Reducing Energy Bills - How goes it?

[SteamyTea]

35 minutes ago, Radian said:

rated at 115 kWh/annum

13 W then, that seems very good.

Cause it does depend on how warm your kitchen is, and how cold your fridge is, and how good the airflow around it is.

But 1100 quid.  Ten times what I paid for mine.

I am thinking of getting a small, under counter, freezer, trouble is, above it is the induction hob.  So not sure of there of enough of a ventilation gap.

Might just have to redo the kitchen, that would allow me to fit one next to the fridge. 

I can think on that for the next decade.

[Radian]

56 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

But 1100 quid. 

I've got that price down to around £850 where the thing could pay for itself in 3 to 4 years (even less if we get to 50p/kWh) - whereas if I got another 3 to 4 years from the existing one then at EOL I then have to fork out for a new fridge while this new one would already be at break even point and should go on for another to 10 years or so. So no brainer really.

[SteamyTea]

32 minutes ago, Radian said:

I've got that price down to around £850 where the thing could pay for itself in 3 to 4 years

How much energy is the current one using, I am sure you have said.

 

A+++++ is now the new A

 

 

[Radian]

51 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

How much energy is the current one using, I am sure you have said.

 

A+++++ is now the new A

 

 

The compressor is 120W and is running almost 50% of the time. So around 525kWh PA or £160 at 30p/kWh and £260 at 50p if it comes to it. I was using the mean of those tariffs for the ROI estimates. I think the compressor is shot. It's been going for the best part of 25 years now.

[SteamyTea]

17 minutes ago, Radian said:

running almost 50% of the time

May just need regassing.

It was a gas leak on mine that made it use 3 kWh a day.

Was cheaper to buy a replacement at £110 than get it fixed. But it was a £90 fridge and 7 or 8 years old.

Edited June 19, 2022 by SteamyTea

[Radian]

2 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

May just need regassing.

 

Probably, but then it's still a 25 YO compressor and I'm the extra gas load may just see off the bearings.

 

I have a program of renewal underway now. Just put into place another energy saving exercise. This one will save us  around 875kWh PA.

 

Before:

 

After:

 

An upgrade that should pay for itself in 3 years. And it's way more glowy.

[Ferdinand]

13 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

May just need regassing.

It was a gas leak on mine that made it use 3 kWh a day.

Was cheaper to buy a replacement at £110 than get it fixed. But it was a £90 fridge and 7 or 8 years old.

 

Don't tell his missus that !

[JohnBishop]

15 hours ago, Radian said:

 

Probably, but then it's still a 25 YO compressor and I'm the extra gas load may just see off the bearings.

 

I have a program of renewal underway now. Just put into place another energy saving exercise. This one will save us  around 875kWh PA.

 

Before:

 

After:

 

An upgrade that should pay for itself in 3 years. And it's way more glowy.

At first I thought you basically smashed the TV to save on electricity and abstain from BBC or SkyNews propaganda but you just bought a new TV!
If you think that it will pay for itself in 3 years then great.

Read this: http://mileswmathis.com/fridge.pdf

 

If we look at what happened with standing charges increasing by 100% it costs over £300 just to be connected to the grid. The shysters want to push more and more people into deep poverty or off-grid.
The government bribery grants are just for the time being. The same old tactic of the banksters: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+47%3A13-26&version=NIV

Edited June 20, 2022 by JohnBishop

[Radian]

43 minutes ago, JohnBishop said:

If you think that it will pay for itself in 3 years then great.

 

Simples. The 16YO Panasonic 55" plasma sucked nigh-on 700W. The clue was in the 5 fans along the top edge. The phosphors were so degraded the brightness had to be maxed out all the time. The payback is a simple calc. of the energy saving of 600W for ~4 Hours per day (the new OLED is ~100W). The clincher in this deal (apart from the heavy discounting on this 2021 model) was Curry's current trade-in offer... they paid me £100 to take the 50kg Panasonic away 😀 I did shed a small tear as it was otherwise working perfectly.

 

Your PDF was a fun read.

[JohnBishop]

1 hour ago, Radian said:

 

Simples. The 16YO Panasonic 55" plasma sucked nigh-on 700W. The clue was in the 5 fans along the top edge. The phosphors were so degraded the brightness had to be maxed out all the time. The payback is a simple calc. of the energy saving of 600W for ~4 Hours per day (the new OLED is ~100W). The clincher in this deal (apart from the heavy discounting on this 2021 model) was Curry's current trade-in offer... they paid me £100 to take the 50kg Panasonic away 😀 I did shed a small tear as it was otherwise working perfectly.

 

Your PDF was a fun read.

yes I can imagine that old 55" plasma being a beast, I have an old Samsung and this simply cannot fail and I bought it second hand, I think as old as your plasma.

[Radian]

Just now, JohnBishop said:

yes I can imagine that old 55" plasma being a beast, I have an old Samsung and this simply cannot fail and I bought it second hand, I think as old as your plasma.

It was a lovely picture in its day but HD only. And the width of that bezel !!!

The new one is a 65" Philips OLED (LG panel) but looks much more petite in the room.

[SteamyTea]

5 hours ago, Radian said:

Your PDF was a fun read.

Read some of it, and yes, fun describes it nicely.

[Radian]

I have yet another energy saving experiment going on: Quite often the electric fan oven (Rangemaster 110) is used to cook something relatively small like three fishcakes or a few slices of garlic bread. This means 3kW is being used to heat several kg of steel and a couple of hundred grams of food. Seems wasteful.

