: November 11, 2020, 04:46:48 AM »
Gas: 9-10,000 kWh, of which I estimate about 80% space heating, 20% hot water based on the summer/winter profile.

Electricity: 2000-2250 kWh. All our cooking, plus all the other usual stuff.

Water: ~90m3 pa

1950's 3-bed council house. Cavity walls with retrofit blown insulation of questionable effectiveness. Two adults, two kids (6 and 3). Was starting to work up a plan for proper deep retrofit, then we decided we were moving.


For reference, OFGEM publishes 'Typical Domestic Consumption Values' for gas and electric. Their low/medium/high values are the lower quartile, median, and upper quartile respectively for the last two years of actual usage.

Electricity (single rate meters): L 1800kWh, M 2900kWh, H 4300 kWh.

Electricity (Economy 7 meters): 2400/4200/7100 with a 58%/42% average split between high/low rates.

Gas: 8000/12000/17000

The scary thing for me is that there's a quarter of households using more than the 'high' value.

Can't find that level of detail for water, but looks like average is 54m3 for single occupant, more or less linear up to 191m3 for a household of 5.

TacheTastic

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #14 on: November 11, 2020, 10:28:01 AM »
For reference, OFGEM publishes 'Typical Domestic Consumption Values' for gas and electric. Their low/medium/high values are the lower quartile, median, and upper quartile respectively for the last two years of actual usage.

Thank you for these figures, they are very interesting.

Ducknald Don

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #15 on: November 14, 2020, 06:37:31 AM »
Electricity (Economy 7 meters): 2400/4200/7100 with a 58%/42% average split between high/low rates.

Gas: 8000/12000/17000

The scary thing for me is that there's a quarter of households using more than the 'high' value.

When I had my flat I never turned the heating on in the three years I was there, the people that lived under me liked their flat really warm :) The problem with that was I didn't even consider storage heaters a problem when I bought a house.

vand

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #16 on: January 20, 2021, 05:07:12 AM »
We got our water meter fitted a couple of weeks ago, so we are now masters of our own usage.

So far looks like we are using around 250ltr of water per day.. very roughly 90-100m3 per year. That's for both us us at home in lockdown - if the world ever gets back it normal we can hopefully expect that to go down.

Hopefully it's going to work out much cheaper than being on unmetered.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2021, 05:14:20 AM by vand »

vand

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #17 on: February 03, 2021, 03:41:14 AM »
We just got a smart meter fitted in our new abode so it's much easier for me to see how we are consuming energy.

Although it's only a few days of data in the middle of winter in the middle of WFH/Lockdown, so not exactly representative of typical usage, it's interesting to see the balance between electricity and gas that we are currently using.

It seems that we have pretty low electricity usage.. on track to average about £40-45/month. Gas usage at the moment s much higher, on track to average £90-100/month

Yearly consumption would be 2600kWh of electricity and 37,000kWh of gas at those rates of consumption, but of course we'd expect gas usage to drop substantially when it's not winter.

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For those with gas boilers - what temperature do you set your hot water to? I lowered ours down from 60c to 58c but I think we could potentially lower it a few degrees further.

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #18 on: February 09, 2021, 08:20:21 AM »
In the last year we've used about 2.8 MWh electricity and 10.6MWh gas. That's for 4 people constantly at home (2 adults, 2 smallish children).  It's an old house (1860s maybe?) with single skin walls, questionable loft insulation, but a tall thin terrace, and we've double glazed everything, so it's hopefully better than it used to be (of course we've now swapped drafts for damp so you can't really win....)

I think our boiler runs on 46 or 48 degrees for radiators and hot water which I've just Googled and sounds like it is pretty low!  We wanted it cool enough that there was no real risk of the children doing themselves serious harm by grabbing a hot pipe or turning the hot tap on, but I should probably research whether there are good reasons to run it higher (so far I've only seen Legionella risk as a reason to run hotter, but given it's a Combi and we don't have a tank that's not a risk).

