Correct, we do not have a smart meter.
The old spinning dial meter was changed to a digital display meter.
Yes…
Not least our electricity consumption!!
The inflation bit is the high cost on the bottom line of the bill…
We’re at >160 posts on this thread now, and while spreadsheets inform, have you done a trip around the house et al and assessed the various appliances you’ve got hooked-up? e.g. is there an immersion heater/hot tank in this picture too?
I’d submit there are much simpler solutions that splashing for watt meters, as the kwh’s being used are far above levels I’d expect to see from all you’ve said.
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He said no electric water heating. Given the information so far I think the culprits have been identified.
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If only! That wonderful deal you grabbed was ridiculously good, but sadly not available where I live, and like many my house roof o to orientation is far from ideal. We did look into solar when there was a local gov partial grant available 18 months or so ago, but with limited fitters and high demand here it would have cost us £10k for 4.3kW (max on our roof) and an additional £6.5k for 3kW inverter plus 9.5 kWh battery, with max grant of £3k, and just the standard electric company tariff (currently 24.6p supply and 9.5p buy back). The installers were so nonchalant they would not get a realistic estimate of actual generation taking into account local weather patterns (we live in an area that is cloudy far more often than not). Payback time of course one can only calculate on current energy prices and anticipated inflation, but even factoring inflation energy higher than general inflation it seemed far too long, very possibly longer than panel of battery life.! On balance it did not seem beneficial so we decided to wait till prices come down (more contractors and less profiteering).
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We looked into the deal promoted by the local council and “selected partners” but it was impossible to get anyone to visit and survey with me to question the install. All done on line, and “here is your bespoke install…” and I was unable to speak with anyone unless I paid £150 (survey fee)! It was over £10,000 and the return would have not come into advantage till past each of us were in our graves. The time to have done this was 20 years ago, it was heavily subsidised then. Now it is just the latest bandwagon for making excessive profits. If it is such a good idea for us, give it to us for free. Same with cavity wall insulation, we were not in control, and our install was stopped because I would not let the installers cut vents in the inside doors!
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Average consumption before Covid: 9600kw per year. Post Covid: 5500kw (pre- and post-Covid because we had a new kitchen fitted with new appliances just before Covid).
LEDs everywhere now (I can’t tell the difference, to be honest), and a more rational use of energy.
EDF offers (!) off-peak electricity, which is obviously cheaper, and better for the environment - electricity consumption is evened out, which reduces the need to build new power stations.
The dishwasher, washing machine, immersion heater are on during the night, and only when really necessary (needless to say, you wait until the washing machine is full). The dryer is a problem: my partner will insist on using it for the towels - what annoys me is when I find just a couple of towels in there.
The hifi is probably only 45w per hour (on 24/24), which amounts to roughly 300kw a year, 5-7% of our consumption, which is relatively high.
It’s not just a question of whether or not we can afford it financially - on this forum, most of us can - it’s a question of energy dependency and energy efficiency. The less electricity we use, the less we need new open-cast coal mines (as in Germany), or new nuclear power stations, or even wind turbines, solar panels, etc.
There also the hidden, indirect use of electricity: if you buy a new car every year, your indirect use of electricity wil be much higher…
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If you want your Naim system to perform at its best then it needs to be left permanently powered up. Same with my Moon amp. If I power down my system, including the router/EE8 switch etc. it takes around a week for it to all sound right again.
As @Count.d points out, enjoy your life while you can.
Having said that, some folk don’t appear to be able to discern any difference after say 30 mins or so after powering on. If that’s the csae with you then you may as well switch off. When I owned Naim stuff I tried several times to convince myself that I couldn’t hear any difference after powering down and back on again. Unfortunately I could easily hear the difference so it stayed on.
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My panels (no batteries but a solar diverter) were fitted in 2019 at under £6k. I didn’t get a pay-back figure, but estimated it myself at 12-15 years. In fact it will be payed off this year. I personally dont believe batteries are that cost effective (certainly for me anyway), but not having batteries may be an option for some people to get on the solar ladder.