 

We also have a Samsung microwave with built-in grill (1.5kW) and convection oven (2.1kW max). Old habits dying hard as they do, we've never used these resistive heaters - treating it as just a microwave like the previous one it replaced. But my thinking now is that this small stainless steel box should heat up quicker than the big old range and waste less energy in the process. Anyone else make regular use of their microwave like this? 

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, Radian said:

Anyone else make regular use of their microwave like this? 

Ever day, it is part of my job.  Mine can combine the microwave and the fan oven to speed things up more.

 

When I boil anything, I boil the water in the kettle and then poor just enough into the pan.  Faster and uses less energy.

 

Yesterday, as an experiment, I did a load of washing at 40°C and a load at 30°C.

0.4 kWh and 0.18 kWh.

Shame the a 30°C wash don't get the clothes clean enough.

 

 

[ProDave]

Daughter goes to the gym.  Comes home, goes straight in the shower for 15 mnutes.  WTF!!!!

 

When we go swimming, we make use of the facilities included and have a shower there before we leave, we never shower at home on a swim day, why would you?

 

And if I say anything like why did you not shower at the gym to save our energy use, I just get call grumpy old dad.

 

This younger generation are not going to learn about energy saving until they eventually get their own house and have to pay their own bills, then they are going to get a shock.  Until then I am expected to shut up and bite my tongue when i see them undoing my energy saving measures.

[AliG]

Same here.

 

As i expected asking people to run things during the night on Octopus is a massive imposition as is asking people not to turn on lights during the day and not to set their thermostat at 23C.

[SteamyTea]

30 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Daughter goes to the gym.  Comes home, goes straight in the shower for 15 mnutes.  WTF!!!!

My Mother took a third of our take home as 'keep'.

Was okay when to took home 30 quid.

Soon became cheaper to buy my own place.

Seems odd that a flat that cost me 17k was cheaper than living with my Mother.

Rented it out, when off to university, sold it 3 years after purchase, worked out the place had given me a wage of 500 a year.

And had a big deposit for the next place.

22 minutes ago, AliG said:

during the night on Octopus

What you going to do when that price plan becomes unsustainable, pretend it is still there?

[AliG]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

What you going to do when that price plan becomes unsustainable, pretend it is still there?

Electricity should be cheaper during the night for the foreseeable future as there is a considerable drop in demand overnight. Maybe not as cheap as Octopus prices it, but much cheaper than during the day.

 

I would expect the war in Ukraine to end at some point and gas prices to fall back to a more normal range. They are considerably higher in Europe than in the US now, although the US has been rising too.

 

Failing that over time the proportion of renewables in the mix will continue to increase and the impact of the gas price will lessen so prices will eventually fall, it is just a question of whether it takes one or two years versus six or seven.

 

In the meantime I will enjoy my cheap electricity from Octopus. I have probably cut my costs by around 40% versus the capped variable price. I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

[ProDave]

15 minutes ago, AliG said:

I would expect the war in Ukraine to end at some point and gas prices to fall back to a more normal range

You are more of an optimist than I am.

[SteamyTea]

32 minutes ago, AliG said:

Electricity should be cheaper during the night for the foreseeable future as there is a considerable drop in demand overnight

Because we know that, generation is significantly reduced. It is reduced, in part, to keep the return on investment high.

Having seen the price of my E7 night rate go from a little over a third of the day rate to over half the day rate, and the biggest change in the last two years, I would not be investing in the long term reliability of twin tariffs.

[joe90]

3 hours ago, ProDave said:

And if I say anything like why did you not shower at the gym to save our energy use, I just get call grumpy old dad.

I had a policy for my kids from an early age to explain exactly what things cost , an electricity bill comes in and I showed them. Some people thought I was ‘grumpy old dad “ but it did pay off (to an extent), now they have their own houses they are not completely surprised at bills and have actually said I did them a favour in the past.

[jack]

On 18/06/2022 at 09:33, AliG said:

However, audio equipment seems to be pretty poor in comparison. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the surround sound system, depending on how it is set up it may not go easily into a low power mode. Mine uses a lot of power.

 

Standby mode (in which energy is intentionally consumed to keep the components in the main signal path warm) is definitely something to watch out for. I have no idea how much power is involved, but I'd be surprised if it's less than a few watts per channel. As you say, across several channels in a home theatre amp, this could add up to a lot.

 

On 18/06/2022 at 09:33, AliG said:

When I looked into it most amps only have around 50% efficiency, so it uses a crazy amount of power when it is running. 

 

It's true that non Class D amps are inefficient, but most amps are rarely if ever used at anything like their full rated power. Unless you're using inefficient loudspeakers and/or listening at very high volumes, you're unlikely to be using more than a few percent of the rated output most of the time.

 

On 18/06/2022 at 09:33, AliG said:

More efficient amps are very very expensive.

 

To be fair, this has completely changed since Class D amplifiers started making inroads a few years ago. They run at very high efficiencies, and when designed properly can sound excellent as well. 

 

Also, more expensive amps are more likely to use Class A output stages, which are less efficient than the Class AB output stages typically used by cheaper amps. Class A means higher power consumption for a given power output.

[Radian]

25 minutes ago, jack said:

Class A means higher power consumption for a given power output.

Guess who's got an addiction to class A. 🙄

The power consumption is constant regardless of volume level. Clever that.

 

[SteamyTea]

Bit in radio about air fryers.

Seems they can cook small amounts of food, with smaller amounts of energy.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0018hjr

 

 

[AliG]

 Yes, the oven is one of our largest users of electricity and I am sure we are not alone. They generally use around 1kWh an hour. An air fryer being smaller should use somewhat less electricity.