What does a house base load look like?

[Rolfe]

I'm interested in seeing what other people's houses are consuming when there's no extra malarkey going on like kettles and vacuum cleaners. Fridge, freezer, the odd appliance in standby, everybody out.

I have some suspicion I'm using more electricity than would be usual for a single person living alone, and I don't know where it's going.

When my installer first came round he expressed surprise at the size of my electricity usage, but I put this down to my incandescent light bulb habit, and vowed to reform. I bought a bunch of LED bulbs, and have installed them (so far) in all the lights that are on for any significant time. (I've still to go round the rooms that aren't used very often.) I'm sure that has made an enormous difference. But I'm still using 8-9 kwh in a day even in summer, excluding car charging obviously, and even on days when I've not been home the house on its own is using around 4.5 kwh. This is basically fridge and freezer as far as I can see. And the computer printer, which stays on.

I read that the average usage for a home is around 8 kwh per day, so this doesn't seem that unreasonable, even more so when you consider that my house is quite large. However, there's only one of me, and I'm only occupying about half of it. I don't cook a lot, I only run the dishwasher and washing machine every week or two, and the tumble dryer almost never. I gave up my fan heater habit even before I gave up the incandescent light bulbs. I don't spend half the day vacuuming.

I'm not exactly worried, the new home energy system is making me money (from solar export) at this time of year, and my grid usage is almost all at 7p/unit, so it's not a matter of cost. I'm just wondering why my usage seems so high compared to what one might expect from a single person.

 

[Bam Bam]

I'm interested in seeing what other people's houses are consuming when there's no extra malarkey going on like kettles and vacuum cleaners. Fridge, freezer, the odd appliance in standby, everybody out.

We have an end terrace house

A Summer day when we were away on holiday: 2.6kWh used.

You can see the blips when the fridge/freezer comes on. Goes from 30W to 130W during those times.

Yesterday I was in and we had the oven on a lot in the evening: 9kWh used.

Is this what you had in mind?

 

[Jomarkh]

This was this usage on one if the days while we were on holiday in Scotland

 

[Rolfe]

That's exactly what I was looking for, thank you.

I think the blips are the freezer rather than the fridge, because during the morning when I had my faulty fridge removed and replaced with a new one (which wasn't to be switched on for four hours after installation to let the coolant settle) the blips went on as usual. One blip every half hour. When I got the new fridge installed my impression was that the base load of the house went down a bit.

This is a day when I was on holiday, with only the house load showing.

It actually looks less than that second graph you posted. But then in your earlier post you said it was varying between 30 and 130 watts? But your graph shows it varying between about 150 and 300 watts? Mine seems to vary between about 120 and 210 watts, which doesn't seem ureasonable.

I suppose my next experiment should be to go round and switch everything off and see how much each one takes as it's switched back on again.

 

[Bam Bam]

It actually looks less than that second graph you posted. But then in your earlier post you said it was varying between 30 and 130 watts? But your graph shows it varying between about 150 and 300 watts? Mine seems to vary between about 120 and 210 watts, which doesn't seem ureasonable.

Yes, seemingly yourself and Jomarkh have a higher baseload than me.

I guess our standby devices don't use much. I don't know if the inverter is "self-powering" according to this calculation, and what other than the router and the radios/fridge-freezer in standby will have any draw. We don't have a TV.

 

[Gadget Geek]

Overnight, the house uses between 100 and 300 Watts, depending on fridge- freezers kicking in. We have the router running, a small desktop computer to record the security camera videos, the Alexa Assistant, and the Freeview box on standby. Also, the Powervault uses a few tens of Watts to power it's electronics.

 

[Rolfe]

Yes, seemingly yourself and Jomarkh have a higher baseload than me.

I guess our standby devices don't use much. I don't know if the inverter is "self-powering" according to this calculation, and what other than the router and the radios/fridge-freezer in standby will have any draw. We don't have a TV.

Oh, sorry, that was @Jomarkh, not you, which is why I was confused. Mea culpa.

