Combating energy prices

Uther said:
Oh well, the new expensive bulb just died after 11 days, and I've stuck my old one back in that's been fine for years.
Shows paying the extra money doesn't always work out.
Now to test the warranty...
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I don't think I've ever had a strip light blow up, and the one in my garage was 7 or 8 years old when I replaced it with an led version (or do you mean led strip lights going bang?).
 
theone8181 said:
I don't think I've ever had a strip light blow up, and the one in my garage was 7 or 8 years old when I replaced it with an led version (or do you mean led strip lights going bang?).
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Nope, just a little flicker then dead. Nothing dramatic. Just dissapointing.
 
Reduced the temperature of washes for the washing machine and the dishwasher, replaced my central heating pump, replaced or put all "on all the time devices" that are on all the time on timers. That included a new low power network switch, and timers for cameras. Wash pans by hand so they don't fill up the dishwasher so I can run that every two days instead of one.
The central heating pump: I had an unintelligent central heating pump that was nearly 40 years old and was just switched and well and truly stuck at it's fastest speed. It used 120W when the heating was on, which I figured was way too much. I replaced it with a modern intelligent pump. That saved a 112W (yes, really, the new one uses 8W!). I was going to replace the pump anyway but figured with the energy prices going skyward it was a good time to bite the bullet.
Ensuring that devices are not left on while not being used, which mostly consists of energy saving setups on computers!
Overall I have managed to halve my electricity usage.
Oh, and I created a new loft in the detached garage so I could empty and strip my old loft and then installed another 150mm of insulation. Should save a few bob.
 
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I'm pretty happy with our energy reduction. I need to find more bills (hence the gaps) and obviously gas isn't really comparable back to last winter versus now, but I'm happy with the trend.



Recently I found another energy saving strategy in the week - our dishwasher 'eco' mode is only eco in terms of water used, the 'mini' setting uses less electricity (more water, but that's cheap).
 
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CaptainRAVE said:
I'm pretty happy with our energy reduction. I need to find more bills (hence the gaps) and obviously gas isn't really comparable back to last winter versus now, but I'm happy with the trend.



Recently I found another energy saving strategy in the week - our dishwasher 'eco' mode is only eco in terms of water used, the 'mini' setting uses less electricity (more water, but that's cheap).
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That’s a huge reduction in electricity. What changes have you made?
 
CaptainRAVE said:
Recently I found another energy saving strategy in the week - our dishwasher 'eco' mode is only eco in terms of water used, the 'mini' setting uses less electricity (more water, but that's cheap).
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That is interesting, it had not occurred to me to look at that as I presumed eco mode was just the more 'eco' mode.

Will have to check the wash specs on mine.
 
Everyone that visits the in-laws on a Sunday complains about the heat in the house; it's stifling. The mother in law sits there with a little thin T on and says she's "a bit chilly". The father-in law sits there stewing but too afraid to complain.

They're constantly whining about the energy bills as they're pensioners. :p
 
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andy_mk3 said:
That’s a huge reduction in electricity. What changes have you made?
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Switched off and emptied the hot tub.
Switched off a load of standby devices including XSX, gaming TV, PS5, PC (all now on individual switches). Also our Sonos beam, mini Q box and main bedroom TV, rarely use these anyway.
Main sky box to eco.
Have reduced the timings of some of our auto lamp lights, although they’re on a little more again now it’s getting darker.
Dialled back the dehumidifier in my gym.
Freezer up one notch.
I’m cooking food that uses the oven less, foreman more and try to boil less water.

adidan said:
That is interesting, it had not occurred to me to look at that as I presumed eco mode was just the more 'eco' mode.

Will have to check the wash specs on mine.
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Apparently it varies from make to make, but when we’re in work we generate so little washing up, so a mini wash does the job.
 
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CaptainRAVE said:
Switched off and emptied the hot tub.
Switched off a load of standby devices including XSX, gaming TV, PS5, PC (all now on individual switches). Also our Sonos beam, mini Q box and main bedroom TV, rarely use these anyway.
Main sky box to eco.
Have reduced the timings of some of our auto lamp lights, although they’re on a little more again now it’s getting darker.
Dialled back the dehumidifier in my gym.
Freezer up one notch.
I’m cooking food that uses the oven less, foreman more and try to boil less water.