We did have a smart meter but then switched supplier so it went dumb again.  I believe with SMETS2 they will be able to stay smart when you switch (and maybe even the old SMETS1 meters might come to life once they've finished the DCC roll out?)  So hopefully we'll have a better idea of our pattern of use at some point....

My friend who uses least energy is a gym instructor so never showers at home (and generally - absent Covid - isn't home much at all!)  We're less extreme but do try to run the house fairly cool (thermostat is generally set to 19 or 20) and wear jumpers etc. when needed.

vand

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #19 on: June 28, 2021, 04:09:32 AM »
Since the smart meters were all installed at the beginning of the year, our annualised consumption has been roughly:

2.2k kWh electric
12k kWh gas
82 cub mtr water

As the weather this year has generally been cold as hell we were still using the central heating up until last month but it hasn't been on at all this month, and has really cut our energy usage this month, so depending on how the weather plays out I think we could end up using around 10k kWh for the year.

Based on this data I've actually decided not to press ahead with the Solar PV installation for the time being as it just wouldn't make economical sense to do so right now. We'd need to lay out about £8k which would cut our electric bill by £250-300/yr so the RoI would be poorer than I could reasonably expect by investing the money instead.

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #20 on: October 29, 2021, 12:12:17 AM »
3.5 kwh in the last year here, no gas or oil, some wood for the stoves but not much as I only light them in winter evenings. Water not metered, I should probably do that.

Usage is higher over winter and low in the summer because all heating is electric, mostly underfloor.  Last winter's use looks high, probably through being at home most of the day because of the pandemic, plus I'm wastefully heating (parts of) a house for only one person.  I've done all the usual insulation/solar gain work, including external insulation on the older part of the house, but no solar because of the orientation of the house and the configuration of the roof (complicated and lots of skylights).  Hot water usage is particularly low because the wash is cold and hot water for showers is point of use electric rather than a wasteful tank.

Given that there's been no need for heating yet this year and we're at the end of October this year should be less: I've got plenty of wood from clearing the garden so will use the stoves more - I'm rural so there's no one to be bothered by the smoke.  I need to get winter heating use down if I'm to get to the low usage in the OFGEM figures posted by dashuk.

PhilB

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #21 on: October 29, 2021, 12:28:02 AM »
3.5 kwh in the last year here, no gas or oil, some wood for the stoves but not much as I only light them in winter evenings. Water not metered, I should probably do that.

Usage is higher over winter and low in the summer because all heating is electric, mostly underfloor.  Last winter's use looks high, probably through being at home most of the day because of the pandemic, plus I'm wastefully heating (parts of) a house for only one person.  I've done all the usual insulation/solar gain work, including external insulation on the older part of the house, but no solar because of the orientation of the house and the configuration of the roof (complicated and lots of skylights).  Hot water usage is particularly low because the wash is cold and hot water for showers is point of use electric rather than a wasteful tank.

Given that there's been no need for heating yet this year and we're at the end of October this year should be less: I've got plenty of wood from clearing the garden so will use the stoves more - I'm rural so there's no one to be bothered by the smoke.  I need to get winter heating use down if I'm to get to the low usage in the OFGEM figures posted by dashuk.

A good excuse for an extended break somewhere warmer?

Jacinle

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #22 on: October 31, 2021, 01:51:26 AM »
I wonder if you found the usage is correlated with the EPC ratings or not?


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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #23 on: October 31, 2021, 02:04:56 AM »
3.5 kwh in the last year here, no gas or oil, some wood for the stoves but not much as I only light them in winter evenings. Water not metered, I should probably do that.

Usage is higher over winter and low in the summer because all heating is electric, mostly underfloor.  Last winter's use looks high, probably through being at home most of the day because of the pandemic, plus I'm wastefully heating (parts of) a house for only one person.  I've done all the usual insulation/solar gain work, including external insulation on the older part of the house, but no solar because of the orientation of the house and the configuration of the roof (complicated and lots of skylights).  Hot water usage is particularly low because the wash is cold and hot water for showers is point of use electric rather than a wasteful tank.

