Anyone using the British Gas energy usage app? What are peoples usage?

Harkon321

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I’ve been trying to look at our electricity usage, as it seems a lot higher than most peoples. Two adults and two children. Four bed detached. Combi Boiler, so not hot water tank. Electric oven and induction hob. All 12 months old. New fridge freezer in kitchen and an old one in the garage.

I’m averaging about 15kWh a day and am trying to reduce this for obvious reasons. Have found a couple of things on standby that can be turned off or I’ve put on smart plugs.

Some recent images from the app.

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I think the big spikes are the washing machine. But there are spikes in the early hours when everyone is asleep that I can’t understand.
 
Maybe not responsible for the peaks in the night (as you'd have them all day too), but I'd consider if it's worth keeping that 'old freezer' as old ones can be bad for power wastage. At least test it over a period of time if you have one of those measuring plugs?

Any equipment that might fire up in the night to check for updates perhaps? Subs set to auto that might kick in due to a mains spike as I've known that happen with my smaller MK V8, should still go off after 10-15 minutes though and would only be at minimum level without any signal though.

The bigger spikes could be cooking in the evening too? The 6am spike; morning shower, boiling the (full) kettle, etc and whatever else people do at 6am (I wouldn't know as I was never up that early even when I worked if I could help it :D ).

Have you got older style halogen lights in your bathroom or kitchen? All my lights are LED, bar a pair in the living room that are rarely used. I went from 80 watts to 38 watts in my kitchen earlier this year, just changing from the older fluorescent slow start up type to LED. If they'd been halogen, would have been more like 500 watts with them all on.

Like you, four bed detached house, combi boiler and appliances (just a small wine cooler in place of your extra freezer) and a gas hob. You know my daily usage from other threads is currently 6kW a day, but for the benefit of others reading.

I'm getting my smart meter installed later this week (Octopus), so will be interesting to see where my usage is and any peaks I don't understand...I'll post back once I've got some data.
 
I’ve been trying to look at our electricity usage, as it seems a lot higher than most peoples. Two adults and two children. Four bed detached. Combi Boiler, so not hot water tank. Electric oven and induction hob. All 12 months old. New fridge freezer in kitchen and an old one in the garage.

I’m averaging about 15kWh a day and am trying to reduce this for obvious reasons. Have found a couple of things on standby that can be turned off or I’ve put on smart plugs.

Some recent images from the app.

View attachment 1744326View attachment 1744327

I think the big spikes are the washing machine. But there are spikes in the early hours when everyone is asleep that I can’t understand.
Have you got a breadmaker machine making fresh bread for the morning?
Or perhaps an infestation of shoe repairing elves who, moving with the times, now use electric light and machines vs candles and needles/thread :)

51-tN-3-WTL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 
No halogen lighting at all. Almost all of it is Hue LEDs to be honest.

Washing machine cycle (newish Samsung) we have been using is an Eco setting but it takes 2hr 44 min and still washes at 40-60. I can’t imagine that the cheapest. I’m going to try the other options like 1 hr 20 or 30 deg wash.
 
Of course you did say about your Hue lamps on the other thread...I blame my goldfish memory. :)

That 4am peak is a bit odd, the others might fit in with cooking, showers, etc but I'm sure you've already though of that. Is it the same pattern each night?

FWIW we use a 30 degree wash on our NEC machine (an older one we bought as a like for like replacement for an even older Siemens as it's integrated and I wanted an easy installation job for myself!).
 
I spoke to the other half. She often sets washing machine to finish a cycle as we get up at 7am. So it probably starts at 4.30am ish 🙄
 
There was me thinking you might be getting up at 4am for a bathroom trip and turning all the lights on. ;) Funny how it works out though.
 
Found a few savings.

Measured standby usage of home cinema gear. I’ve left the Denon 2400 alone, need it in for Spotify and the TV. Also left Virgin V6 box on.

