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Combating energy prices

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
TV box

Edit, its the 4K box on this and apparently it was using 15w just sat there doing nothing. Madness.

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Edit 2 : Apparently it was supposed to go into eco mode after 180 minutes of no use, I suspect thats bugged since it would have had no use for around 14 hours at the point I noticed it unless the other half is recording loads of rubbish in the mornings (i'm 99.999% sure she isnt)
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i have sky q boxes and both are in eco mode.....luckily enough
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
So yesterday whilst trying to hide from the heat I was in the lounge and reading a book (took afternoon off so I can go where I wanted when) and I heard this fan going
Turns out the BT box was really hot and cooling itself. Played with the power settings and now its on ECO mode and using far less.
I find these sorts of thing really annoying TBH, sits there using god knows what power on the SMART setting, but anyway made me think to possibly get one of them extensions that detects one device turning on and off and uses its to control everything else plugged in.
However I can't think what they are called now and everything SMART seems to be wifi and all sorts of overcomplicated.

Any tips on search term to help a numptie search for one of those switching power strips?
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Don't bother man it's a fan, it'll be pulling next to nothing from the wall.
 
SoliD said:
Had my insulation turn up today, this will be going on the inside of my walls upstairs as I have a tile clad house, so single brick, felt, tile, so in the winter it's cold and in the summer it gets hot and stays hot.

R6N6CIM.webp
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Finally down to my last sheet of plasterboard with one bit under the window in the last room. Got 6 celotex sheets left though, so they'll go nicely in the loft and under living room floor with whatever is left.
 
I decorated my living room recently, i insulated under the floor, insulated one wall, sealed up around the windows to stop drafts, walls are dot and dab and the pipes behind the radiator had been left with gaping holes, fitted pipe guides/seals.

had a new patio door fitted.. next jobs probably a new boiler, uses less electric and gas with load compensation.

Upperplumbers_load_compensation.jpg
 
Turn computer off when not in use, would leave it on all day before. Use tablet more now for just surfing the net. Taken TV out of bedroom, used to have it on to fall asleep to now use tablet.
 
Mickie said:
I decorated my living room recently, i insulated under the floor, insulated one wall, sealed up around the windows to stop drafts, walls are dot and dab and the pipes behind the radiator had been left with gaping holes, fitted pipe guides/seals.

had a new patio door fitted.. next jobs probably a new boiler, uses less electric and gas with load compensation.

Upperplumbers_load_compensation.jpg
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what is this picture even showing.
 
I think what it’s saying is that if you run the boiler at a lower temperature for longer instead of at full chat on, off, on, off you get a more consistent temperature instead of it swinging up and down 2-3c each time the boiler comes on.

I imagine they are suggesting the former is more efficient than the latter.
 
SoliD said:
what is this picture even showing.
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a load compensation thermostat keeps the room temp at a constant rather than the old on and off thermostats, it saves you money as the boiler automatically turns down its own thermostat turning down the return temp and condensing the boiler more, saving money.. the boilers internal pump also slows down again helping with reduced electricity costs.
 
arknor said:
apparetly a thermostat that can help keep a house at a perfect even temperature, which I'm calling bull poop on
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Looks like a copy of opentherm to me, or they're using opentherm and making it like it's a specific vailant thing.
Had opentherm for years now and it does when as shown. Boiler runs almost constantly rather than on and off.
So definitely not bull poop.
 
I've got a Vaillant system using weather compensation and load compensating. It's very good it varies the flow temperature depending on outside temp and inside set point. So it runs long and low and keeps a very steady temperature in the house while unless under about -5c always condensing. It's also allows the flow temp to heat the hot water cylinder to be set higher.

I was limited to over sizing the radiators by 50% due to 10mm microbore pipework but still allows flow temps around 40c on the heating side.

Vaillant's system is called e-bus you can get a opentherm box that converts opentherm to e-bus but never felt the need I may go this route if the Vaillant controls/outside temp sensor fails.
 
Yeah mine pretty happily sits at a flow temp of around 25c to keep the house warm through winter once up to temperature. Works really well uses very little gas.
 
Mickie said:
a load compensation thermostat keeps the room temp at a constant rather than the old on and off thermostats, it saves you money as the boiler automatically turns down its own thermostat turning down the return temp and condensing the boiler more, saving money.. the boilers internal pump also slows down again helping with reduced electricity costs.
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so turning down your boiler temp and leaving it on thermostat at 25c ?? would be nearly the same thing ? :P i know not quiet .. but that's the way I've done it for yrs ..may look into this as boiler is 10+ yrs old it's a Worchester and slightly oversized for the house.. got any links plz ?
 
Dirk Diggler said:
I need to replace my boiler soon as it's a 25 year old system with separate boiler etc.

Is there a significant advantage to oversizing the radiators?
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If you current radiators are sized for the common 70-75c flow temps you'll need bigger ones to allow lower flow temps and still heat the room. We were replacing the radiators anyway so it wasn't a huge expense to get bigger ones.

Condensing boilers only condense when the return flow is under 56c so you want to design the system round a low as possible return temp, my system rarely goes over 40c flow temp return is around 30-35c. They are bringing in rules on new builds where the system needs to be designed with a sub 50c flow temp.

We replaced a 22 year old Worchester Highflow 400 open flue combo boiler that had a large internal water store to a hot water cylinder/system boiler/weather & load compsenation it dropped our gas usage by 45%. The old boiler was very inefficient had a pilot light, combustion chamber open to the house and the internal water store wasn't well insulated so was bringing this back up to temp every 3-4 hours.
 
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I just tried adjusting my direct debit with Eon and it would only let me put in an amount that was wildly out by my calculation, to £284 pm.

The tariff I'm on is fixed at 27.91p/kWh with a robbing charge of 63.75 per day until 2024.

Breaking down their £284 direct debit recommendation:

£284/30 = £9.47 per day. Deduct the daily robbing charge of 63.75p that leaves £8.83 of electric each day, so equating to 31.6kWh of usage a day (8.83/0.2791).

There's no way I'm using 31.6kWh per day, even peak days in the depths of winter. So the direct debit stays the same and the account can go in to debt until such times as the recommended amount is something sensible. I suspect it's easy to put the DD amount up but extremely difficult to lower it as it's not permitted on their website.
 
I managed to get my DD down with sainsburys energy by dropping it in small increments, wanted to go down to £45 pm, wouldn't let me inially so did half that then just dorpped it by a pound each time until it got to £43 and left it there.
 
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