Given that there's been no need for heating yet this year and we're at the end of October this year should be less: I've got plenty of wood from clearing the garden so will use the stoves more - I'm rural so there's no one to be bothered by the smoke.  I need to get winter heating use down if I'm to get to the low usage in the OFGEM figures posted by dashuk.

A good excuse for an extended break somewhere warmer?
Unfortunately as an exercise in getting carbon usage down it would have the opposite effect - I've already gone about as far south as I can in the UK.

I wonder if you found the usage is correlated with the EPC ratings or not?
I think possibly the biggest change I've noticed since finishing the work on the insulation is that the house is a lot more comfortable.  The change in energy usage is there and over time will add up but the immediately noticeable effect has been on my living standard.

Jacinle

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #24 on: October 31, 2021, 02:30:30 AM »
I think possibly the biggest change I've noticed since finishing the work on the insulation is that the house is a lot more comfortable.  The change in energy usage is there and over time will add up but the immediately noticeable effect has been on my living standard.
How much your rating goes up after the insulation work?  And how long will you recoup your investment thru the (rising) energy bill?

I am in a rental with a low D rating at the moment.
I wonder if a low C would make a difference or have to jump to B.
However, it seems most properties , 1930, Victorian, 1990, double glazed, that I have viewed are all with low D / E
Only a few Edwardian Terrace are with a low C. ( from EPC report, they seem to have a cavity wall which give them a few more points to push them into C)

New built is B but significantly rare and must more expensive.

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #25 on: October 31, 2021, 03:12:32 AM »
I think possibly the biggest change I've noticed since finishing the work on the insulation is that the house is a lot more comfortable.  The change in energy usage is there and over time will add up but the immediately noticeable effect has been on my living standard.
How much your rating goes up after the insulation work?  And how long will you recoup your investment thru the (rising) energy bill?

I am in a rental with a low D rating at the moment.
I wonder if a low C would make a difference or have to jump to B.
However, it seems most properties , 1930, Victorian, 1990, double glazed, that I have viewed are all with low D / E
Only a few Edwardian Terrace are with a low C. ( from EPC report, they seem to have a cavity wall which give them a few more points to push them into C)

New built is B but significantly rare and must more expensive.
I bought the house before energy ratings were a thing, and won't need to get one unless I sell or rent out, so that's not happening.  I did put internal wall insulation into a rental house that was single skin concrete block (it is a neighbouring property to mine that I was rescuing it from being a tear down) which with two new double glazed windows was enough to bring it up from EPC F to D.  I still need to add to the loft insulation which should bring it up to C.

When I bought my house it was concrete block walls (the kind with hollow centres), two electric storage heaters and no insulation in the roof - I mean, none at all.  The first thing to do was fifteen inches of insulation in the small loft.  The first floor of the house is partially built into the roof so the next thing was insulating board between the sloping ceilings and the roof.  A full renovation of the kitchen included a new insulated and electrically heated concrete slab where there used to be a suspended wood floor.  The final work on the old house was external insulation.  There was already uPVC double glazing but it was badly fitted with a tendency to get condensation and mold around the frames, the external insulation made a big difference with that and the existing double glazing is now working as it should.  I've also put a single room extension on the house (previously just a two up two down) which is built to modern insulation standards and gets a lot of solar gain from south facing windows.  The older part of the house is not quite up to that standard after all the renovations but pretty close, although it doesn't get quite the same solar gain.   (There was a much more noticeable difference before the external insulation.) I'm not using heating yet and have the internal doors open between both parts of the house.  There is one room in the older part of the house that is north facing, I'd probably light the stove if I were going to sit in there for long now.

I haven't added up the cost of all the work, it's taken place over the last 18 years and been funded out of income as I've gone along so I've never needed to - I might have to if I sold up because CGT will be payable on a few of those years and I've got the records if I need them.  It has been thousands over multiple years, though.  Insulating the roof was cheap, renovating the kitchen was not, external insulation was a few thousand.  If you have the time and fitness it would be possible to DIY the insulation part of the external insulation and then get a specialist in to render over it.

