Background electricity usage

[413x]

Yeah be careful when trying to save energy with a slow cooker, they can be up to 200w and if that's running for 10 hours while you're in work it'll be 2KwH so would probably be quite a bit cheaper to run the oven for 45 minutes instead.

Slow cookers are great and i love how they cook but i don't think they're the amazing money saving thing people are touting them as, best off getting an air fryer in terms of efficiency.

I've never run our slow cooker for 10 hours on high! I would be desiccated!

No idea what low is. But it's usually on that

My air fryer arrives this week!


Decided my 70-80w (no fridge and freezer activity) is good enough. Anything more and I'd take 10-20 minutes having to reach for plugs etc every day.

I'm surprised it's so low!
It seems too low!

 

[StuB]

Our background usage is about 45w + large fridge freezer which is about another 50w average so 95w in total.

Of that 45w the big users consist of wifi router 8w, wifi access point 8w, fibre ONT box 4w, 3 x Echo dots 9w, Xbox 3w, media PC 3w, and then the rest are the countless chargers for phones (landline and mobile) and laptops, TV, microwave, oven, boiler, washing machine and dishwasher that are plugged in and in standby mode.

My other half and I both work from home and have our main laptop and screens each on a single switch that are usually switched off over night.

While we could reduce the usage a little there is a balance between cost and convenience of not having to switch things on an off.

Also it's worth looking at whether to replace old tech with new if there are big efficiency gains, fridges and TV's have had some big changes over the years although depending on use it may not be cost effective.

 

[Mysterae_]

I noticed that the garage door opener (which operates with a keyfob so it's always on) was buzzing slightly when doing nothing so obviously consuming energy. I measured it today and the power meter says 8.5W.

Some quick maths: (8.5x24)/1000 = 0.204kWh per day or 74.46kWh per year - £20.85 per year at my current tariff for something that's hardly if ever used. So I decided to move the switched fused spur that supply's the door opener to a more accessible position that can be switched easier. Another parasitic and unnecessary load removed.

 

[Beta]

I had a high background load of 6kwh a day, the cause of which turned out to be the fridge freezer. It was a basic integrated neff model fitted by the house previous owners that was badly installed and constantly icing up. Changed it to a much larger American style fisher and paykel and now daily background usage is down to 2.5kwh. Saves me nothing in reality due to the cost of the new appliance but at least my background usage is now lower!

 

[Simon42]

It was a basic integrated neff model fitted by the house previous owners that was badly installed and constantly icing up.

Icing up can add a surprising amount to freezer use, and old devices are also less efficient than modern ones.

As part of our review of usage (which sadly is never going to go below 400W average mostly due to server, network gear and CCTV) I noted an 18 year old small freezer was using more than expected. It was due a de-icing and doing that helped a lot but it was still only about as efficient as a new one twice the size. We had been thinking of getting more capacity and frost free to avoid the hassle and increasing electricity that brings so the switch made sense.

 

[Harnser]

We've been away for a week and the background usage has been a consistent 2.6kWh a day. 0.3kWh increase on a short break in June, but better than I had hoped for a fridge/freezer + old under-counter fridge.

Still hoping to make reductions but running out of places to make savings.

 

[Jimbo Mahoney]

Some figures from our small 3-bed detached:

61 kWh per month / 2 kWh per day (~83 watts) of which:

33 pm / 1 pd =small fridge & small freezer (regularly defrosted and monitored to ensure -18 for freezer and 4 for fridge)
22 pm / 0.75 pd = TV / TIVO / Internet hub on standby
6 pm / 0.2 pd = Raspberry Pi's / NAS / network hardware

As for active usage, all lights are LEDs and we've a gas cooker and combi boiler for hot water, so I don't think I can make any more efficiency changes.