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Thinking about it some more your consumption does seem quite high for just the two of you especially as you’ve made it fairly clear you don’t use certain things/devices at all.
I say this as looking at my Ovo graph, and knowing we’ve always used lots of electricity in the past, the figure for June was approx 639 kWh.
You’d probably be on around 750 kWh a month with a weekly average of 182 kWh.
There are four of us (2 adults, 2 teens) so between us all there are many devices/gadgets in use or charging.
You’ll find out in time, but I think your main consumption is likely to be down to:
1 - The tube heater on 24/7
2 - Conventional filament lighting
3 - The high wattage security lighting triggered at night
4 - ? mystery device/devices you’ve not considered or identified
5 - the Naim system
With regard to 2 above I hated CFL bulbs (the fragile compact fluorescent ones) but absolutely love modern LED lighting. LED lights are a lot cheaper than 5-10 years ago and while initial outlay seems high compared to cheaper filament bulbs (you hoarded I think, nearly did the same) the light quality is much better than CFL and they come in various’ temperatures’ from cool to warm light, or even controllable colour if you wanted it (you won’t I suspect).
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If on many hours a day, I suspect the TV may use more on average than the hifi, even if the Naim components are left on continuously.
However easily checked with one of those plug-in devices
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Yes, was probably just hinting that the Naim system is likely to be one of the 'lower down’ offenders though the OP may decide that it’s still a bit too high to justify it being on 24/7.
The thread is a nice reminder to us all that we can probably save some electricity costs here and there if we really wanted to.
I have a fairly power hungry monitor for work in the study, and had forgotten I had it plugged into a TP-Link adapter.
Had a bit of a panic on Monday as I couldn’t get the monitor to turn on - it has an external power supply and I was just about to change the power lead going into this when I realised I’d inadvertently turned the TP-link adapter socket off in the app at some point over the weekend.
Shifted the adapter to see how much it cost to charge a Li-ion hoover earlier and realised that despite the adapter being off for 2-3 days when I turned it back on the work monitor had used 1.78 kWh over the last 7 days - it hadn’t been on for 2-3 of those if not longer. Discovered that even with the monitor off/slepping the external PSU was using a significant amount of energy ‘at rest’.
The old Bosch vaccum takes ages to charge and has limited running time but good to see it only used 0.05 kWh to charge - less than 1.5 pence at current rates. Not bad given I managed to hoover starirs, hall and 2 rooms quickly on a single charge over 20 mins or so - the ancient 2000W corded Miele hoover might have done a better job but interestingly (as I use it on Max) if I’d taken the same length of time (socket changes aside) I assume it would have used around 0.67 kWh assuming it does use 2000W on ‘Max’. Interesting!
Yes, agreed…
using the tube heaters is foolish thinking, and they will not likely be reinstated. At the very least there may be a replacement by thermostat frost stat timed device if condensation seems a problem in the conservatory.
Plans already in place to replace the security lights with led alternatives, search of a buying site has resulted in some watched items.
House lighting is also under review, but considering the few lamps in use, maybe less urgent.
There could still be a rouge device that so far has escaped detection, and a more through search is in place. Can’t think of anything, bur there are a number of external drives (result of running old mac systems with limited storage which is not upgradable, the pc has large drives, but paranoia over data loss is at work), and clearly there is something working away gobbling the units.
Maybe I could sell the hoard of incandescent bulbs on the black market…
Thanks for your figures to compare with our data.
The tv is labeled as 45 watts, so is an identified consumption.
If and when the Naim is reinstated I think I will develop the habit of switching off each day. I have hinted that my deaf ears may well (no - probably) not detect any difference. It is not like some of the extensive systems in the System Pictures, indeed my system is rather in imposter there. Checking consumption is the answer…
Hoovering…we were gifted a low powered upright, and I (as the hoover-er) am rather lax about regular hoovering, leaving rather too long between outings…it still has a decent suction if the bag is less than half full, rapidly decreasing suction as the bag fill to capacity. However I detect the flex is warm after I have done the house, but that is probably the manufacturer making more profit by using a cheap, thin, power cord which runs at near the current limit, and heats the cord - wasted energy there. Maybe I should get an upgrade power cord to improve the sound…perhaps Russ Andrews has some nice Kimber cable that will not heat, and let the hoover run faster…
The kettle is an area where domestic pressure is applied, and my kettle filling habits are under review…
Maybe a change to a modern eco kettle is needed (most things, including ourselves, are old in this house).