Seats 0.5W x 3
Subs 8.2 W x 2
Denon 4400 6.8W
EmotIva 5ch Power Amp 0.3W
Rack - PS4, Roku, Echo Dot, 4k Blu-ray 14.2W

Totals 39.2 W on standby (0.94 kWh a day), that I can just turn in when I enter the room.

@KelvinS1965
We spoke about projector use in another thread.
JVC X9500 uses

1.2W standby
275W low lamp
353W high lamp

Another way of looking at that, is that the power required to watch a film on the projector is less than the power used by leaving the rack and subs on standby for the rest of the day!
 
Great, thanks for the check of the projector; funny it just occured to me earlier that since I use it in low lamp it should be less than 380 watts they state (and great that you measure a bit less than that as well). Mine is in Standby, so I ought to unplug it since it won't be used for a month or two I'd guess. We have a lot on and a family wedding too, so even with the darker evenings it can wait.

Your rack standby is the same as mine at 40 watts: Mine includes my PVR, Harmony remote/base station thing, plus one of those HDMI Vertex things and another HDMI to cat 6 converter as well, plus the Lumagen in Standby.

I found some savings today, non of them that much, but some are on all evening and others on 24/7 so they do add up:

My son's room had an older fluorescent type bayonet lamp that was quite dim, but still 20 watts. I swapped it with my bedside lamp bulb that never gets used much...8 watts and brighter. Saves 12 watts for 6-7 hours each evening.

My main 50" TV takes 10 watts in standby. Oddly the identical 39" version in the conservatory takes nothing in Standby. Same settings, etc, so it is switched off at the TV rather than the remote. Not being used at the moment anyway.

The 32" Kitchen TV takes 70 watts when on. It does have a physical off switch which we always use, but considering the 50" above takes about 45-50 watts when on it seems poor by comparison. Doesn't get used much at the moment, but in winter we tend to sit in there late afternoon and while preparing dinner. The really old 32" in a spare bedroom takes 125 watts!!! I think I'll bin it and move the kitchen TV into that room (it's barely ever used by visitors anyway).

It gives me an excuse to buy a new main TV and move the existing one into the kitchen/dinning room. Only problem is that you might remember my main TV goes up and down on a lift, so I'll have to cut a bigger hole in the Oak shelf if I went to a 55" for the main TV. I'll probably just buy a newer 32" for the kitchen though with the Apps built in since the old one doesn't even have wifi.

As of nearly 10pm tonight today's use since the smart meter reset at midnight is 3.7kwh, so it might add another 0.5kwh on in the next two hours, especially as I'm going to splash out and turn the AVR on in the conservatory for the rest of a film that's come on: Tv alone is 38 watts, plus 30 or so for the AVR and (surprised by this) my MK V8 takes around 10 watts. My wife has been shredding a load of old paperwork today as well, plus two cold wash cycles, but no dishwasher today.
 
How do you find the coke washes?? Is that completely cold? Or 20/30deg? Normal detergent at that temp?

Did our first wash at 30deg today 😁
 
Seems to come out OK. I often end up putting the washing out and it seems OK. We're using up some washing tablets my late mother in law had a pile of, so my wife dissolves them first in a cup, but we're nearly out of them now.

We do a hot wash from time to time to clear the pipes through, but 0.1Kwh for a 30 degree wash cycle is really good (less than the dishwasher I think). Apart from my scruffy DIY clothes nothing is really grimy though, so it doesn't need a boil wash everytime.
 
We do a hot wash from time to time to clear the pipes through, but 0.1Kwh for a 30 degree wash cycle is really good (less than the dishwasher I think). Apart from my scruffy DIY clothes nothing is really grimy though, so it doesn't need a boil wash everytime.

That’s excellent my old Bosch washing machine is 0.35 KWh for a 30° wash cycle, and the Bosch dishwasher is 1.7 Kwh for a 65° cycle.
 
I'm a bit suspicious of that on-off reading, so I'll check it again next wash cycle.

Is it sad that I'm now waiting for midnight to see if I've beaten my previous best of 6kwh per day? Looking like under 4.5kwh with another 15 minutes to go. :)

EDIT: 4.3KwH for the day. :)
 
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