I could add up my old energy bills but haven't got the usage records other than for the last year.  The bills have gone down until just recently, although there have also been changes of circumstances involved - I kept the kitchen a lot warmer for my previous dog's old age than I do for the current young dog, for instance, so exact comparisons would be tricky.  It's those sorts of changes in circumstances plus the change in comfort levels that make exact monetary comparisons and estimates of cost savings difficult.

Being in a rental makes it more difficult.  If there is something relatively simple that could improve things, such as loft insulation or draft proofing, it might be worth talking to your landlord about it.  I'm also a landlord and tend to reserve upgrades for periods between tenancies so as not to disturb the tenant or have to make tricky arrangements between tenant and trades, so for instance I've got a void coming up and will be using that to put in extra loft insulation rather than having to put a tenant to major inconvenience having it done around them.  If a tenant came to me and said "can you get this relatively simple and cheap thing done, or can you buy the materials and let me do it" I would jump at that.  But once the easy cheap things are done you are at the mercy of the rental market, I'm afraid.  If I had a standard Victorian or Edwardian terrace and were looking at the long term then after putting in roof insulation and primary or secondary double glazing I would put in an air source heat pump with underfloor heating in an insulated concrete slab throughout the ground floor and think about insulating the walls (internal at the front, either internal or external at the back).  It would be a significant investment and I don't think landlords can get grants or subsidies though, so until 2025 at the earliest when gas boilers start being phased out I can't see most landlords getting involved in that sort of work.

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #26 on: October 31, 2021, 09:01:04 AM »
I wouldn't take a lot of notice of an EPC. They aren't measuring what you think they are.

Fisrt, they are normalised so the rating is based on energy use per square metre so a 200 sq.m. house with a D rating is likely (though not necessarily) to use four times as much energy as a D rated property of 50 sq.m.

The postulated energy use per square metre should be shown towards the end of the EPC, however that's depends on the assumptions made in the calculation. The EPC for our house gives an estimated consumption of 268kWh/sm/year. We're actually running at about 160kWh/sm/year and the insulation is slightly worse as I'm in the middle of improving it.

Improving insulation doesn't have much impact on the EPC. I've done some EPC calcs for this house. As it stands with fair but not outstanding levels of insulation the EPC rating is D, 57, 288kWh/sm/year. Improving the insulation to the maximum feasible amount without rebuilding the house  changes the EPC to D, 67, 217kWhr/sm/year.

However, adding a substantial PV system moves the EPC up to a B, 86 as the house is at the moment or an A, 96 with extra insulation.

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #27 on: October 31, 2021, 12:00:50 PM »
Yes, you get marked down in an EPC for having any old-type lightbulbs, even if it's one in a cupboard or loft that gets turned on once a year.

Jacinle

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #28 on: November 03, 2021, 03:48:33 AM »


Being in a rental makes it more difficult.  If there is something relatively simple that could improve things, such as loft insulation or draft proofing, it might be worth talking to your landlord about it.

Learnt a new thing - Draft proofing - looks fairly cheap to implement.

I think or I felt the cold on the double glazed window, especially the big sliding window opening to the double glazed observatory.  Is it worth to buy thick curtains?

PhilB

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #29 on: November 03, 2021, 05:13:05 AM »


Being in a rental makes it more difficult.  If there is something relatively simple that could improve things, such as loft insulation or draft proofing, it might be worth talking to your landlord about it.

Learnt a new thing - Draft proofing - looks fairly cheap to implement.

I think or I felt the cold on the double glazed window, especially the big sliding window opening to the double glazed observatory.  Is it worth to buy thick curtains?

Curtains would definitely break up the convection currents taking cooled air from the sliding window to the rest of the room.  Whether the resultant reduction in heating bills would pay for the curtains though would depend an awful lot on the cost of the curtains.

More importantly though, you have an observatory?  Do tell.

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #30 on: November 03, 2021, 06:03:44 AM »
Curtains can be made with a layer of insulating fabric between the front fabric and the lining.  Coupled with a curtain track or rod that fits close to the wall full length curtains like this can be very effective.  But fabric on a big scale is not particularly cheap, although of course the curtains can be taken with you when you move.