I've has a wander round the house and most things are fairly negligible. Radio, TV in standby, that sort of thing, really nothing. I did find that a small strip light I leave on a lot in the kitchen is drawing about 40 watts though, which was more than I was expecting. There was also an issue with the hifi in the living-room, which seemed to be drawing power even though the amp was switched off. The printer was only about 10 watts in standby.

I think really baseline things like the router, the landline phone and the central heating controls (even when the boiler is switched off) - also maybe the inverter etc - are taking about 75 watts, which doesn't seem excessive.

 

[tsedge]

There are two of us and we average 17kWh/day (excluding car charging), it is a big house and we have a hot tub and lots of appliances.

In my view the "average" house numbers quoted are an underestimate for modern living.

 

[Rolfe]

Overnight, the house uses between 100 and 300 Watts, depending on fridge- freezers kicking in. We have the router running, a small desktop computer to record the security camera videos, the Alexa Assistant, and the Freeview box on standby. Also, the Powervault uses a few tens of Watts to power it's electronics.

It doesn't look as if my house is doing anything out of the ordinary. I switched off the fridge and freezer to go round checking things, and got the baseline down to about 75 watts by switching off the kitchen strip light and the living-room hifi. Nothing else seemed to make a lot of difference.

Now the fridge and freezer are back on it all seems to be back about where it was, though obviously these things are going to have to work for a little while to get back to temperature. Apart from remembering to turn the living-room entertainment centre off at the mains, there really isn't anything else. The computer is only about 10 watts.

I really just wanted to find out if I was way out of line with everyone else on the baseline, and I don't think that's the case now. I'm not going to leave that kitchen light off, it's a dark corner where I do all the food preparation and I keep going to it. But I might just try to remember to flip the mains switch on the entertainment system. Especially during the summer when I'm in the conservatory, not the main living room.

I suppose 10 watts here and 10 watts there mount up, but I don't think there's anything major that I need to be worrying about.

 

[Cocijo]

It’s good that you are aware and on top of things. Many users have no idea what their consumption is.
I use the octopus app for realtime and longer electricity consumption data, which I find convenient as it can be displayed on my devices as needed, such as iPhone and iPad, and also instantly provides an up to date cost.

 

[Rolfe]

There are two of us and we average 17kWh/day (excluding car charging), it is a big house and we have a hot tub and lots of appliances.

In my view the "average" house numbers quoted are an underestimate for modern living.

I imagine a hot tub will consume a lot! I don't have one of these. I don't have enormous numbers of appliances, just the usual labour-saving devices, and in the winter my cat has a small pet-sized electric blanket that I tend to forget to switch off. That hasn't been on since I got the new system though.

My supplier's eyebrows were raised when he looked at my last bill, and I can see why, because my usage was something over 6,000 kwh a year, but that was including car charging. The scary thing is that it was higher than that before I got the car, due I think to the incandescent light-bulb habit and the fan heater habit. I killed the fan heater habit when I got the car, but I only killed the incandescent light bulb habit when I got the new system.

I think if I simply get all these light bulbs replaced (there are some that don't get turned on much that I haven't replaced yet) and try to remember to flip the switch on the hifi system when I'm not using it, there's nothing else worth doing.

Where I was coming from here is that I wondered if the 9.5 kwh battery (usable capacity probably about 9 kwh) would be enough to keep the house going from 5.30 am to 11.30 pm in winter, with lights and heating on, and cooking in the evenings. But I think it's not a problem.

 

[Rolfe]

It’s good that you are aware and on top of things. Many users have no idea what their consumption is.
I use the octopus app for realtime and longer electricity consumption data, which I find convenient as it can be displayed on my devices as needed, such as iPhone and iPad, and also instantly provides an up to date cost.

This is the New Me. I have never been parsimonious with electricity, probably due to my mother nagging me to switch things off when I was a child, and having no idea what these things cost to run at the time. When I got my own place (1982 actually) I could manage the bills OK, and in reaction I just did what I liked without monitoring it.

Then when they started phasing out incandescent bulbs, about the time I moved here, I wasn't happy. I had my mother living with me by then, and she had very poor eyesight due to glaucoma. She simply couldn't see with the low energy bulbs available then. So I stocked up with incandescent bulbs, intending for these to tide me over until something better was available. I think I over-bought, and just went on using them. There's no doubt I like them, but it all adds up.

