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Default Typical Household Electricity Usage ?

I have just received an electric bill that suggests my daily usage kWh
(over 100 days) is 37 kWh a day ?
(British Gas)

We have gas central heating - no electric heaters.

Two bedroom detached house - two adults one baby.

Washing machine/dish-washer on probably an hour each five times a
week.

No other excessive high power stuff in the house....(computer 200W on
all day = 4.8 kWh day)

Dodgy meter ? Or next door are wired in...

Phil

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Default Typical Household Electricity Usage ?

Just a further thought. Is that usage on an actual reading over the
period or an estimate ?

Andy
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wrote in message
...
I have just received an electric bill that suggests my daily usage kWh
(over 100 days) is 37 kWh a day ?
(British Gas)

You do realise you are with the most expensive provider! I ditched BG when
they
increased prices by 200+% over 2 years. Even their fixed price deal meant
paying far more than a cheaper provider, but stupid people stay with them.
I pay far less than BG charge for gas and electric, even after all the
increases
forced upon people to keep shareholders happy and meet projected incomes.


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On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:17:52 +0100, "Ian" wrote:


You do realise you are with the most expensive provider! I ditched BG when
they
increased prices by 200+% over 2 years. Even their fixed price deal meant
paying far more than a cheaper provider, but stupid people stay with them.
I pay far less than BG charge for gas and electric, even after all the
increases
forced upon people to keep shareholders happy and meet projected incomes.


What they're currently doing is introducing Click * - number changes every
couple of months, presently Click 6 - which having hooked you as being the
lowest Online rate through the various comparison sites, they then raise after
being with them for a further couple of months.

Their pricing policy makes a mockery of the suggestion that you should compare
different companies and whilst obviously legal, in the present climate it smacks
of mis-selling IMO.

Andy

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wrote in message
...
I have just received an electric bill that suggests my daily usage kWh
(over 100 days) is 37 kWh a day ?
(British Gas)

We have gas central heating - no electric heaters.

Two bedroom detached house - two adults one baby.

Washing machine/dish-washer on probably an hour each five times a
week.

No other excessive high power stuff in the house....(computer 200W on
all day = 4.8 kWh day)

Dodgy meter ? Or next door are wired in...


That seems high, I happened to be working out our average today, about 13
units per day in the winter, down to about 11 in the summer (it's hard to
tell from the bills as we were away for 3-4 weeks across July & August), so
your useage is about 3x ours.

As Andrew Gabriel has suggested, try switching things off one by one - or
buy one of those power monitoring meters for about £10 -15 to see where the
power is being used.

Is it possible you've knocked an immersion heater switch on?

Also check your lights, Mains voltage halogens can add up if you have a lot
of them, and low voltage halogens can be expensive if the transformer is
'always on' - we've got some LV bedside ones that are great, but they run
off plug-in transformers that are always warm; we've put them on a timer so
they only take power between 10pm and 10am -along with the upstairs DECT
phone charger cradle




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On Oct 21, 6:24*pm, wrote:
I have just received an electric bill that suggests my daily usage kWh
(over 100 days) is 37 kWh a day ?
(British Gas)


Update.

Some of it is "catch up" from estimates- I have two meter readings
between Jan 08 and Oct 08 that now corresponds to 20 kWh a day.

This still seems very high. - if I assume:

Washing-machine-dryer/dishwasher are both on once a day - 3 kWh

Computers (x2) - 0.5 kWh x 24 - 12 kWh

Gadgets on standby 0.1 kWh x 24 - 2.4 kWh
(lots of IT stuff, 2 X TV, wifes "toys")

Ahhhhh......total looks like 17.4 kWh.

Bother.

Phil

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Default Typical Household Electricity Usage ?

On Oct 21, 6:07*pm, wrote:
On Oct 21, 6:24*pm, wrote:

I have just received an electric bill that suggests my daily usage kWh
(over 100 days) is 37 kWh a day ?
(British Gas)


Update.

