How much electricity do you use?? (Am I mad)

[katie279]

I’m not sure you picked up the point of what I said, if the monitors are on, it’s in use, even if it’s sat on the desktop. You are not going to reduce that.

If you walked away from it for 20 mins the monitors should go into standby and the true ‘idle’ power draw when it’s not being used will be much lower, perhaps 50-60w.

Those monitors will be drawing 100w+ each when on which is most of the power draw your are reading and not the true ‘I’ve left my PC on overnight when I’m not using it’ power draw.

But anyway, you should set it to go to sleep anyway when not in use. It will wake from sleep faster than the monitors come out of standby anyway.

Do you have a hot tub or one of those layze spa’s or anything like that?

Yes, sorry got what you meant, probably wasn't clear in my response! The unwritten part is the monitors don't go into sleep, mainly because it was causing an annoying issue where it failed to wake properly, so switched off and never got around to fixing it! Don't have a hot tub, but was thinking of it.......

 

[Nathan]

So many variables, hard to compare.

Bedrooms means very little, you can have a 5 bed house and under 2000 SQF. SQF is important.

Age of house - comes with insulation in floor, walls and roof.

number of people

high use consumables such as hot tubs and EVs.


We live in a 3000SQF 2004 detached house, 2 adults and 2 children. Hot tub and EV.

we spend around £100 a month.

Ensure all LeD bulbs, high use items come on at night on a variable tariff and swap old electric items such as tumble driers with new efficient ones

 

[katie279]

Fair point:

- 3400sq ft
- 1970s house (renovated so double glazed, insulated etc - although none of that really bears on electricity as heating is oil)
- four people (two kids - 3 and 5) - both of us work full time at home
- High use components - 1 EV, 2 3d printers, 7 PCs, 2 NAS, 2 full height fridges, 2 full height freezers and two under counter freezers, tumble dryer (top end Samsung heat pump one), lots of Hue light bulbs (around 100 in total)

Think that's kinda it really.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

What can I say, I'm a girl who likes power!

Fair point:

- 3400sq ft
- 1970s house (renovated so double glazed, insulated etc - although none of that really bears on electricity as heating is oil)
- four people (two kids - 3 and 5) - both of us work full time at home
- High use components - 1 EV, 2 3d printers, 7 PCs, 2 NAS, 2 full height fridges, 2 full height freezers and two under counter freezers, tumble dryer (top end Samsung heat pump one), lots of Hue light bulbs (around 100 in total)

Think that's kinda it really.

I think this is probably the main issue, you've got electric everything and just leave it all the time. The only real way to impact that is to turn everything off when not in use.

You've also not mentioned things like dishwashers, washing machines, etc. The longer eco programs on these use far less energy then the quicker ones. Likewise, if they are full they are far more effcient.

 

[theone8181]

Just as an aside, are you sure it's that big? A 3,000 sq ft house is like a small mansion, my 4/5 bed is around 1200 and that's a reasonable size. With that number in mind we use about 3Mwh a year but I've just bought an electric car so thats likely to go up. I've 2 kids, although no TV in their rooms so gadget use isn't that high. Have a reasonable gaming pc, and normally it's on for 3 hours a day or so. Ops does sound ridiculous, is every room a 100w halogen on 24/7 .

 

[katie279]

Yes two dishwashers and one washing machine - both fairly modern, but agree probably a bit of thrifty mindset would be handy....!

I'm going to look at setting up a Home Assistant schedule that turns off PCs, monitors remotely at certain times (eg night time) and keep digging around to monitor the wattage of devices being used and see where I can get to on total use!

 

[katie279]

Just as an aside, are you sure it's that big? A 3,000 sq ft house is like a small mansion, my 4/5 bed is around 1200 and that's a reasonable size. With that number in mind we use about 3Mwh a year but I've just bought an electric car so thats likely to go up. I've 2 kids, although no TV in their rooms so gadget use isn't that high. Have a reasonable gaming pc, and normally it's on for 3 hours a day or so. Ops does sound ridiculous, is every room a 100w halogen on 24/7 .

Erm, yup pretty darn sure. It was a 6 bedroom when we bought it, but converted one room into a big dressing room....with 1200+ LED bulbs.... Lots of LED strips etc.
Has an outbuilding also. But yes, it's pretty large.

I think the study accounts for probably 6-7 rooms really with its usage as it has the aforementioned 2 PCs, 7 monitors, 2 3d printers, 2 NAS etc etc in it, so when everything's running that'll easily smash 1000W......!

 

[LuckyBenski]

Separate the 380W properly by device. There's no way your PC draws that at idle - my PC pulls 370W under stress testing with water cooling in. It may just be little bits here and there but honestly, I'd expect one type of item to be the culprit here.

