[Misc] Suggestions to save energy this winter…

[CHAPPERS]

Good drying day today chaps!

 

[Denis]

Good drying day today chaps!

Good! I’ve been looking at the forecast all week, big load in the washing machine just spinning, ready to hang outside.
Luckily it finished just as the E7 finished at 7:30, before going onto day rate electricity.

 

[Bozza]

Might be worth people keeping an eye out for the National Grid scheme I heard discussed on 5Live this morning. In short, consumers will be incentivised to reduce consumption during the peak hours of 4-7pm on certain days through the winter and could save up to £100 on their bills as a result.

Sounds like most major suppliers will be taking part, although you'll need a smart meter.

Some details here: https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/national-grid-energy-bill-discounts-blackouts-084608114.html

 

[keaton]

the thinking is sound, for targeted heating in a room or two instead of heating whole house up to a level.
wouldnt pay that much though. get a simple fan heater from Argos or supermarkets for half that. do you need the timer and other gubbins?

Yes I'd agreed with that. I have a cheap heater next to my desk for when I wfh and the rest are out. A three minute blast ever so often takes the chill off

 

[Daddies_Sauce]

Might be worth people keeping an eye out for the National Grid scheme I heard discussed on 5Live this morning. In short, consumers will be incentivised to reduce consumption during the peak hours of 4-7pm on certain days through the winter and could save up to £100 on their bills as a result.

Sounds like most major suppliers will be taking part, although you'll need a smart meter.

Some details here: https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/national-grid-energy-bill-discounts-blackouts-084608114.html

We're on the trial scheme with OVO, which runs for 5 months so £20 per month if you hit the target.

If we use less than 12.5% of our total daily electricity consumption at peak times, (4pm to 7pm, Monday to Friday) we'll get a £20 credit added to our bill. This runs until the end of March, offering up to a maximum of £100 credit.

They look at our average electricity usage for the whole month, so if we use more than this target at peak times, it will be balanced out by days when we might use less.

Three days in, and It's not looking good so far....

 

[Tony Towner's Fridge]

My list. October was warmer than usual but even so I managed to reduce my gas and electricity outings by 40% from 2021.

i)Ensure you have HIVE,NEST or another smart control system for your CH/HW. I personally think HIVE is the easiest to use but others are good too.
ii)Keep the heating on manual and not on schedule.
iii)Set a minimum temperature of 16 deg C and the use the boost features for CH (if needed to take the chill off) and the HW (when required-I put it in for 1/2hr a day so there's sufficient HW.
iv)Turn off the radiators in the rooms not being used (and shut the doors to the main property hallway/core).
v)Ensure your boiler can modulate heating (old ones were either all on or all off, no modulating control capabilities and were therefore inefficient).
vi)Put reflective lagging behind each radiator (easily installed and reflects heat back into the property as opposed to unnecessarily heating the wall.
vii)Lag your boiler CH/HW piping to/from the boiler.
and most important of all

viii)Wear thermals/more clothing /two pairs of socks to make it comfortable so you can turn down the property heating control temperature.

TNBA

TTF

 

[keaton]

I'm not sure if you're struggling or close to it then being Hive or something makes any sense if you start off being sensible with your use of heating

 

[Bozza]

We're on the trial scheme with OVO, which runs for 5 months so £20 per month if you hit the target.

If we use less than 12.5% of our total daily electricity consumption at peak times, (4pm to 7pm, Monday to Friday) we'll get a £20 credit added to our bill. This runs until the end of March, offering up to a maximum of £100 credit.

They look at our average electricity usage for the whole month, so if we use more than this target at peak times, it will be balanced out by days when we might use less.

Three days in, and It's not looking good so far....

Are you actively trying to minimise consumption during those hours?

I think we could quite easily adapt our major power draw - cooking dinner - to sit outside those times if needed.

 

[Giraffe]

Still got the heating off. Got a bit nippy last night and I thought about lighting the log burner but wife said she was fine so happy days! No immediate sign of the forecast getting colder yet either.

 

[Eric the meek]

Two week forecast on the BBC looking good, with mild air from the Atlantic and Europe, at least up until Nov 17th:

BN1 - BBC Weather

14-day weather forecast for BN1.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Daddies_Sauce]

Are you actively trying to minimise consumption during those hours?

We have shift work patterns in the house, I've tried but difficult to get family members to understand and/or conform.

 

[KZNSeagull]

I still have heat coming out of the boiler flue - central heating boiler temp is set at 60, do I continue turning it down?

 

[beorhthelm]

I still have heat coming out of the boiler flue - central heating boiler temp is set at 60, do I continue turning it down?

you will always have heat out the flue. condensing boilers make this less and flow control lower still, wont eliminate it though.

(maybe theoretically with a very efficent, expensive system that could happen)

 

[Weststander]

I still have heat coming out of the boiler flue - central heating boiler temp is set at 60, do I continue turning it down?

