Hi group,

Today I completed the monthly on line meter readings submission for my
energy supplier and was presented with a bill for about £450 for the past
quarter.
I was amassed.
The bill is paid by monthly direct debit and it just about flatted the
accumulated credit in our account since our last bill.
No doubt the supplier will increase my approx £110 per month direct debit as
we are not out of the winter period yet.
The bill is for both gas and electricity.

We switched suppliers a couple of years ago using Uswitch so we are not with
the historical suppliers for the area.
I will be comparing prices again soon once the playing field is level.

Our house is a semi dormer bungalow ( not a very big one ) in the North
West.
We have cavity wall insulation, loft insulation, double glazing, combi
boiler ( 2 yrs old ), and programmable room stat.
Most of our light fittings are CFL's.
We have a dishwasher, tumble drier and electric oven with gas hob.

It's difficult to see how we could economise more than we do on the high
consumption appliances - especially gas.

I am starting to look at the electrical consumption of low consumption
items.
For example, the door bell transformer is lowish consumption but powered up
24/7/365 and it is an old style one and not a Switched Mode Power Supply.
I know from my electronic engineering training that the 'old style'
transformers are relatively inefficient compared to SMPS - iron losses and
such.

This is very much a 'started today' project but on basic calculations if the
bell transformer consumed 100mA ( not yet measured it so I may be way out )
and it's powered up 8736 hrs per year ( all year ) and my supplier charges
9p per kilowatt hour ( excl VAT ) then it's costing us £18.86 per year just
for the bell transformer.
Our alarm system also has a 'traditional' PSU and is powered up all year.
That is likely to consume more than the bell transformer as equipment IS
being powered 24/7 so, on assumed consumption figures ( mA ), we are now up
to more than £37 per year wasted, much of it on iron loss.
I know that most modern electronic devices/appliances use SMPU power
supplies.

I'm thinking of swapping power supplies for these 'traditional' items to
SMPU's - easy for the door bell, not as easy for the alarm system.

We have several modern devices powered up 24/7/365, cable modem, router,
network switch and the usual videos, TVs etc.
I am thinking of putting these on electronic timeswitches to power them down
between, say, 01.00 am to 10.00 am.

I know the real killers are tumble driers, cookers, washing machines etc as
regards electricity consumption.

Basically I'm looking for any other ideas to reduce our consumption based on
the info I have given.

All of the low consumption items take little power individually but added
together and viewed over 12 months powered up time, savings with possible
power unit conversion could be worth while.

BTW I have loads of redundant SMPS units to use so no capital outlay.

Time to get out my AC current meter and calculate just what each is costing
us - then add it up.

Any suggestions ??






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