Whole house power consumption

Howard

Howard

Howard

Soldato
Joined
12 Jul 2007
Posts
16,318
Location
South East
Morning all,

I received my free British Gas energy monitor the other day (the type that clamps around a feed to your meter and sends the signal wirelessly) and it seems that our house is using about 700 watts in "standby" mode - i.e. at night. Now I do have a server and associated network equipment running, but that's only about 200-250 watts. I worked out there's another 150-200w (ish - I need to go around and measure the rooms properly) being consumed on other stuff on standby, etc, but that's still 350-400 watts unaccounted for. The only things I can think of are the Fridge and Freezer (separate items, normal size fridge and a chest freezer). Surely they don't consume 200 watts each, all the time?

The heating was off, so there's no pumps or anything running.


Has anyone else become suddenly obsessed/curious with their electricity consumption? Post your results here (or point me to a previous thread doing so - I searched but didn't find anything) :)
 
I was shocked with mine. My house seems to run at 900W idle and peaks at 4kw :eek:

Using 20kw+ per day in electric which is mad tbh.

I plan to go hunting to see what's eating it all.
 
900watts.. And I thought mine was bad! 4kw peak is normal IMHO, quite low in fact. Especially if you've got cookers and kettles and such. Might be useful to post how big your house is and how many occupants, too :)
 
Mine uses between 300/350 in "standby", that's a file server / 24 port switch / mini-itx box / laptop and other general stuff like phone chargers, alarm systems etc.

I tend to peak at about 4kw wth the oven or dishwasher running.

I became slightly obsessed with power consumption over the summer :)
 
My file server, router/firewall, 8 port gigabit switch and two UPS' use 200-250w. I'm wondering if it's worth building a slightly more efficient file server rather than a big old ATX box with several fans and hard drives ;)
 
Howard said:
900watts.. And I thought mine was bad! 4kw peak is normal IMHO, quite low in fact. Especially if you've got cookers and kettles and such. Might be useful to post how big your house is and how many occupants, too :)
Click to expand...

2 people and 2 bedroom. The worse thing is that some days one of is can be away on business so only one person and i;m at work for 12 hours every day and sleep for 6 or 7 so the 20kw is mad on that basis.
 
Have the same meter as OP. The average consumption for a family of 4 is s'posed to be 14kw.

Now I'm happy to report that we normally achieve this (being a family of 2 adults & 2 small kids). However when the dishwasher, washing machine, TV etc are all being used on a weekend, we regular exceed this. Last Sunday we managed 28kw O_o
 
This is scaring the hell out of me-2 teenagers who are apparently unable to turn things off and 2 young kids who still need the lights on at night to sleep, not mentioning my pc-OMG-i better invest in one quick!
 
Howard said:
Is that instantaneous consumption, CatMangler?
Click to expand...

he means kwh...

My usage seems very moderate in comparison, 3 bed house just me living there, ~12kwh per day average or so. I dont have one of those monitors though, i am with southern electric, can i get one?
 
Howard said:
My file server, router/firewall, 8 port gigabit switch and two UPS' use 200-250w. I'm wondering if it's worth building a slightly more efficient file server rather than a big old ATX box with several fans and hard drives ;)
Click to expand...

I have similar hardware yet only use about 350w during the night.
 
Our electricity is included in our bill (so is water and council tax) so it doesnt really bother me. We only have to pay gas which we use to heat water.

We are on the groundfloor of a warm flat so we just use 4 50watt halogen light bulbs in the main room and bedrooms so it stays toasty without needing to turn the central heating on :D

They are the types of lighs fitting that are already in place so we cant really get a telling off by the landlord
 
Burnsy2023 said:
I have similar hardware yet only use about 350w during the night.
Click to expand...

I have another hundred watts or so worth of stuff throughout the house, but it still doesn't explain the gap between that and the 700-750w I'm apparently using, constantly, at night!
 
Howard said:
I have another hundred watts or so worth of stuff throughout the house, but it still doesn't explain the gap between that and the 700-750w I'm apparently using, constantly, at night!
Click to expand...

When I said 350w, I meant the whole house not just the network infrastructure :)
 
Yeah. I'm jealous :( I'm blaming the fridge and freezer for now, until I can put together concrete evidence and prove them innocent ;)

Still, it's an interesting exercise, working out how much you're using, how much you don't need to, how much you can save, etc.
 
Just checked my EDF bills. I rarely go above 8.5kwh per day useage on average per quarter. Even with my mrs now being home with the baby it peaks at 9-10kwh per day.

Thats a 4 bedroom house with 2 double fridge freezers, dishwasher, every single light fitting low energy and an electric oven, 5 lcds 3 of which are always on. To be fair I never cook in the oven for more than 20 or 30 minutes as large bits of meat are always done on the BBQ.

I'm going to get one of those meters to see what I'm using a night. The electric alarm clock may have to go ;)
 
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Can we please start using correct units of measurement so the posts make sense?

One does not use 'x kW of energy per day'. One uses 'x kWh of energy per day'

It is however correct to post that consumption peaks at a certain number of kW in a typical day.
 
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