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john of wessex

Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Posts: 2130

Posted: Sun Sep 11, 11 4:06 pm Post subject: Home Energy Consumption

I'm trying to work out how efficent - or otherwise my home is.

I have a 3 bed 60's house. The attic is used as a bedroom by my oldest and there is a sid extension for the kitchen. The Garage has also been converted to a room.

We us about 6000 kwh each of Gas & electricity and about 6m3 of firewood (about 10000kwh)

Looking at the only figures I can find for a 3 bed house thats not bad for heat, but can anyone reccomend/quote any other figures for domestic heat use.

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Sun Sep 11, 11 4:36 pm Post subject:
As a comparison we use 1600 kwh of electricity in a 2 bed house with a loft conversion which is used every day as a studio. We don't have gas only solid fuel. Electricity heats water in winter and does all our cooking.

marigold

Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Sun Sep 11, 11 5:19 pm Post subject:

vegplot wrote:

As a comparison we use 1600 kwh of electricity in a 2 bed house with a loft conversion which is used every day as a studio. We don't have gas only solid fuel. Electricity heats water in winter and does all our cooking.

Ooh that's scary - I used 2275 units of leccy last year and thought that was good

. 2 bed mid-terrace, no attic conversion, insulated loft, DG, gas heating and hot water. Gas was 444 units last year.

gorbut

Joined: 03 Sep 2006
Posts: 137
Location: Border of London and Essex

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 11 8:02 am Post subject:
You are there all day though Marigold and there will be times when you won't feel like being that active so need more heat.

marigold

Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 11 8:13 am Post subject:
EV is at home all day too, and we both cook using electricity, so I don't think I'm doing very well on the electricity front compared to the EV/vegplot household. It must be my wicked incandescent light-bulb habit! Still, I expect to be down to around 2000 units this year, so at least I'm improving.

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91� N

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 11 8:24 am Post subject:

Four bed semi and we use 3000 Kwh pa electric, about 800 litres oil (~ 8000 Kwh) and about 1 - 2 m3 of wood (~2500) so that's about 13500 KWh all in.

Seems an awful lot but shows that trimming electric costs are really the least useful saving one can do.

When I first looked at that I thought it seemed excessive but a quick google finds https://www.gare.co.uk/gas.htm which suggests we should expect to use about 29000 KWh!

and that's before you count the energy embedded in all the stuff you buy!

Katieowl

Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Posts: 4317
Location: West Wales

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 11 9:42 am Post subject:

I've no idea how much kw pa we use, only that my flaming bills are going up and up despite all my very best efforts. The e-mailed me again this weekend and said they were putting my standing order up �20 a month

We have an electric oven and electric water heating, and I go round turning stuff off all the time, I don't think I could be any less wasteful if I tried?

We got an OWL and one of those plug in monitors that tell you how much an appliance uses for a cycle recently. I've opted for a month by month bill so at least if something suddenly jumps we might spot it.

I'm also paying for oil (�90 a month) and wood

It's all very depressing....

Kate

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91� N

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 11 9:55 am Post subject:

Katieowl wrote:

... We have an electric oven and electric water heating, and I go round turning stuff off all the time, I don't think I could be any less wasteful if I tried?

...

I'm also paying for oil (�90 a month) and wood

Why do you use oil and electric water heating? Heating the water with oil would probably be a lot cheaper. Also, although, it's a big outlay, it is worth considering changing your boiler. We fitted a new boiler last winter and it should save us about 400 litres a year. Yes it was expensive to do but the outlay for oil has gone down by about �250 a year.

The easy wins of "turning stuff off" saves so little in comparison to heating a house that it's almost debatable whether it's worth it (obviously it is worth it but it's not going to save more than a few pounds a year when you need to be saving hundreds)

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 11 9:59 am Post subject:
Have you also looked at changing supplier. Everytime I do it, I save something.

Katieowl

Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Posts: 4317
Location: West Wales

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 11 10:02 am Post subject:

Rayburn does only heat water when it's on, off in the summer.

Can't afford to change boilers. We don't have central heating in the main house (only the B&B)and don't really need it. Rest of the house keeps warm fine just with the Rayburn when it's on and the log burner.

When we moved in there were two oil tanks, one for a dead heating system and one for the Rayburn

We were quoted something like �4K for a boiler to replace the dead one, and the Rayburn already did the water, so having survived two winters with no central heating here we decided not to bother. OH is going to re-route the heat sink rad to the bathroom for this winter. Plus we would have then had to have TWO oil tanks to keep filled...at the price of oil we thought that was a non-starter.

Kate

Katieowl

Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Posts: 4317
Location: West Wales

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 11 10:04 am Post subject:

Nick wrote:

Have you also looked at changing supplier. Everytime I do it, I save something.

I do check periodically Nick - but my current supplier is always top of the list!

Kate

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 11 10:05 am Post subject:
Perhaps you should consider selling some of your Hilfiger bling?

Katieowl

Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Posts: 4317
Location: West Wales

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 11 10:07 am Post subject:
One of the attractions of a large fluffy shawl is that I live in a house with no central heating Kate

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91� N

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 11 10:17 am Post subject:

Katieowl wrote:

... We were quoted something like �4K for a boiler to replace the dead one

What size of property are we talking about here? We were quoted just over �2k (*) to replace our oil boiler which went up by about �500 so we could mount it on an exterior wall and our oil costs seem considerably lower. We've a four bed place (well three and a box) which is about 1200 ft2

(*) of course having replaced the boiler they then condemned the oil tank and modern oil tanks are expensive!

ros

Joined: 19 Jul 2005
Posts: 2469
Location: Beds

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 11 10:29 am Post subject:

Four bed detached 70s house with three gadget mad kids

electric 4500 kwh
last years oil was ~900 litres , no idea how much wood for the fire, guessing 6 cubic M but only a guess.

However hard I try the usage isn't going down.

We are considering one of the offers for free PV panels as at least being home all day I'd get the usage of the leccy - effectively it's renting the roof out as the upplier gets the FIT.

- advice and comments on that welcome.

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