Some of it is "catch up" from estimates- I have two meter readings
between Jan 08 and Oct 08 that now corresponds to 20 kWh a day.

This still seems very high. - if I assume:

Washing-machine-dryer/dishwasher are both on once a day - 3 kWh

Computers (x2) - 0.5 kWh *x 24 - 12 kWh

Gadgets on standby 0.1 kWh x 24 - 2.4 kWh
(lots of IT stuff, 2 X TV, wifes "toys")

Ahhhhh......total looks like 17.4 kWh.

Bother.

Phil


Right now am averaging in this cool eastern Canadian climate, similar
to northern Scotland? A four bedroom all electric about 40 year old
wood frame single storey house, with unfinished in ground basement
inhabited by one retired male, about 40 kw hrs per day. Overall
average annual consumption will run about 80 kw hrs per day costing me
about $240 Can. per month all charges and taxes in. That includes two
computers running continuously some workshop work , cooking hot water
etc. etc.
BTW remember that any wasted heat from halogens etc. helps heat the
house!
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wrote in message
...
I have just received an electric bill that suggests my daily usage kWh
(over 100 days) is 37 kWh a day ?
(British Gas)


Seems high. We've 5 people, 5 bedrooms, daughters that haven't mastered the
knack of turning off lights, PCs on nearly always etc. and our figure is
more like 20/25kWhr per day.

Is the bill and estimate or are have some previous bills been
underestimated?

Brian

--
73
Brian, G8OSN
www.g8osn.org.uk

Now your amateur licence is free, why not send at least £15 per year to
support the
Radio Communications Foundation or STELAR?


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Default Typical Household Electricity Usage ?

In message , Ian
writes

wrote in message
...
I have just received an electric bill that suggests my daily usage kWh
(over 100 days) is 37 kWh a day ?
(British Gas)

You do realise you are with the most expensive provider!


Or maybe not.

I ditched BG when
they
increased prices by 200+% over 2 years. Even their fixed price deal meant
paying far more than a cheaper provider, but stupid people stay with them.
I pay far less than BG charge for gas and electric, even after all the
increases
forced upon people to keep shareholders happy and meet projected incomes.


For our usage - about 25 kWh day over the last year, BG is the second
cheapest (by just a few pounds) on their Click Energy tariff . You do
need to check though as they tend to bring new variants out whilst
leaving you on the old one which has got more expensive
--
Chris French

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Default Typical Household Electricity Usage ?

In article ,
writes:
On Oct 21, 6:24*pm, wrote:
I have just received an electric bill that suggests my daily usage kWh
(over 100 days) is 37 kWh a day ?
(British Gas)

Update.
Some of it is "catch up" from estimates- I have two meter readings
between Jan 08 and Oct 08 that now corresponds to 20 kWh a day.
This still seems very high. - if I assume:
Washing-machine-dryer/dishwasher are both on once a day - 3 kWh


Dishwasher is negligable.
Washing machine is negligable unless perhaps you do lots of high
temperature washes.
I would expect a tumble drier is quite significant if used often
(I've never had one or felt the need for one, although I did build
myself a drying cupboard using a dehumidifier about 9 years ago,
which I imagine is likely to be significantly more efficient, and
I have a number of uses for the condensate it collects).

Computers (x2) - 0.5 kWh x 24 - 12 kWh


That would be a very high reading for two computers.
Make sure their screen savers are just set to blank screen,
not so much for the sake of the monitors, but so they aren't
chewing up loads of CPU running some fancy graphics, which
bumps up the power consumption.

Gadgets on standby 0.1 kWh x 24 - 2.4 kWh
(lots of IT stuff, 2 X TV, wifes "toys")


Anything recent will be =1W on standby (except set-top boxes).
A very old TV might be 8W on standby.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]
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Default Typical Household Electricity Usage ?

