What should we do about rising energy prices?

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Nick
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#76 Re: What should we do about rising energy prices?

Post by Nick »

it about heating the usage
Yep, that's what I tried to calculate. Bear in mind the 60C minimum water temp in the tank you need to maintain.
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#77 Re: What should we do about rising energy prices?

Post by vinylnvalves »

Steve. It sounds like your thinking of putting the panels up or are they existing? Solar hot water panels are a more efficient way to get DHW. A guy up the road has some old radiators painted black on a south facing wall, which he claims works well, he uses a gravity cycle to move the water around. Our pumped vacuum tubes ( 3 m2) have already warmed our tank upto 70 degs today.
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#78 Re: What should we do about rising energy prices?

Post by steve s »

No solar panels yet Steve, the idea of using old rads sounds good too,

I'm still thinking on it, that's why I posted
Good ideas
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#79 Re: What should we do about rising energy prices?

Post by vinylnvalves »

PV Panels and batteries are probably the best saving long term... have to sell a few of those dodgy prewar tubes to pay for it though. It’s VAT free currently too. As with your DHT’s it will be costing 40p per hour to listen to music, suppose it heats the house in winter too. :D
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#80 Re: What should we do about rising energy prices?

Post by jack »

Just downloaded our last 3 years day & night electricity from Bulb, bunged it into Google Sheets (which is lovely, BTW) and graphed out what we're using and when.

Using a year as from 24th May to 23st May, we joined Bulb on 23th May 2019 our first year (the baseline) was 23/05/19 -> 22/05/20.

So, as of 23/05/21, 2021 we had used 11% less than in the previous 12 months
...and as of 16/05/22 we have used 22% less than in the previous period and 32% overall reduction in the last two years.

Pretty consistently, we are using 25% of our kWh overnight - difficult to up that as the main user of energy, the heat pump, can't prioritize E7 (it doesn't work like that), but things like dishwasher & washing machine can (and we always run them at about 02:00 anyway).

So, 32% down over a two year period and I want another 10+% reduction this year - all LED lighting now and heat pump has had major update.

Still a lot of money though...
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andrew Ivimey
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#81 Re: What should we do about rising energy prices?

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Well we're down to about £10 a week now....

However we were away all last week and when we got home we found that our 'smart meter' showed we'd used 164kWH in gas even though the house was locked up and the gas switched off.

After a couple of very stressful hours on the phone, mostly waiting 'we are experiencing a high blah blah....', it transpires that smart meters are not only not smart they can be very inaccurate ( e.g. 164kWH a week).

These smart meters are ubiquitous tho' e-on said they are bringing out a new model....soon.

The only way to manage and measure one's usage is to read the actual gas and lecky meters.....ho humm.
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#82 Re: What should we do about rising energy prices?

Post by jack »

andrew Ivimey wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 5:09 pm Well we're down to about £10 a week now....
Luxury! For the whole property, we're at about 9 times that, but that includes a cottage and my offices etc. I want to bring that down at about £60/pw or (obviously) less if I can.
andrew Ivimey wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 5:09 pm However we were away all last week and when we got home we found that our 'smart meter' showed we'd used 164kWH in gas even though the house was locked up and the gas switched off...

...The only way to manage and measure one's usage is to read the actual gas and lecky meters.....ho humm.
Indeed. That's exactly what I'm doing. Everything is being measured. Eat your heart out Heisenburg!
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#83 Re: What should we do about rising energy prices?

Post by andrew Ivimey »

You sound very certain about it!
Philosophers have only interpreted the world - the point, however, is to change it. No it isn't ... maybe we should leave it alone for a while.
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#84 Re: What should we do about rising energy prices?

Post by jack »

andrew Ivimey wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 6:01 pm You sound very certain about it!
I thought I was but not so sure now...
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#85 Re: What should we do about rising energy prices?

Post by andrew Ivimey »

Bummer!
Philosophers have only interpreted the world - the point, however, is to change it. No it isn't ... maybe we should leave it alone for a while.
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#86 Re: What should we do about rising energy prices?

Post by jack »

Standby?

Not all it may seem for older devices.

I have two duplex colour laser printers, both Lexmark: a C543 and an X543dn (same printer but with a scanner) - one in the main house, one in my office in another building. Really excellent printers but probably 10 years old now and we're recently marked "EOL" by Lexmark.

Turns out that in "Low power standby" they each still draw nearly 50W, i.e. leaving both on in standby will now cost about £300 for the year as they each consume about 440 kWh/pa.

Luckily, they're the only such devices.
Last edited by jack on Wed May 18, 2022 10:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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#87 Re: What should we do about rising energy prices?

Post by ed »

one of those random thoughts just arrived.......I was daydreaming about the advent of people tunneling into their neighbours under stair cupboard to connect up an extension....
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#88 Re: What should we do about rising energy prices?

Post by Cressy Snr »

That reminds me of Ritchie and Eddie (Bottom) stealing gas from neighbour Mr Rottweiler (Brian Glover) then assaulting the gas man before gaffer taping him to the ceiling, so as to prevent him discovering the jury rigged connection. :lol:
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#89 Re: What should we do about rising energy prices?

Post by vinylnvalves »

Standby of devices is something I need to look at in our house. The TV and TiVo box go into sleep mode, how much power they draw I haven’t worked out yet. Bet my music server which is one all the time is costing more than I realise.

Connecting upto next doors power supply reminds me of being a student, when a Hong Kong student who lived next door but one, had a phone handset, that he connected up via crocodile clips to the phone box to ring home for “free”.
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#90 Re: What should we do about rising energy prices?

Post by Ant »

We have a pre pay electricity meter here that we inherited when we got the house which i never bothered getting changed as british gas wanted an extortionate amount to change it. It was a couple of hundred quid 12 years ago to swap the meter.
We pay a higher rate and i think a higher standing charge.

But, you always know what you are paying. Everything other than the heating and hot water is electric, we had a solid fuel heating system when we got the place and had a gas boiler installed a few years later so havent had gas here that long. I ki d of miss the old parkray sometimes.

We have 2 huge fish tanks and their associated pumps, lights, dosing pumps, cooling fans, and bloody great external canister filters. These cost quite a bit to run, so i was putting between 30 and 40 quid a week on the meter before the price hike
There are 5 game consoles and 1 gaming pc that are practically constantly on, and other things like the fridge, oven and hob, shower, all the other usual things.

I was putting about 50 quid a week on after the price hike.

So i did some messing about with all the extension leads in the each room so that everything other than the fish tank stuff, the fridge and the internet router can be turned off at the wall overnight.

That has saved me about 3 or 4 quid a week, which is more than i thought it would

In another installment of 'whats broken in my house this week' the shower packed up about 2 weeks ago, and a new one is due to be installed on friday. Not having the shower, and not having 5 people trying to use it has saved me about a 6 quid a week. Which is quite a lot.

Changing the program on the washer from a daily 60 degree wash to a shorter 30 degree program has saved me a few quid too as the washer is on twice a day on average.

This week i only had to put 30 quid on the meter as there was some left over from the week before.

When you are a financially challenged pleb like me, any saving is worth it, and changing a few small things has saved me quite a bit of money.

I dont thing smart meters are all that accurate, but im sure the pre pay meter is either very accurate or charges a little higher than it should. Those robbing bastards at british gas would never countenance a customer paying less than they should be...
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