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Unless your kettle needs more than a mugful of water to safely operate then simply fill the kettle with the water you are going to use.
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Not sure what that is, but I’m not convinced there is much difference in the energy consumption of different electric kettles to boil the same quantity of water. Important thing boil only the water you want, so the jug shape ones tend to be better than the squat ones. Lower power 2kW instead of 3 will just take longer to boil but not use less energy - in fact all else equal potentially a tiny fraction more due to more loss of heat to the room.
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Yup, basic physics. It’s even first year stuff.
Maybe consider a cheap fan heater or convector heater - you could set the thermostat just to kick in if very cold rather than constantly on, or alternatively maybe a small electric dehumidifier if condesnation is the main issue and the room is effectively sealed with an internal door to the house - they actually warm the air a little and you can set the desired humidity level to what you want. Maybe you’ll even find you don’t need anything most of the year?
I have loads of external drives too (far too many) having also suffered data loss (photos primarily) decades ago, many newer ones are USB powered but the largest is powered most of the time due to the socket not being that accessible behind desk drawers. It’s also very noisy and slow to come out of sleep!
Don’t dismiss that older ‘Chrome bumper kit’ - it’s reasonably sought after for the style, and even though decades old the 62/HICAP/140 will likely still sound very good given relatively recent servicing.
You may not need/want one but I did wonder if the (I assume) analogue audio out from the TV could be bettered with a cheap but modern streaming or freeview box - the main issue might be finding something with analogue out rather than just digital connections, and mainsteram Freeview boxes are quite thin on the ground unless a streaming box would provide the channels you want via apps.
As for the hoover, make sure the flex is fully unwound but if it’s any consolation my Miele ‘drag around’ hoover flex gets warm as does the plug if used for more than a few minutes so doubt it’s cost cutting on the manufacturer’s side just an effect of using ‘adequate’ cabling without beraking the bank.
Agree with others on eco kettles - there aren’t any really just ones which allow you to boil the minimum required at a time. They may have fancy LEDs or be clear glass etc but my main criteria for kettles are rapid boil (so generally 3 kW ones) and absence of any taint due to metals/construction - I’ve had a few which gave distinctly offensive taste to the boiled water.
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I’m too stupid to work it out, but oddly I wondered earlier how much energy could be saved in winter when ground water is very cold if you filled say a 5 litre plastic container and allowed it to reach room temperature over many hours/days and used that instead of tap water? 
Ok, life’s too short!
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I expect you would save approximately the same on your water heating bill as you would spend on your heating bill replacing the heat lost to the water.
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Yes, that’s what I thought initially but it may not be that simple depending on what you’re heating with, relative costs etc and simply whether or not a gallon or so of water equilibrating with ambient room temperature would cause a significant drop in room temp to either cause automatic or manual systems to compensate with the heating.
As is clear I tend to overthink things!
The next step will appeal to @Skeptikal - have a warm bath and then fill said plastic container with tap water and put it in the warm bath water as some kind of heat exchange as the bath water would simply be going down the plughole with loss of energy to the drain.
Having said that Steptoe Snr would probably boil and drink the warm bath water!
You would think that but it may not necessarily be true. I had a bit of a drive over the last two winters to find the most economic methods and settings for room heating and water heating. The timing of the water heating vs usage and temperature drop makes a difference. Heating the water before usage, and then re heating before the stored water drops below 10 degrees is more efficient than letting the water temp drop to ambient, and then heating back up to set temperature. It doesn’t make sense as it’s all just energy conversion, but I assume there is some physics around temp difference and amount of energy required to heat a body.
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