For our usage - about 25 kWh day over the last year, BG is the second
cheapest (by just a few pounds) on their Click Energy tariff


Tried any social tariffs ? Check out http://www.ebico.co.uk - their
prices are probably due for an overhaul, but for low users (not sure
if you fall into that category) they were hard to beat.
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Default Typical Household Electricity Usage ?

Terraced 5 bed house, 9 PCs on 24/7,

Whatever do you need 9 PC's for in a 5 bed gaff?, presume theres
routers, modems, network switches etc as well;?...


--
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On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:46:06 +0100, Colin Wilson
o.uk wrote:

For our usage - about 25 kWh day over the last year, BG is the second
cheapest (by just a few pounds) on their Click Energy tariff


Tried any social tariffs ? Check out http://www.ebico.co.uk - their
prices are probably due for an overhaul, but for low users (not sure
if you fall into that category) they were hard to beat.


Their gas has only just gone up, at the end of September but their electricity
seems quite expensive or at least it worked out that way for me (5000KWs/year)

Andy
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On Oct 21, 7:17*pm, "Ian" wrote:
wrote in message

...I have just received an electric bill that suggests my daily usage kWh
(over 100 days) is 37 kWh a day ?
(British Gas)


You do realise you are with the most expensive provider!


WRONG!!!

MBQ

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On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 10:00:49 +0100 someone who may be Andy Cap
wrote this:-

Their gas has only just gone up, at the end of September but their electricity
seems quite expensive or at least it worked out that way for me (5000KWs/year)


Ebico's tariff, which doesn't have a standing charge [1], means that
those who use a lot of electricity may well find a better price
elsewhere. However, price is not the only reason for making a
purchase and their tariff does send the right signals on reducing
electricity consumption.



[1] it really doesn't have a standing charge, unlike others who just
claim not to have a standing charge.





--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54


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On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:00:32 UTC, tony sayer wrote:

Terraced 5 bed house, 9 PCs on 24/7,


Whatever do you need 9 PC's for in a 5 bed gaff?, presume theres
routers, modems, network switches etc as well;?...


Somebody had to ask....!

Firewall, mail server, backup mail server/file server, PBX....etc. etc.
Eight are in one room.

There are more that aren't on all the time...but the four above are 20W,
30W, 50W and 35W respectively.

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Default Typical Household Electricity Usage ?

On 21 Oct, 23:45, "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:
Computers (x2) - 0.5 kWh *x 24 - 12 kWh


250W/computer is probably on the high side unless they 2 zillion gigahertz
machines. 150W to include monitor and other bits may be better for
guesstimations. Still over 7 units/day for them though.


Even with a reduction - that's almost half of the OPs electricity
usage through leaving PCs on. I've often wondered how power crazed my
PCs are, put into that context I'll have to start charging myself each
time I use it!!

5 bed detached 1905 house, 4 children, dishwasher, 2 x freezer, 1 x
fridge, 2 x TV, 1 x PVR, 1 x digibox, 1 PC, 1 laptop, tumble drier
("emergency use only"), gas CH - ranges between 10 and 15 kWh per day
according to the "energy tracker" feature for my Eon energy account.
Just reviewed the meter readings, and that gives 11.3kWh per day since
Sept 2006. Quite happy with that, given others seem to have much
higher usage!!

37kWh for the OP seems incredible!!

Matt

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On 21 Oct, 18:24, wrote:
I have just received an electric bill that suggests my daily usage kWh
(over 100 days) is 37 kWh a day ?
(British Gas)

We have gas central heating - no electric heaters.

Two bedroom detached house - two adults one baby.

Washing machine/dish-washer on probably an hour each five times a
week.

No other excessive high power stuff in the house....(computer 200W on
all day = 4.8 kWh day)

Dodgy meter ? Or next door are wired in...

Phil


A quick search shows average electricity usage per household in the UK
is estimated at anything from 2500 to 5500kWh per year, so range would
be 6.8kWh per day to 15kWh per day. Seems your consumption is very
high!

