I’m glad my explanation was useful. The Solar iBoost paid for itself within a couple of years max at 2014 energy prices. Hope you can source it, or a close equivalent relatively easily.
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Having the oven on takes a tonne of electricity, so if you’re going to do it, batch cook or do a bunch of things at the same time. I bake, and did cake, scones and that nights roast veg pretty much in one go.
Also, for those who’ve not joined the cult yet, an InstantPot is a great device anyway and from what I can see watching the smart meter data, pretty impressively efficient as a pressure cooker or slow cooker.
I have my electricity account with Octopus energy.
Today I received the bill for the last 25 days and it has cost me as follows,
Energy used 180.0 kWh @ 25.80p/kWh = £46.44
Standing charge 25 days @ 46.33p/day = £11.58
Loyal Octopus 25 days @13.15p/day = - £3.29
subtotal of charges before VAT = £54.73
VAT at 5% = £2.74
Total electricity charges = £57.47
The reason the bill is for only 25 days was because of day that I sent in my reading of the Electricity meter.
I would be interested to know how my bill and prices compare with anyone who is interested.
We have just learned today that we are eligible for roof panels that create electricity and they are paid for by the Government via our local council. This should be useful as our bungalow faces South and on sunny days we can get up to 10 hours of sunshine on our roof.
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We’re with Octopus as well and a quick calculation comes out the same as you to within a pound or two.
How did you find that out, if you don’t mind me asking, and what is the criteria?
Hi Mickapp you are doing very well, are you doing something extra to that which I am doing?
My daughter found out some how and she is coming over today so I will ask her and get back to you. There is a company called " YES energy solutions" that are dealing with it on behalf of North Yorkshire council. I don’t know if this company only deals with North Yorkshire applications or not. The main criteria is that you have to have a total income of less than £30,000 per year which is us as we are both retired. You have to be prepared to send three months bank statements of everyone who lives in your house to the people who decide whether you are eligible. You will also be asked for more than one way of identification, driving license, passport, utility bill etc but, they will let you know about this.
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Nothing special really apart from, making a second freezer redundant, we can manage without it. That was using around 3-4 kWh per week on its own, our daily usage is around that ATM. I don’t put lights on unnecessarily, things left on standby, the usual saving stuff. We cook by gas but use an air fryer too, stopped using an electric kettle for a cuppa, we use a gas hob kettle.
Avoid using the electric shower, take baths but in the recent hot spells a cool shower was a must.
I’m sticking with my variable tariff come October, the capped price forecast my bill to rise to £2000 from £1150.
As you can see we aren’t the average that they say are already paying £3500 approx energy bills.
I was tempted to get a fix but paying over the odds for the privilege now and trying to forecast future prices has been very difficult. Who knows what’s to come.
Yeah we are about to decommission our chest freezer of 40 yrs+ in the garage 
Will be very interesting to see what affect that has on the bills.
The conspiracy theorist in me says this is all an attempt to get us ( the general public ) to take more care over the energy we use, which is not a bad thing really.
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Thanks, we won’t be eligible for that then but I see there are other grants out there that might be worth investigating. Something to do with the Green Deal?
Hi Mickap, I have just spoke to my daughter and evidently she has been visiting our local council for a few weeks to see what offers the government were making via the council and then as soon as one came up on our council she applied for us, mainly because I am 87 Years old. There is only so much money available so you need to apply quite quickly. Just as a matter of interest my daughter has just had fitted a system that draws warm air out of the cold air outside, I don’t understand how this works but they seem to think it will save money and energy in the long run, they are also paying to have a lot of these energy panels put on their bungalow roof too.
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That’s a heat pump, again there are grants available to have them fitted, the jury is still out on how effective they are compared to the price of fitting, the same with Solar if you have to pay for it in some cases at best you break even. But if you have it fitted for free or low cost then you should save money.
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I actually invested in a Beko outdoors freezer during Cov-id to principally maintain a healthy diet of home batch cooked meals without risking infection by exposing us to ad-hoc Tesco top ups with the filthy mouth breathing idiots. Walking petri dishes a lot of them.
Last year, I figured it cost around £50.00 over 12 months on “tickover”.
Set against that was a variety of single & double meals batch cooking, some on the hob and some in the double electric using the so-called yellow label out of date packs. Lamb, chicken, turkey, pork roasts the lot. All dirt cheap if you time it right.
Without a doubt, over the past 2 years, that dedicated 5 drawer upright freezer, which I also freeze cheap stuff, has saved us a back handed fortune.
Just my lifestyle choices…I’m a “planner” and enjoy crunching numbers.
The freezer as it stands today has paid for itself x 3. at least.
What I do is not for everyone. I just object to getting shafted at the retail end of things.
I turn out, after a bit of self training, a varied range of global dishes using the Shan range of spices and pre-preps, all on Amazon. Very cheap & very simple & quick.
https://www.shanfoods.com/
Forget these mega expensive mini spice jars. They are gram per £1 con.
Buy bulk bags of Basmati long grain off Amazon, and quality pastas etc.
It’s all there if you can be bothered…my point being you can go a long way to offsetting fuel bills if you are prepared to try changing things.
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Being somewhat OCD, technical, and having a father who was a top meteorologist and went to all the early climate conferences I’ve always kept an eye on our energy usage.