Jacinle

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #31 on: November 03, 2021, 06:43:09 AM »

Curtains would definitely break up the convection currents taking cooled air from the sliding window to the rest of the room.  Whether the resultant reduction in heating bills would pay for the curtains though would depend an awful lot on the cost of the curtains.

More importantly though, you have an observatory?  Do tell.

oh, in my sub-conscious I want an observatory, though I think it's more for cloud-gazing :P

sorry the conservatory

PhilB

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #32 on: November 03, 2021, 07:42:37 AM »

Curtains would definitely break up the convection currents taking cooled air from the sliding window to the rest of the room.  Whether the resultant reduction in heating bills would pay for the curtains though would depend an awful lot on the cost of the curtains.

More importantly though, you have an observatory?  Do tell.

oh, in my sub-conscious I want an observatory, though I think it's more for cloud-gazing :P

sorry the conservatory

I think you should definitely rename it the observatory!

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #33 on: November 03, 2021, 12:44:44 PM »
I think you should definitely rename it the observatory!

We had an impromptu observatory set up on the top level of a multi-storey car park (with permission) last night - a friend had borrowed a very large telescope.

ExitViaTheCashRamp

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #34 on: September 22, 2022, 12:28:34 PM »
Interesting idea...

 We use: 5,600 kWh per year on elec & 14,000 kWh on gas...  and although you didn't ask 119m3 water.  Building was made in 1899 and so insulation is not really present ( e.g. solid not cavity walls) .

 I happened upon this old post of mine looking for something else. Was dam handy as I had been wondering how effective our energy reduction plans had been over the past 12 months since prices soared. British gas are estimating that we will use 4,900 KWh for elec and 10,800KWh for gas -- a fairly good reduction. This winter though we are really cutting back on the thermostat, from 20-22 degrees down to between 13-18 depending on the time of day, I think we should knock off another 500KWh at least from electricity.

 I thought about that more -- by cutting out some of more energy hungry devices I am burning a full megawatt hour less of electricity and probably going to burn 6 or 7 megawatt hour of less gas ! That to me is mind blowing ! According to some site I just read, that is enough to toast 623,000 slices of bread !


<edit>  Went hunting through my older e-mails, found in 2019 we burnt 6,900 KWh elec and 16,500 KWh gas - wow we have cut down incredibly over the past couple of years and small investments into insulation. Makes me a bit ashamed really !
« Last Edit: September 22, 2022, 12:40:10 PM by ExitViaTheCashRamp »

MisterA

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #35 on: September 23, 2022, 04:33:12 AM »
Seeing this thread active again spurred me to check our usage, from our bills. It is:

Electricity 3,500kwh
Gas 18,500kwh
So high!

We're in a large 4-bed '70's house, insulated loft and cavities insulated, new double glazing, thermostatic radiator valves on all radiators and zoned central heating (so we can control the upstairs totally independently of the downstairs). There are 4 of us in the house, but nobody home during the day, so the heating is off Monday-Friday 08:00-15:30hrs.

By coincidence we're having a smart meter fitted today, so that should prove interesting. I haven't always read the meter as often as I should, and we're currently £1250 in credit. Maybe our usage is exaggerated? Anyway, the smart meter will resolve that problem.

We've also had a wood-burner installed this year and have a (temporary) supply of free wood, so that will help a little this winter, although it's really more for the aesthetics of a real log fire.

LightTripper

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #36 on: September 26, 2022, 02:51:55 AM »
I've just looked at our latest projection (for a 4 bed Victorian terrace with gas hob and gas central heating - double glazed but most of it single brick exterior walls - out during the day most days - or if it's just me at home I don't turn the heating on except in extremis).

Electricity 2,053 kWh (was 2,800kWh checking up thread)
Gas 7,169 kWh (was 10,600kWh checking up thread)

I'm actually surprised how much it's come down - but the difference is that with those higher numbers is that we were home pretty much all the time due to Covid, and we had a nanny at home with us a lot of the time - so that's the benefit of having people out of the house during the day I guess (and also telling ourselves but not our nanny to put a jumper on before turning the thermostat up :)  )  I'm a bit surprised the electricity has come down that much, as I would guess we use the oven more than we used to - but maybe now even our youngest is out of nappies and a bit less likely to get through multiple sets of clothes in a day we use the washing machine less... and we do now have exclusively low energy light bulbs though I wouldn't have thought that would make so much difference?