It was only when I got the EV and started to look at consumption that I realised the fan heaters I used sometimes in the evenings were really racking up the bills. I gave up on these and simply raised the central heating temperature a bit (what I had been trying to avoid, ironically). I also stopped using the tumble dryer, because I don't really need it anyway. That pretty much paid for the car charging.

When I got the new energy system I resolved to be a better person, and started replacing the light bulbs. But overall, leaving aside the capital cost of the system (gulp!), I'm only paying 7p/unit now, when I was paying 31p/unit at the time I got the car and realised I had to take stock and get the usage down, so as long as I don't run down a 9.5 kw home battery between 5.30 am and 11.30 pm, I'll be happy.

 

[Gadget Geek]

You could put a timer plug or smart plug on the hifi to automate the switching. I've been looking back at our usage when I wasn't charging the cars or battery and we used between 10kWh and 18kWh a day, average would be 14kWh.

 

[Gadget Geek]

Where I was coming from here is that I wondered if the 9.5 kwh battery (usable capacity probably about 9 kwh) would be enough to keep the house going from 5.30 am to 11.30 pm in winter, with lights and heating on, and cooking in the evenings. But I think it's not a problem.

My original set up was 8kWh, which would run the house with 5 adults in it for 14 hours with some to spare in the winter. Summer was a doddle with the solar.

 

[Rolfe]

You could put a timer plug or smart plug on the hifi to automate the switching. I've been looking back at our usage when I wasn't charging the cars or battery and we used between 10kWh and 18kWh a day, average would be 14kWh.

It does sound as if I'm not that far out of line with modern usage, then. The hifi isn't a big deal, but it probably wasn't the best idea not to switch it off for the summer when I'm not using that room. I do need to get another couple of timer plugs for lights though, I've had at least one fail on me and come to think of it I've had them for decades.

I seem to be using about £1 worth of mains electricity a day at the moment, which the way I've been running it, is a full charge of the home battery and running the Eddi just before 5.30 am. So that's basically baseline, then add intermittent washing machine and dishwasher use to that. The home battery is getting emptied back into the grid in the late evening, so in effect greater house usage during the day comes off export, and doesn't add to the basic bill. So maybe £400 a year excluding car charging? Then offset against that will be export, which varies from 45 kwh in a day (if I play my cards right) in midsummer on a cloudless day, to probably nothing at all on a dull winter day.

I'm actually hoping the export will cover everything, making the home energy system a genuine investment over paying maybe £1,700 a year previously. But who knows.

 

[mg4mc]

My base load used to 90 W, but with all the devices and gizmos added over the years it has crept up to 150 W, or 255 W with the fridge/freezer running.

 

[Rolfe]

My original set up was 8kWh, which would run the house with 5 adults in it for 14 hours with some to spare in the winter. Summer was a doddle with the solar.

That's really reassuring. I guess I just look back at some of the usage I remember from old Scottish Power accounts, 8,000 kwh in a year (22 kwh a day!) at one time, and think, how can I stay under 9 kwh a day? But first, that was when I had the incandescent light bulb and fan heater habits, and second, the 9 kwh only has to last 18 hours, and washing machine and dishwasher can be moved out of that 18-hour period.

 

[Gadget Geek]

A really dreary day in the first week of January, we generated 0.9kWh. The next day, we generated 5kWh!

 

[Cocijo]

I have a Sonos system with a sub woofer that uses nearly 40w on standby which is ridiculous.

 

[Gadget Geek]

That's really reassuring. I guess I just look back at some of the usage I remember from old Scottish Power accounts, 8,000 kwh in a year (22 kwh a day!) at one time, and think, how can I stay under 9 kwh a day? But first, that was when I had the incandescent light bulb and fan heater habits, and second, the 9 kwh only has to last 18 hours, and washing machine and dishwasher can be moved out of that 18-hour period.

That's the idea. Move all heavy loads to the off peak. I get up in a morning and empty the washing machine, which has run its cycle overnight.