Home DIY

Gas heating, hob and fire. Electric for everything else.

Maybe a redundant question - Were they read at the same time at the start of the period calculated?

Compare heating timings and temp settings?

Yes. Time scales are identical.

I may do that but it is electric consumption I'm concerned about. Our heating is gas.

Three months is kinda long time , guess you're thinking its a faulty appliance, I'm still wondering if I'm in for six hours in the evening is turning a rooms lights on and off say six to ten times consuming more than just having them on for the six hours (if the initial switch on consumes more than the running) but that just taking it to microness not the £x per day you're after

I think I'm looking for some means of live tracking usage to try and work out where we are using the most electric. The difference between our bill and my friends is too much.

it would be hard for it to be one thing. that's 6.6kwh a day (assuming you're paying the price cap) which when a washing machine load is 0.7 kWh is quite a bit. Do you use a tumble dryer?

Ask to see his bill as he might be on estimates?

I don't understand how they're less efficient. More heat loss? Longer to heat up the radiators?

Probably the main thing to think about is the big power consumers: ovens, heaters, electric shower, washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, hoover, etc.

£50 a month difference is something like 6kwh per day difference. A dishwasher, washing machine, etc probably uses about 2kwh per cycle (obviously lots of variation depending on model and mode).

If you want to get down into it then try buying something like this
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B831STBX/ and plug them into various stuff, put in your electricity cost and see how much they cost to run.

Loft insulation...
Recently had a loft conversion done. Eaves made available for storage, and there's building-regs-compliant insulation between the eaves wall and the loft room, but they left us the eaves to insulate. I've laid down standard insulation (and some boards for a storage space) and put a couple of sheets of perspex over a single-glazed window, but wondering about the best way to insulate the external wall?
For a start there are clear holes where you can see daylight, which I thought I could just plug with some foam? And are there any easy DIY solutions for boarding over the brickwork or should I just make do with plugging the gaps?

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I'm confused. You are talking about heating while stating you have gas central heating but want to compare the electric bill?

No. I am querying the disparity between the two electric bills. I want to find out why mine is £374 and my friends is £213 for the same house, with the same electric provider, for the same period of time. Both houses have similar family usage.

Thanks. That may be a good option. The biggest consumers may be dish washer, washing machine and tumble dryer.
If one of these was particularly heavy on power use, would that account for the cost difference?

Combined they would make that kind of difference.

Add electric underfloor in a bathroom, an electric immersion heater and a bunch of halogen bulbs…

It’s unlikely to be one thing doing it.

Get a smart meter it’s what they are for and your supplier will be keen to get you on one.

Heating bill question.

This is why everyone is confused.

Also, are they exactly the same appliances in each house?

Different washing, tumble drying or different cooking habits could account for that.

I'll put a big load of washing on, my wife will do two smaller ones etc..

I just noticed that. I'm an idiot - no further explanation required.

Apologies for the confusion everyone.

Appliances are not the same but would be similar.
We have an eco friendly dish washer - my friend does not.
I'm wondering if the tumble dryer could account for the difference.
My friend uses his but also dries clothes on radiators. But he has to use a dehumidifier because of this.

The "eco" cycle on my dishwasher uses twice as much power as the 30 minute cycle that is perfectly fine for getting stuff clean so I wouldn't necessarily put too much stock in that kind of thing.

Tumble dryer could account for a fair chunk if you use it a lot, modern dehumidifiers are fairly good on power use and are something like 5p an hour (although you would be running it longer).

if you were running a tumble dryer once a day and he wasn't that would be most of the cost. add on a few more kettle boils and you're there

If right, that shocks me. I may need to consider a more economical means of drying or a new tumble dryer.

Is your loft ventilated to the outside world without going via the eaves? If so, plugging the gaps might make sense. Essentially the eave is a 'cold loft' though, right? If so you'd get more returns further isolating it from the loft conversion and rooms below.

I'm not sure a tumble dryer would account for quite that much, but it's not nothing either
https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/which-type-of-tumble-dryers-are-cheapest-to-run-aUOSv7x39Rdo