We do try to be careful with the thermostat (and will be turning it down lower this year given shortages/Ukraine) - but I'm sure we'll actually use less this year if this is based on previous years' consumption.  It will be interesting to see how much less we can use.
« Last Edit: September 26, 2022, 02:56:28 AM by LightTripper »

LightTripper

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #37 on: September 26, 2022, 03:05:21 AM »
So I just managed to find our 2018/19 usage too (when we would have been in quite a lot due to having a pre-schooler - but not as much as during the pandemic, and I think possibly even before we'd finished doing our double-glazing):

Fuel         2018/19       2020/21         2021/22
Elec            2.5                 2.8                   2.1
Gas           10.3                 7.2                   7.2

We're definitely going to try to get gas down (not sure there's much we can do about electricity as we already don't use the tumble dryer and try to turn lights off etc., try to make sure the oven is full when we do use it so we get the full benefit, etc. - in fact it could even go up as I plan to be home more).  Will be interesting to see how much more difference we can make to the gas though.

vand

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #38 on: September 26, 2022, 03:22:06 AM »
Since the smart meters were all installed at the beginning of the year, our annualised consumption has been roughly:

2.2k kWh electric
12k kWh gas
82 cub mtr water

As the weather this year has generally been cold as hell we were still using the central heating up until last month but it hasn't been on at all this month, and has really cut our energy usage this month, so depending on how the weather plays out I think we could end up using around 10k kWh for the year.

Based on this data I've actually decided not to press ahead with the Solar PV installation for the time being as it just wouldn't make economical sense to do so right now. We'd need to lay out about £8k which would cut our electric bill by £250-300/yr so the RoI would be poorer than I could reasonably expect by investing the money instead.

So far this year:

Elec 1813 kWh
Gas 4607 kWh

Elec will probably go to ~2500kWh and Gas to 8-9000kWh over the remainder of the year

TBH I'm really pleased with our lowish energy consumption given our house size. I mean, sure it could be lower still, but I feel we're "doing our bit" as well as keeping our bills as modest as comfortable.
« Last Edit: September 26, 2022, 03:24:18 AM by vand »

shackleford

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #39 on: September 26, 2022, 03:54:03 AM »
This is a huge focus for people right now.  I live on my own in a two bed flat in Aberdeen built around 2000 (I think).  I WFH most days but also travel for work for a few days every couple of weeks. 

Usage in the 365 days to 4th Sep 2022 (the last day I went to the SSE website and grabbed the numbers):
Electricity - 1009 kwh
Gas -2908 kwh

Pretty happy with those numbers; I'm probably an outlier!  I was "careful" with my energy use long before it became trendy.... including just wrapping up warm in winter rather than have my GCH on all day.  I will probably be going into the office a bit more frequently this winter too!  I may well be moving in with my partner next year - she is from a warmer country and is a bit more profligate / normal with her energy use, so I'll have to mentally prepare for those bills....   

ExitViaTheCashRamp

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #40 on: September 26, 2022, 09:53:24 AM »
Since my last post been trying to figure out our electricity usage a little more. Our electricity consumption over the summer works out at ~10.5KWh per day, we thought this was mostly on our computers (all four of us spend a LOT of time on them).
 After using electricity monitor (kill-a-watt) - turns out the computers at most burn 4KWh, electric shower we estimate is another 1KWh. Washing machine probably burns most of another KWh averaged over a week and the tumble dryer is now only used in the winter, almost never use the dishwasher (1 KWh if you do).... so where was the rest ? Microwave, kettle are of course energy hungry but on for that long each day. Phone chargers, clocks and lights are another KWh and a bit.

 Turns out the fridge/freezer burns 1.6KWh a day ! That one kind of knocked me for six - never really thought about that appliance, on the day it breaks down it's replacement is going to have a lot more consideration.

