Induction hobs use a lot don’t they? I used to have a Creda with a halogen hob and it gobbled electricity.
Gas combi provides our hot water of which the dishwasher and WM also use. But still the gas bill was only £25 for the month.
TV, set top box, PCs, battery chargers, phone chargers, hairdryers, iPads, lights, toothbrush charger - it’s like The Generation Game.
Not to mention Christmas lights, illuminated garden Gnomes…
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Potentially yes, but we probably don’t use more than 2 at a time and generally for fairly quick things such as heating tinned soup/beans etc, occasional stir fries/beef chilli, frying eggs, but you might be right that they could contribute significantly if used a few times daily. The air fryer is very convenient and Mrs AC was sceptical but she uses it far more than I do.
Hm, my daughter with her 3 year old twins uses less than half you do. Something worth investigating. I believe it’s best to always have a full load each time. Personally the two of us have two washing machine runs a week, and probably two dishwasher runs.
BTW I though induction hobs were very efficient.
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The issue with some of the short WM loads on the Samsung is that they are often rated as ‘half loads’ of 3-4kg in an 8kg machine - I have no idea if there’s a problem if you put too much in.
Our workhorse top of the range 1600 spin Miele went bang with a lot of smoke a few years ago and the Samsung was bought simply as it was available in store and relatively light for me and Mrs AC to transport and install as an emergency replacement. It’s ok, but I really miss the granularity of temperature and spin speed control we had on the old one. Why for example can’t I have a quick 20C cycle with a 1400 spin speed just to freshen up some stuff? It maxes at 1200 and the next cycle with 1400 spin takes over twice as long. Daft. Plus, I want to take a sledgehammer to it every time it plays ‘The Trout’ to signify the cycle has ended.
To be honest though, on short/low temp washes the machine really doesn’t use as much electricity as I thought, it’s pretty negligible when I’ve run it via a smart plug monitoring consumption whereas the dishwasher will use a few kWh for heavy loads exactly as the manual describes…
Modern WMs weigh the load so there’s no need to have it full for every wash. It will only use as much water as necessary.
We typically use 40C as the hot water comes from the boiler so costs less than 30C as the heating element doesn’t come on so it’s only the cost of turning the motor.
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Mine certainly isn’t modern, but I fill my from hot water heated by Solar, so like you I dont have to heat the water inefficiently, and it tends to only peak at around 450watts at most.
@Alley_Cat I just looked up a modern Samsung out of interest of what a modern WM does. Surprisingly it wasn’t much different to my 11 year old Zanussi. Interestingly it did show that a full load uses slightly less than twice a half load power consumption and also slightly less that twice the water consumption of the half load. Of course the models may vary, but just a thought to perhaps consider.
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JimDog, I have no idea what you are talking about. The FED in the US does not have anything to do with electricity generation or costs and pricing (as I understand it, as I don’t live in the US). They seem to have a somewhat chaotic system run on a state basis and largely unregulated. They generally pay more than we do in Canada, but still nothing like what your UK rates seem to be.
As we’re not metered for water I’m less concerned by water consumption (selfish perhaps but I’ve had to pay water rates several times with extremely little usage, so I reckon I’ve paid my fair share), and actually think the Samsung doesn’t use enough so may need to check the inlet filter isn’t partially clogged though I’d imagine it would take longer to fill.
Sometimes I can take washing out (maybe hours after a wash) and some items seem to be almost dry - did they actually wash or was there insufficient water - suspect this happens when Mrs AC puts a near full load on with a half load cycle!
There are many factors that influence energy prices.
Obviously global supply and demand, and the extent to which each country is a net importer and exporter.
Another factor is the state of the global economy, over which the Federal Reserve has significant influence.
Just switched to loyal octopus 12 months fixed. Estimated at £1971 per yr based on last yes usage instead of £2400 on agile octopus
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But I think there was a govt announcement that the price of the capped variable rate will come down in Oct?
If so, what’s the relevance of last year’s costs?
The octopus deal is just below the October price cap…my current (until tomorrow) agile octopus is 2400 for the year just for comparison
The cap is a bit lower, but the government payouts are finished so actual prices will still be higher than last winter for most.
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Just received this from Octopus:
• Ofgem have announced the new energy price cap from October 1. Once again, Octopus will set its prices below the cap.
• Octopus standing charges are already the cheapest of any large supplier. We will not raise them in October, and unit rates will be cut.
• Our new unit rates from October 1 are reducing by 8% on average.
• If you’d like to protect your rates from future changes, we’re offering a fixed tariff that matches the October prices.
• We have other tariffs which may be of interest – for example: Tracker simply follows the wholesale price every day.
Does a Tracker that simply follows the wholesale price every day sound good?
We have moved to Tracker a while ago. Currently it’s well below the flexible rate and has been all year. It’s around 30-50% cheaper currently.
Using Octopus Compare illustrates how much cheaper Tracker is to the fixed rate currently.
Our electricity usage for last month was pretty low as it’s late summer and we have some assistance from solar. The above doesn’t factor that we also made £26 from surplus electricity that we exported.
We’re currently £750 in credit so I have reduced our payments to £35 per month and our bills are still holding our credit balance at that level so we have some wiggle room. On tracker we’ve been paying around £11 per month for gas, helped by our solar hot water divertor which uses surplus power to run the immersion heater.
Tracker is a gamble, the top rates are really high but I’m feeling reasonably optimistic that we’ll be OK on average, we’ll just have to hold our nerve when there are some bad days.
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That’s very interesting. Have had same email as @JimDog from Octopus. Been on variable since last fixed ran out in April. Always a bit wary of relying on the smart meter had issues previously that Octopus took over 6 months to resolve. Even with the meter I give my own reading on first of every month. Tracker looks a good idea but not sure
I haven’t researched it, but relying on common sense a wholesale rate would long-term be much better than a retail rate.
But I haven’t checked to see how much they add onto the wholesale rate for the tracker.
Do you have to compare that with the gap between wholesale and Octopus retail rates to see if it is worth it.
The only problem is that currently variable retail rates are capped, whereas obviously the wholesale rate is not capped.
So the risk is the energy price inflation goes very high and wipes out all the gains you had made previously and worse put you into an unlimited position of loss on the bet.
Why I like the Nait 50 ,
It is a lovely little amp - I had one at home for a few days.