Tech guys- What is your electricity bill?

jonneymendoza · 28 Nov 2019 at 07:29

As i imagine most of us here have lots of electrical tech like computers, game consoles, nice tv's etc etc, what is your average electricity bill each month and who is your provider?
My average bill is around £60-£70 a month and my missus thinks thats way too much and watching my use now on the tech i use and buy

For your information i have the following:

42 inch 1080p TV(missus wont let me get a bigger one!)
ps4console
denon 5.1 surround sound system with sub woofer and AV unit
HTPC with a 980gtx inside and 4 core i7 cpu
Desktop PC with 6 core i7, 64gb ram, around 5 ssd's inside it and a 2080ti card
one 32inch 4k wide gamut hdr monitor from asus
one 30inch dell wide gamut monitor
Old midi hIfi system with 2 speakers for my pc
a desktop tower server with about 8-9 WD Red NAS drives inside it(i use to have this on 124/7 but not anymore)
raspberry pi 4 connected to two external 2.5 hdd's for my always on file server
another Raspberry pi 3 running pi-hole all the time

Is this overkill? Am i paying way too much for electricity?
I only live in a 2 bedroom flat

jonneymendoza · 28 Nov 2019 at 08:01

maddness said:
What about lighting around the house, are you led'd up? I found that made a massive difference for me

Also I don't leave PCs on 24/7, I let them go in sleep though they are on in the day

Are any of your TVs plasma variant

Who is your energy provider, you're not on a standard tariff?

I'm with EDF with standard varient tariff

jonneymendoza · 28 Nov 2019 at 08:07

maddness said:
You need to get off standard, I think British gas had a very good fixed tarrif recently, bulb too

Check your lighting and go led

Cool ill check the lights. I don't think they are leds but let me see

jonneymendoza · 28 Nov 2019 at 08:15

Efour said:
The joys of hydroelectric power.
I pay about 4p kwh..

I checked mine and it's between 16 to 18p kwh
I use an average of 330-490 kWh according to one of my bill's

jonneymendoza · 28 Nov 2019 at 08:22

VincentHanna said:
I pay about £76 a month for gas and electric on a 2 bedroom end terrace house and am about £350 in credit

Wife also works from home.

So yeah, that's a lot. Do you have electric heating though?

Nope no electric clothes dryer here and our boiler is gas.we hardly have heater on as our flat doesn't get too cold unless it's on single figure temperature outside

jonneymendoza · 28 Nov 2019 at 08:24

Radox-0 said:
Going to vary quiet abit tbh where you live. Are you a flat in which the heating is all via electric (water and storage heaters)?

Going to change the answer vs those who use electric and gas. Usually more expensive to heat both water and home using electric only.

I was paying around £65 on average in 2 bed flat on all electric with lowest tariff I could get when working out my habits.

Heating is by gas and I'm in London

jonneymendoza · 28 Nov 2019 at 08:35

james.miller said:
You need to look at both what you are paying AND how much you are using. Each provider will have their own set of tariffs with different costs per Kw as well as different standing charges. We can't tell you for sure if you are paying the right amount unless you can tell what your charges are and we don't know if your using too much electric for the kit you've got unless you tell us how much you are using

it's between 16 to 18p kwh they charge and I use an average of 330-490 kWh according to one of my bill's

jonneymendoza · 28 Nov 2019 at 08:38

Cuchulain said:
Around £80 a month but my wife and I both work from home.

I also work from home but I try to just use my laptop and not both my pc monitors just one.

Lights are all off during the day and so is heating.

Occasionally use the oven to prepare my lunch but that happens only once a week where majority of the time I use the gas hub or microwave.

I also now use a Sony Bluetooth wireless speaker instead of my hifi system. That's how bad its getting in terms of trying to crack down on the bill.

jonneymendoza · 28 Nov 2019 at 10:02

james.miller said:
That unit cost is too high.

Start here:
https://www.moneysupermarket.com/gas-and-electricity/?From=SHP-icons

i just did a quote on that website and the cheapest i found was from bulb with the following info:

Tariff name: vari-fair
Rate type: variable
13.01p kWh
standing charge: 20.445p per day
No exit fees

jonneymendoza · 28 Nov 2019 at 10:06

Do you tend to "get what you pay for" in terms of electricity provider or are they all the same with just a different logo?

jonneymendoza · 28 Nov 2019 at 10:11

randomshenans said:
lol power comes on when you want it to? I don't think you get better electricity

lol im only asking mate. Maybe edf,s power comes on faster as it runs on more cores and gets its data of an nvme drive instead of what Bulb uses as in a dual core system with a 5200rpm hdd? lol

jonneymendoza · 28 Nov 2019 at 16:12

String said:
You're not paying too much for electricity, you're paying too much for your decision to marry.