 You guys gas consumption really puts me to shame, face punches will be accepted :)

MisterA

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #41 on: September 27, 2022, 05:28:42 AM »
We should probably revive the "how early do you turn your heating on" thread. I've been under pressure already, but not succumbed. 6 degrees tonight, where I am.

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #42 on: September 27, 2022, 05:36:29 AM »
Oh dear.  I think I'm probably the furthest south of everyone on the UK board, and every autumn I'm looking around furtively to see who has put their heating on so I can put mine on without feeling too guilty.

(My Ukrainian guests arrive tomorrow evening, so I will light their stove before going to collect them, but I'm not counting that.)

I did fetch my hot water bottle out, though, and it has had its first outing of the autumn.  I hope there isn't also a competition for last first use in autumn of a hot water bottle.

MisterA

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #43 on: September 27, 2022, 08:50:13 AM »
(My Ukrainian guests arrive tomorrow evening, so I will light their stove before going to collect them, but I'm not counting that.)
We've had one since May, pm me if you want to compare notes.

GilesMM

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #44 on: October 21, 2022, 07:40:22 AM »
If it is any consolation, the average American family uses more than double the electricity you use and most have gas furnace and water heater!

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20average%20annual,about%20886%20kWh%20per%20month.

former player

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #45 on: October 21, 2022, 07:58:05 AM »
If it is any consolation, the average American family uses more than double the electricity you use and most have gas furnace and water heater!

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20average%20annual,about%20886%20kWh%20per%20month.
No consolation at all, more like something for the depressed about climate change thread.

ExitViaTheCashRamp

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #46 on: December 31, 2022, 01:11:14 PM »
Although the wife has had to spend the last two months in multiple layers, we have managed to reduce our consumption considerably. I've made an estimate on the meters reading from 1st Jan '22 to now and it comes out as 4805KWh for elec and 9090KWh for gas -- 15% drop in elec use from the previous year and 36% less gas, can't say I'm not a bit proud about that..     (60% drop in gas use from our 2012 usage :O)

 Happy New Year everyone !

valsecito

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #47 on: January 01, 2023, 05:17:47 PM »
At our place, we consume ~9000 kWh in total: ~2000 kWh of electricity and ~7000 kWh of natural gas per year in a ~120m2 (~1300sqft) townhouse. We'll most probably switch to a heat pump when the natural gas heater gives up. That should shave off another 5000 kWh or so.

Moderating energy consumption makes sense everywhere for ecological reasons. Here in the EU, just like on the islands on the EU coast, it also makes a lot of sense for economical reasons...
« Last Edit: January 01, 2023, 05:22:13 PM by valsecito »

monarda

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #48 on: January 01, 2023, 06:07:23 PM »
Electricity we average 14-15 kWh/day, much more in winter than in summer because of heating with the heat pump minisplit. We have an electric water heater, that's our big user.
I like to express gas usage as therms per degree day. In winter that's been 0.07. (about 1000 sq ft is heated by gas, 600 sq ft is heated by the heat pump)

Therms per degree day takes into account the outside temperature and is an indirect indicator of insulation quality. I think it makes it easier to compare one house to another.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2023, 09:54:11 AM by monarda »

MisterA

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Re: How much electricity/gas does your household use?
« Reply #49 on: January 06, 2023, 06:00:34 AM »
December was freeezing! Now that we have a smart-meter, I can monitor exactly what we use, which was:

December
Gas: £186 / 1713kWh
Electricity: £126 / 336kWh
Total bill for December was £312

That's a large 70's 4-bedroom detached house, occupied all day. We only had the gas heating on for a few hours each day, and also have a wood-burner which we used occasionally. But, we were freezing for much of the month! And, a couple of pipes froze during the cold snap (loft and garage), but fortunately didn't burst.

By contrast, talking to people, I'm hearing figures of between £700-800 just for December. Did we go over the top, and not have the heating on enough?
« Last Edit: January 06, 2023, 06:14:49 AM by MisterA »