Power meters can be very handy, plug-top for spot checks, and clamped on an incoming mains lead also. I’ve had both from before Smart meters were introduced.
Spreadsheets can be very illuminating, and mine cover gas and electricity bills and usage back to when we bought the house in 1971.
In 72
almost the first things I fitted were decent loft insulation, self closing doors on bog upstairs and kitchen immediately below downstairs and an electric cooker to replace the gas one. Annual gas usage dropped by from 50,000KWh to 40,000KWh, no change to electric at 5000KWh per annum.
In 74
we added secondary glazing, mainly to keep out the traffic noise, no difference to consumption possibly because we finally gained a thirsty s/h valve TV.
In 79
I fitted TRVs in all rooms except the one with the stat. Gas now 35,000.
In 82
I completed an extension that almost doubled the size of the house, but built to modern standards. The gas consumption went down to 30,000 for the next two years, simply because I’d removed two lead flat roofs (porch, bay window) and covered quite a bit of old cold wall.
Second child became a lot more a part of our lives and consumption climbed back to 35,000.
In 83
a new “More efficient” boiler proved significantly less efficient threatening 42,000 , and I needed to introduce heat zones with a more flexible control system, and introduce an in/out air heat exchanger. Gas still up to 38,000. Electric still much the same.
Heat exchanger costs 50W for two fans, but can recover up to 1KW from hot wet smelly air and put it back into clean dry fresh air, net gain across a year about 3,000KWh depending on inside/outside temperature difference.
In 86
adding a conservatory containing the laundry dropped 1,000 off gas simply because it effectively insulated a long wall.
In 88
adding our first tumble dryer hit the electric bill, but reconfiguring the kitchen with better appliances cancelled this out. However after this electric began climbing steadily up to 6,000 as other gadgets were added.
In 93
eldest child left and gas dropped by 3,000, and the electricity 1,000!
In 2000
a prototype plasma put up the electric a lot to 6,500, but a heat-pump tumble dryer and losing all the incandescent bulbs for LEDs cancelled some of it out. Insulating all the ground-floor ceilings at the same time as fitting the flush LEDs made a worthwhile difference to comfort and required all the rads to be rebalanced.
In 2003
youngest left and gas finally down to 32,000 again
In 2006
a new HXi24 condensing boiler and gas down to 22,000 with the same control system as before. What an improvement! Why didn’t I do this sooner? Too busy at work to think about the house, but retirement leaves an idle brain time to spend money.
In 2012
LED TV drops electric by a big chunk! But DVRs, 24/7 security and monitors etc eat into the savings.
In 2017
added an Electriq air-con/heat-pump. This is surprisingly efficient IF USED SPARINGLY. It kept the whole ground floor cool during the recent heat wave. Unfortunately I cannot see a simple way of fitting another upstairs, because easy access is needed for the outdoor unit.
In 2022
gas still averages 22,000KWh p/a and electric 5,800KWh.
Average total annual cost was about £2,100 each year between and including 09 and 21, but my forecast is double that for this year.
Now it is ouch time.
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Pulling out plugs and switching off sockets is doing nothing if the devices plugged into those socket are themselves switched off. No current can flow through the circuit. Also, switching off computers and printers can be false economy. The power they use in standby mode is negligible, and you stand a much bigger chance of the device failing when it’s switched back on than if you left it on. They don’t like thermal cycling or still less, thermal shock… You could save a few pennies in power and get a bill for several hundred pounds for a new computer / printer!
According to Octopus Energy they say that you will still get a trickle of electricity if you don’t switch the socket off and remove the plug. Evidently you need special sockets to be able to leave an appliance plugged in.
For a non-expert in electricity, it is difficult to know who to take notice of. I think I forgot to mention in my previous posts that our biggest saving is switching off the combination boiler and only switching it back on to get hot water for showers and to do the washing up. As soon as the washing up bowl is full I switch the boiler off again. I am saving electricity and oil as it is an oil burning boiler,
That does not make any sense. Some devices MIGHT consume a tiny amount of energy when switched off, if for instance they have a power indicator that lights when power is on the device, but I can’t think of anything offhand that does this. TVs and computers on ‘standby’ rather than switched off obviously do consume a small amount of current. So just switch them off (but as I said, I would not do that with a computer as you will shorten its life and new ones are not cheap!).
If the socket is switched off, there can DEFINATELY be no current flow as the socket switch is a mechanical break in the electrical circuit so with a break in the circuit, obviously no current at all can flow. So why take the plug out? This isn’t rocket science, it’s very basic! It smacks of old wives tales of electricity leaking out of a turned-on socked like water out of a turned on tap! Electricity really doesn’t do that!
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Only one good reason, and by far the best when already switched OFF, this is good exercise to wipe the contacting surfaces to remove tarnish.
In use, a plug can be hot because
- the fuse is hot, or
- the wires are too thin, or
- their fixing screws are loose, (in plug or socket) or
- plug pins are tarnished, or
- socket contacts are tarnished, or
- socket switch contacts are tarnished or
- any combination of the above!
It is also a good idea to occasionally exercise the mains switches when OFF LOAD for the same reason, to wipe clear any age related tarnish.
Be safe.
There is going to be an energy price cap of some kind, so now you just have to worry about how it is going to be paid for, because it will have to be paid for…