Matt


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Colin Wilson wrote:

Tried any social tariffs ? Check out http://www.ebico.co.uk - their
prices are probably due for an overhaul, but for low users (not sure
if you fall into that category) they were hard to beat.


For the Eastern region Ebico have just increased their Economy 7 prices
thus:

- day: 15.81 p/kWh - was 12.56 p/kWh - 26% increase
- night: 6.59 p/kWh - was 4.61 p/kWh - 43% increase!

They're certainly far from competitive now for E7 users with a high
average night consumption.

I've put in yet another switching application. The best I could find
for my consumption (~9800 kWh pa of which 65% at night) is EDF Energy's
new "Online Electricity V6" tariff:

- day (1): 15.64 p/kWh for first 900 kWh pa
- day (2): 9.03 p/kWh
- night: 5.34 p/kWh

(All prices quoted ex-VAT.)

--
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On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:25:41 +0100, Andy Wade wrote:

For the Eastern region Ebico have just increased their Economy 7 prices
thus:


Just? I've not had a letter from 'em telling me of an increase. Looking at
their site I can see that they have gone up again since the last one on
1st April but there is no "effective from" date that I can obviously see.

Might have to start looking again but the two Equipower tarrifs I have are
very low useage so any tarrif with a stannding charge (up front or hidden)
has to be pretty cheap to compete.

--
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Dave.



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On 22 Oct 2008 13:21:28 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:00:32 UTC, tony sayer wrote:

Terraced 5 bed house, 9 PCs on 24/7,


Whatever do you need 9 PC's for in a 5 bed gaff?, presume theres
routers, modems, network switches etc as well;?...


Somebody had to ask....!

Firewall, mail server, backup mail server/file server, PBX....etc. etc.
Eight are in one room.

Sounds like you need this: www.virtualbox.org
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In article gdn5sc$kkd$1@qmul,
"whisky-dave" writes:

"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:36:03 UTC, (Andrew
Gabriel) wrote:

Anything recent will be =1W on standby (except set-top boxes).
A very old TV might be 8W on standby.


Interestingly, I found that our new Hotpoint washing machine shows 10
watts when 'stopped' (just the power light on) at the end of a wash..!


I've found that most things left plgged in even if OFF and not in standby
such as
computers and TVs seem to draw 5-10 Watts, I have one of those plug-in


Old TV's can be that high. There are many countries which now
require =1W standby and most TV's are manufacturered for sale
to those countries.

Computers are different. They actually stay on with parts of the
motherboard powered up so they can respond to wake on LAN, wake
on ring, wake at specified time, wake on power button press, etc.
This is known as the S5 state. It might even be that the CPU is
still running the SMBIOS in this state in a very low power mode.
(As an OS programmer, I've had to interface to the SMBIOS, but
as there's no OS running in S5 state, that's not one I've paid
any attention to, other than transitioning into it when the OS
wants to shut a PC off.)

energy usage
monitors (maplin).
I think the 'leakage' is due to mains filters on equipment, especially
those on computers
in-built in to IEC connector.


The leakage on mains filters won't register any power consumption.

Even my rechargeable vacuum cleaner charger
gets warm
even if the cleaner isn;t connected, as long as the transformer is plugged
in it'll use power
not much but annoyingly something.


Yes. Manufacturers of the small transformers used in wall warts
have been making them more cheaply and less efficient over the
years. Regulatory bodies have noticed this, and I suspect
legislation will come in to force minimum efficiency on load,
and max power dissipation off-load. This will almost certainly
result in a move to all SMPSU's in wall warts. Some of these
are now extremely efficient -- there's no point unplugging my
Nokia charger as it's off-load power dissipation is too low for
me to measure, and it stays stone cold.

Another thing that's easily missed are labtop PSUs, they can be 40-70w when
charging the internal battery and that's when the laptop is off.