Seriously'though, you've listed 3 PC's and a console, 2 sound systems, 2 Raspberry Pi... A GPU that cost £650 and another that cost £1000.

Your wife then thinks the issue is the cost of electricity... ... Are these appliances all on at the same time? If not, then cost of electricity is irrelevant with that list e.g you can't possibly be gaming on 2 GPUs at once, so unless you're mining then at least one of them is costing next to nothing in electricity. The real question your wife is getting at is why you have so many.

haha probably.

The only thing thats run 24/7 is the two pi's

The rest not so much. When i am working during the day i work on a 15inch thinkpad x1 extreme laptop connected to one of my 32inch monitors.

My main desktop i normally turn on when i am gaming or video editing or streaming stuff from there(i am in the process of migrating to the pi's for that)

My consoles aint bene turned on for a couple of months lol and we actually have 2 days during the week when i am not allowed to use my main TV and surround system!!

jonneymendoza · 28 Nov 2019 at 16:13

Steedie said:
£30-40 a month for electricity in a 3 floor 3 bed semi-detached. That's with my office setup on nearly 24/7 as I'm working from home, TV on nearly all day as girlfriend is on maternity. Surprised at some of the high amounts in here given the relatively little usage from the looks of it.

My gas usage is about £5-8 a month on average over the year. Summer months I use as little as 3-4 units.

What is your average kWh usage though per month? mines between 350-450ish

jonneymendoza · 28 Nov 2019 at 17:25

String said:
I honestly don't think the electricity your gadgets consume is really all that significant. I'm more concerned about the quote above, what's going on man!

umm let me re-read my bill again:

Period :25/02/19 until 31/03/19
My Reading: 28172
Estimated: 28510
Electricity united used: 338 kWh
kWh rate: 16.02

Period: 01/04/19 until 28/05/19
My Reading: 28999
Estimated: 28510
Electricity units used: 489 kWh
kWh rate: 18.24p

jonneymendoza · 28 Nov 2019 at 22:45

Bug One said:
You're in London you say. Are you sure someone isn't leaching off your power? Turn everything in the house off and see if the meter still flashing.

How can someone leech off of my power?

jonneymendoza · 29 Nov 2019 at 07:38

james.miller said:
Psycho Sonny:
Why do you have 2 x 30 inch monitors? i have a 32" and there is no way i need another.

Also Psycho Sonny:
I must have more tech in my spare bedroom than what is in your list - serious.

@jonneymendoza your usage is pretty low - our average is 750kWh for example. As you've seen you can shave some of the cost off your bill by changing supplier and could still save some energy here and there but honestly I don't think you would put a big dent in it. I would suggest that if the Mrs is not happy with the cost then why don't you just pay it yourself? Problem removed.

Yea I already offered to pay 2/3 of it. If she kicks off again I'll argue my case.

Me personally I don't mind paying for the whole thing. But I can't sacrafice more things just for costs when I can easily afford it

jonneymendoza · 29 Nov 2019 at 09:40

djcj said:
Ignoring the estimated readings and just using your accurate readings, that shows a usage of 827 kWh used between 25/02/19 and 28/05/19. That's an average of 8.99 kWh per day over the 92 days.

It's more concerning your bill shows a date of 31/02/19? I'm pretty sure February doesn't have that many days.

ahh crap a typo my end i meant 31/03/19

jonneymendoza · 29 Nov 2019 at 11:05

Howard said:
We use between 10 and 14kWh per day, so around £40-45/month. There's only two of us, but I have plenty of smart home tech and a server/networking equipment. I don't waste energy but at the same time I'm not fussed about counting the pennies. It costs what it costs to have a functional and nice environment.

Turning off just one of your PC monitors to save energy, lol. If these costs are causing the OP and his OH to struggle to put food on the table, then words should be had. If she's moaning for the sake of it, then... words should be had

Yea she just moaning for the sake of it really. we aint struggling to put food on the table. if we was i wouldnt have this type of gear in the first place lol

jonneymendoza · 21 Feb 2021 at 11:08

I need to double check mine and change.

jonneymendoza · 21 Feb 2021 at 11:11

b0rn2sk8 said:
‘Tech’ really doesn’t cost very much to run, it’s all the other household stuff that does like tumble dryers, ovens, hobs, washing machines, dish washers etc.

Not really.

A decent home cinema setup zaps through energy for fun and a gaming desktop too.

Graphics cards alone take 200w these days.

And monitors also take some power too.

You also need to consider gaming consoles the latest ones taking up more power than the old ones.

Add all them up and it makes a huge difference