Energy saving for the terminally dim

[Rolfe]

Exactly right. This is quite common in other forums, as you know. I only look at two forums here, which is plenty along with the other rubbish I try to read regularly. I mod on a further two sites and do really try hard to not spoil the flow by moving stuff, or editing heavily (only when site rules are broken).

Anyway back to your original point - I still have some billing info from 2012, when I used 5110 units. I was with Eon at the time and they had some ongoing initiative to help you understand what contributed to usage, and by 2018 this was down to 4244 units (pre-EV). 2022 was 5413, which I expect is largely accounted for by the EV. (My figures are always a bit skewed by my modest solar array).

This is why I have trouble understanding (e.g.) how someone in another thread can have a monthly cost of £500 - it sedems a massive amount of energy to me, but I realise everyone is different. I recall the Beeb having a vox pop on energy bills a few months back and a bloke in a one bedroom flat was saying he won't be able to afford the £300 pm - which is when I though maybe education on usage (and more so wastage) could pay back just as well as subsidising those bills. I'm currently slightly underpaying at £120 pm in a 3 bed semi, though I do have a few bits of tech helping, along with nearly three months holiday abroad in the cooler parts of the year, and I'm probably tending towards extreme in some controls. But it's hard to see where more savings could be made...

I think the person in the other thread was all-electric, heating and all.

If I don't use these fan heaters then I only see a spike in usage if I have the oven on or something like that. I don't use the washing machine or the dishwasher often, maybe once a week, and I practically never use the tumble drier - it came with the house, I wouldn't install one by my own choice.

I'm having a "no fan heaters, no sirree, not even on a chilly evening" kick at the moment to see what happens. Once of these is consuming more electricity than my granny charger.

 

[Alb]

Electric heating is about 5 times more expensive than burning kerosene for the same amount of heat.

 

[Rolfe]

Yeah. I did admit to having been terminally dim about this! I have a Living Flame LPG fire in the living room which is a wee bit of a luxury to turn on in the cold evenings. However, it needs the hoses from the gas tanks to the wall fitting replaced, and I have failed in my efforts to get a qualified firm to fix it. Need to try again. If the one that has been saying "we're not taking on new customers till the end of next month" comes out with that again, I have a phone number of someone else to try.

Anyway, for two winters now the fire has been out of commission, and I was using a fan heater to compensate. I should have turned up the central heating, I realise that now looking at the figures. It just seems like such an innocuous little thing!

To compound that, I have a greenhouse heater which is essentially another of the same, but which always keeps its fan running even if it's up to temperature. I have sworn off that thing, and again will go back to the central heating radiator. (I was using it on cold nights when the CH was off to coddle the plants, but maybe the plants can take their chances.)

I had a spell in January this year where the central heating was out of commission and the fan heaters (and a convector) got used a lot. That didn't help either. But it's all fixed now (at a cost of over £3,000, which hurt) and I have a new tank full of kerosene that won't leak away or get contaminated with water or whatever.