Yes. Some modern Toshiba ones I checked a couple of years ago had
much less than 0.5W off-load consumption, but as you say, when
left plugged in to a laptop which is switched off, it is higher
(although I never saw figures anywhere as high as yours). The
power draw does not cease when the battery is charged either.
In the office, this resulted in a recommendation to unplug
laptop from PSU, but don't bother unplugging PSU from mains
(which would have meant rummaging around down the backs of
desks in all the cabling). At home, I would suggest unplugging
to reduce risk of fire, but it was pointless to save power.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]


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On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:34:43 UTC, pete wrote:

On 22 Oct 2008 13:21:28 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:00:32 UTC, tony sayer wrote:

Terraced 5 bed house, 9 PCs on 24/7,

Whatever do you need 9 PC's for in a 5 bed gaff?, presume theres
routers, modems, network switches etc as well;?...


Somebody had to ask....!

Firewall, mail server, backup mail server/file server, PBX....etc. etc.
Eight are in one room.

Sounds like you need this: www.virtualbox.org


No. Couldn't have the mail server and the backup mail server on the same
physical box, for a start. There are similar arguments for some of the
others too....for example, I want the firewall to be a dedicated
machine.

In any case, a machine capable of virtualisation would probably use more
power than the sum of what I have. The four machines use only 135W
between them.
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On Oct 22, 7:35*pm, robert wrote:
wrote:
On 21 Oct, 18:24, wrote:
I have just received an electric bill that suggests my daily usage kWh
(over 100 days) is 37 kWh a day ?
(British Gas)


We have gas central heating - no electric heaters.


Two bedroom detached house - two adults one baby.


Washing machine/dish-washer on probably an hour each five times a
week.


No other excessive high power stuff in the house....(computer 200W on
all day = 4.8 kWh day)


Dodgy meter ? Or next door are wired in...


Phil


A quick search shows average electricity usage per household in the UK
is estimated at anything from 2500 to 5500kWh per year, so range would
be 6.8kWh per day to 15kWh per day. *Seems your consumption is very
high!


Matt


Older fridges and freezers can help push the consumption up .
How do you dry the washing during the wet weather ?
Take readings everyday and go round switching things off as suggested

(Summer 12Kwh per day winter 20 kwh per day - 3 storey town house with
poor natural lighting.)


We've got the combi in a utility room with a radiator, and an airer on
pulleys in that room. Clothes dry even quicker in the house on that
airer in winter than in summer, so even less need to use the tumble
dryer. SWMBO uses the tumble dryer only on wet summer days when the
heating isn't already on in the house.

The appliances are A or A+ rated too, which helps. I guess we use
quite a lot of gas to compensate for the electricity as the house is
badly insulated (limited double glazing, single brick construction
1905 house).

Matt
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Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:25:41 +0100, Andy Wade wrote:

For the Eastern region Ebico have just increased their Economy 7 prices
thus:


Just? I've not had a letter from 'em telling me of an increase. Looking at
their site I can see that they have gone up again since the last one on
1st April but there is no "effective from" date that I can obviously see.


2nd October, see
http://www.ebico.co.uk/html/x_news_s...rom=&ucat=2,3&

I've had no notification either.

--
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On 23 Oct, 07:38, David Hansen
wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:12:09 -0700 (PDT) someone who may be
wrote this:-

We've got the combi in a utility room with a radiator, and an airer on
pulleys in that room. *Clothes dry even quicker in the house on that
airer in winter than in summer, so even less need to use the tumble
dryer. *SWMBO uses the tumble dryer only on wet summer days when the
heating isn't already on in the house.


Clothes should still dry on the airer in summer.

--
* David Hansen, Edinburgh
*I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
*http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54


And they do, but they dry much quicker in the utility room in winter
because that room is substantially hotter in winter than in summer
(intentionally so, via the radiator).

But most of the time we dry clothes on the line in the garden, which
is a far superior way of drying clothes anyway. Even if it rains
after putting the clothes out, we just leave the clothes out until it
dries out again!

Given that our max electricity usage is about 15kWh per day for a 5
bed detached house, I reckon we're doing alright in comparison with
most others here.

Our gas bill is another story though.....

Matt
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