Your monitors shouldn't be drawing 100W at idle either. Check your overclock settings on CPU, don't use a fixed clock speed etc.

You need to be plugging your meter in on each item individually round the house really, and anything intermittent needs to be monitored over time. For instance fridges only run something like 20% of the time so you need a 24h average. Washing machines only use their heater for a few minutes several times during a cycle - measure the full cycle consumption.

If your house is that big you won't avoid the aggregated consumption of tens of light bulbs, standby devices, etc, but IMO go for the big savings before you turn off 43 tiny consumers. Convenience matters!

 

[katie279]

Agree - good tips. Turning off the monitors takes about 120W off the total, they're a chunk of it.

 

[throwaway4372]

yeah check your cpu speed actually fluctuates based on usage in task manager, it shouldn't be at the same frequency all the time.

glad you've got a gizmo for measuring stuff, measure everything, and ideally make a spreadsheet and show it to us coz it's interesting

i'm curious how much the fridges/freezers use.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

About £160 a month of which about £30 is gas, but then the washing machine and dishwasher is on at least once a day and we also have a hot tub running all year and whole house air con that gets used for 4-5 months of the year.

 

[Nathan]

Fair point:

- 3400sq ft
- 1970s house (renovated so double glazed, insulated etc - although none of that really bears on electricity as heating is oil)
- four people (two kids - 3 and 5) - both of us work full time at home
- High use components - 1 EV, 2 3d printers, 7 PCs, 2 NAS, 2 full height fridges, 2 full height freezers and two under counter freezers, tumble dryer (top end Samsung heat pump one), lots of Hue light bulbs (around 100 in total)

Think that's kinda it really.

good information. How about a variable tariff, run printers and EV charge overnight?

 

[katie279]

yeah check your cpu speed actually fluctuates based on usage in task manager, it shouldn't be at the same frequency all the time.

glad you've got a gizmo for measuring stuff, measure everything, and ideally make a spreadsheet and show it to us coz it's interesting

i'm curious how much the fridges/freezers use.

I will do - will take a bit of time as Fridges for example will need at least a day to get stable readings, but will share! Made good progress today!

 

[theone8181]

Why are you leaving monitors on all the time then (assuming that's the bulk of that pc consumption)?

 

[katie279]

good information. How about a variable tariff, run printers and EV charge overnight?

Yes, new smart meter getting installed in a month will allow variable tariff and EV overnight charge - good point re 3d printers, will be able to do that too....

 

[gort]

We have a 16 month old and the Mrs insists his bedroom at night is a sweatbox and has a thermostatic oil filled radiator in there.
She suffers from the cold and therefore thinks everyone else in the house does. It's an onoing battle with the Hive heating controls!

Our electricity usage has shot up since we've had the boy what with increased heating in the house and now use a condenser drier (used to air dry things) and we also now work from home.

At present, our electricity monitor shows the following:
Oil radiator - 7kWh use each night on from 7pm to 7am. Approx 200kWh p/m.
Drier - 3kWh per cycle (x5 per week) - Approx 60kWh p/m.

So with just those two additions to the house it's another £50 or so p/m.

Roll on summer when neither will be needed!

 

[robj20]

We have a 16 month old and the Mrs insists his bedroom at night is a sweatbox and has a thermostatic oil filled radiator in there.
She suffers from the cold and therefore thinks everyone else in the house does. It's an onoing battle with the Hive heating controls!

Our electricity usage has shot up since we've had the boy what with increased heating in the house and now use a condenser drier (used to air dry things) and we also now work from home.

At present, our electricity monitor shows the following:
Oil radiator - 7kWh use each night on from 7pm to 7am. Approx 200kWh p/m.
Drier - 3kWh per cycle (x5 per week) - Approx 60kWh p/m.

So with just those two additions to the house it's another £50 or so p/m.

Roll on summer when neither will be needed!

Tell her the recommended room temp for babies is 16-20c, i have mine 11 month old and 3 year old set to 17.5c overnight. With the youngest in one of those sleeping bags.

 

[Mike1983]

I’m using similar if not more.
Lots of Sonos, network switches and CCTV cams / NVRs is a large passive drain.

 

[katie279]

I’m using similar if not more.
Lots of Sonos, network switches and CCTV cams / NVRs is a large passive drain.

Hmm very interesting - certainly got 5-6 switches, cameras, speakers etc - will check them!

 

[LeeUK]

According to my annual statement from Bulb, I used 1,487kWh between 28th Dec 2020 to 27th Dec 2021.