Apparently it varies from make to make, but when we’re in work we generate so little washing up, so a mini wash does the job.
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Nice. I’d imagine the hot tub was a huge chunk of that mind you!
 
CaptainRAVE said:
I'm pretty happy with our energy reduction. I need to find more bills (hence the gaps) and obviously gas isn't really comparable back to last winter versus now, but I'm happy with the trend.


Recently I found another energy saving strategy in the week - our dishwasher 'eco' mode is only eco in terms of water used, the 'mini' setting uses less electricity (more water, but that's cheap).
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Prompted me to look at the manual for mine and Mini does use half the power of Eco but only runs for 30 mins where eco runs for 2 hours 25

I'll give it a try but a family of 4 dishes from a full day I can't see it working well but we'll see, hopefully it does
 
Dirk Diggler said:
I'd be interested to see your graph minus the standby items as I'm convinced they use so little that they're not worth bothering about.
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Sky Q boxes use a fair chunk in standby. It all adds up.

We use our ninja foodi for pretty much everything for cooking as it uses so much less energy than a full sized oven.
 
adidan said:
That is interesting, it had not occurred to me to look at that as I presumed eco mode was just the more 'eco' mode.

Will have to check the wash specs on mine.
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It's very true. The reason is that some body or other that stipulates how dishes should be washed indicates that the minimum temperature for a dishwasher is 45 degrees so most expensive dishwashers don't go below that 45 degrees, so there aren't many ways they can save money. My cheap, rubbish, dishwasher does go below 45 degrees which uses a lot less electricity than "eco" mode and less even than a heat-exchanger dishwashe (it works perfectly below 45 degrees too). For that very reason I decided not to replace the dishwasher as I was originally planning.

andy_mk3 said:
Sky Q boxes use a fair chunk in standby. It all adds up.

We use our ninja foodi for pretty much everything for cooking as it uses so much less energy than a full sized oven.
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Also very true. The LNB's need to kept warm, I believe, so they constantly use a lot of power. I also found that by making small savings here and there I was able to greatly reduce my electric bill.
 
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What is everyone’s background usage? Mine hovers around 280-320w. Most of that is my unraid server, another box running pfsense, Poe cameras and such. I don’t think I could really reduce that by much without turning them off completely which I can’t.

We average about 10-12kwh a day overall though which I don’t think is terrible for a family of 3.
 
CaptainRAVE said:
Switched off and emptied the hot tub.
Switched off a load of standby devices including XSX, gaming TV, PS5, PC (all now on individual switches). Also our Sonos beam, mini Q box and main bedroom TV, rarely use these anyway.
Main sky box to eco.
Have reduced the timings of some of our auto lamp lights, although they’re on a little more again now it’s getting darker.
Dialled back the dehumidifier in my gym.
Freezer up one notch.
I’m cooking food that uses the oven less, foreman more and try to boil less water.



Apparently it varies from make to make, but when we’re in work we generate so little washing up, so a mini wash does the job.
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Switching your ps5 off was pointless, just turning off the standby usb power and always on network basically means it consumes nothing. I had mine on a monitoring plug and it still showed 0.0kwh after a week in standby.
 
andy_mk3 said:
What is everyone’s background usage? Mine hovers around 280-320w. Most of that is my unraid server, another box running pfsense, Poe cameras and such. I don’t think I could really reduce that by much without turning them off completely which I can’t.

We average about 10-12kwh a day overall though which I don’t think is terrible for a family of 3.
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100-150w seems to be the background usage. Some things are always on or on standby like main tv, main skyq box, router, smart plugs, cctv, house alarm. 98w is the lowest I’ve seen.
 
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Does anyone know how much a Sky Q box draws whilst on standby?

Only things we have running pretty much 24/7 is the Fridge/Freezer Sky Router and Fibre Box however I have got in the habit of switching the router and fibre box off when I go out for a while. We have a water tank but not sure how I change any of the settings for when it heats, sounds like it comes on at 5am in the morning for an hour or so.

We don't really have anything else running aside from my laptop, Sonos and monitor whilst I'm working - but again I pretty much always try and switch them off at the plug when I "finish work". But not sure if it's worth the bother
 
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