This was covered by experts in Sept.

Turning down combi boiler flow (exit) temperatures to:
H/W - just enough to meet your requirements from taps/shower.
C/W - to 55c.

Will mean that largely just water vapour and carbon dioxide exit the flue.

One of the helpful youtube videos explained that if you see white steam, heat is being lost, the flow temperatures are set too high.

 

[KZNSeagull]

This was covered by experts in Sept.

Turning down combi boiler flow (exit) temperatures to:
H/W - just enough to meet your requirements from taps/shower.
C/W - to 55c.

Will mean that largely just water vapour and carbon dioxide exit the flue.

One of the helpful youtube videos explained that if you see white steam, heat is being lost, the flow temperatures are set too high.

Ok thanks, very useful. Will turn it down to 55 and see what happens.

 

[Baldseagull]

We're on the trial scheme with OVO, which runs for 5 months so £20 per month if you hit the target.

If we use less than 12.5% of our total daily electricity consumption at peak times, (4pm to 7pm, Monday to Friday) we'll get a £20 credit added to our bill. This runs until the end of March, offering up to a maximum of £100 credit.

They look at our average electricity usage for the whole month, so if we use more than this target at peak times, it will be balanced out by days when we might use less.

Three days in, and It's not looking good so far....

If it works as you describe, another way to hit your target is if you increase your consumption in off peak hours so much that 4-7PM makes up only 12.5% of total usage, I do not advise this course of action.

 

[Daddies_Sauce]

If it works as you describe, another way to hit your target is if you increase your consumption in off peak hours so much that 4-7PM makes up only 12.5% of total usage, I do not advise this course of action.

Thought about that, I could force our solar battery to charge, before this 'money saving' 16:00 start time, will need to do some sums.

 

[Bodian]

Just been emailed by Octopus with their first Energy Savings Trial.

Cut down your electricity use between 5:00 PM and 6:00 PM on 15th November. You'll earn 1800 OctoPoints for every kilowatt hour of electricity you don't use compared to what you normally use. Here are a few tips and tricks to get the most out of your Sessions.

Don't worry about sending us readings: your smart meter will do this for you.

How do you calculate what I normally use?
We look at your smart meter readings to find out how much electricity you typically used at the same time of day over the previous 10 days (excluding days when there's been a Saving Session). Find out more in our FAQs.

How much are OctoPoints worth?
If you manage to save a kilowatt hour of electricity in this Session, you'll earn 1800 OctoPoints - that's £2.25. You can turn your OctoPoints into account credit online at any time.

I've signed up for it. But I don't hold out much hope for us earning any 'OctoPoints' as looking at the last 10 days, only once has our electricity use between 5&6 pm been over 1kWh - on Friday when we had egg & chips (gastro chips in the oven!). It's pretty hard to try and save 1kWH in the hour, when your average use in that hour is something like 0.5kWh....

 

[zefarelly]

We have a smart meter, 4-5 months now


It's f***ing useless. We're probably paying more to run the turd.

As for saving . . . . Has anyone tried burning watches? Seems to be plenty of them about

 

[Since1982]

Assuming you have gas for heating and/or water, it feels to me as though there's something amiss there, at least compared to our own usage.

We were away for four weeks over July-August and our usage was 2.5kWh per day over that time. Stuff that would still have been on...

- Fridge freezer
- Fish tank heat and light. It's a small tank and wouldn't have needed much heat, if any, during the hot summer period
- Router
- BT smart thingummy that goes with the new fast router
- The smart meter monitor

None of these would use much at all, with the likely exception of the fridge freezer which is pretty old. We bought it second-hand when we moved back down from Somerset, where we had an integrated appliance, and needed something to tide us over in a short-term rental. That was nearly 10 years ago now. We've kept it because it just felt sensible to not get rid of something that was working and functional. Very possibly not now.

We've managed to reduce by 4kWh per day from October 2021 to October 2022. One of the biggest culprits would have been the wall lights we inherited in the lounge of our house. Three fittings with two bulbs in each, so six bulbs at 42 watts meaning 252 watts per hour. On long dark winter days, these would have been running up a fair chunk of usage alone. Now we leave them off unless we really need bright light, and use a single standard lamp with a 14.5 watt bulb.

So now we have been away for a few days I’m seeing that our phantom load is running at 3.3kwh per day. That’s one fridge freezer, one chest freezer, one sky q box, one security camera, one google device and two led lights that come on for four hours in the evening. Everything else is switched off at the wall, even the oven. I know the chest freezer is using about 0.8 kWh per day based on the info that came with it so I reckon the fridge freezer is at least the same and the sky box around 0.5 kWh based on what I’ve read. Still seems high to me. Maybe the fridge freezer isn’t as efficient as my estimate.