Tech guys- What is your electricity bill?

[ShortWarning]

I live on my own and am only really home a few hours a day (except at weekends). My PC or my TV/console is normally on when I am home but I'm very energy conscious outside of that.

My last bill was £28 for the month (gas and electricity). I'd imaging it will go up to £40ish in the winter months when the heating is on more often.

 

[jonneymendoza]

You're not paying too much for electricity, you're paying too much for your decision to marry.

Seriously'though, you've listed 3 PC's and a console, 2 sound systems, 2 Raspberry Pi... A GPU that cost £650 and another that cost £1000.

Your wife then thinks the issue is the cost of electricity... ... Are these appliances all on at the same time? If not, then cost of electricity is irrelevant with that list e.g you can't possibly be gaming on 2 GPUs at once, so unless you're mining then at least one of them is costing next to nothing in electricity. The real question your wife is getting at is why you have so many.

haha probably.

The only thing thats run 24/7 is the two pi's

The rest not so much. When i am working during the day i work on a 15inch thinkpad x1 extreme laptop connected to one of my 32inch monitors.

My main desktop i normally turn on when i am gaming or video editing or streaming stuff from there(i am in the process of migrating to the pi's for that)

My consoles aint bene turned on for a couple of months lol and we actually have 2 days during the week when i am not allowed to use my main TV and surround system!!

 

[jonneymendoza]

£30-40 a month for electricity in a 3 floor 3 bed semi-detached. That's with my office setup on nearly 24/7 as I'm working from home, TV on nearly all day as girlfriend is on maternity. Surprised at some of the high amounts in here given the relatively little usage from the looks of it.

My gas usage is about £5-8 a month on average over the year. Summer months I use as little as 3-4 units.

What is your average kWh usage though per month? mines between 350-450ish

 

[Dirk Diggler]

we actually have 2 days during the week when i am not allowed to use my main TV and surround system!!

I honestly don't think the electricity your gadgets consume is really all that significant. I'm more concerned about the quote above, what's going on man!

 

[Martynt74]

God yeah i missed that. That's pretty depressing!

 

[Bug One]

I've been averaging about 150kw a month over the summer. That covers

1 x Electric car
Working from home (using a PC, Laptop and a home server)
My sons PC (gaming)
55in TV + soundbar etc
Alexa + wifi controlled lighting throughout
6 android devices

I currently pay £100 a month for gas and electric and have built up quite a big credit balance - which I expect to use up more over the winter.

I switched to Avro energy earlier in the year. Currently paying 14p kwh.

 

[shadow_boxer]

Ours is £149 a month with Bulb, 4 bed detached house.

Edit: Duel fuel that is!

Dual fuel too with bulb and ours is about £110 per month averaged over the year in a 4 bed house.

 

[jonneymendoza]

I honestly don't think the electricity your gadgets consume is really all that significant. I'm more concerned about the quote above, what's going on man!

umm let me re-read my bill again:


Period :25/02/19 until 31/03/19
My Reading: 28172
Estimated: 28510
Electricity united used: 338 kWh
kWh rate: 16.02

Period: 01/04/19 until 28/05/19
My Reading: 28999
Estimated: 28510
Electricity units used: 489 kWh
kWh rate: 18.24p

 

[Avalon]

£80/m combined, 4 bedroom house, well insulated but single glazed and dehumidifier running through the autumn/winter months. I could easily knock £15-20 off that by making some IT changes, that’s with a tumble dryer (with humidity sensor) and family of four.

Get yourself a plug in energy monitor for a fiver or better get a loop energy monitor (they’re getting harder to source), I can track usage by the hour/day/week/month relative to outside temp. and compare tariffs easily. Understanding what used power and when is quite enlightening.

 

[hominid]

The cost of gas used to bother me, I used to sit at home shivering in the winter and keep my gas bill ~£100 with the same for electricity. Now I'm 20 years older and feel the cold if below 18C, so in my bungalow it cost me last year over £500 for the winter months and another ~£300 for the quater before - for gas. Electricity is about £150-£200 for the quater, I have 2 servers 24/7 on and I'm home most of the time, the heating comes on from 9am-10pm so it's going to be expensive.

Heating a 1970's bungalow is expensive.

 

[Foghorn Leghorn]

haha probably.

The only thing thats run 24/7 is the two pi's

The rest not so much. When i am working during the day i work on a 15inch thinkpad x1 extreme laptop connected to one of my 32inch monitors.

My main desktop i normally turn on when i am gaming or video editing or streaming stuff from there(i am in the process of migrating to the pi's for that)

My consoles aint bene turned on for a couple of months lol and we actually have 2 days during the week when i am not allowed to use my main TV and surround system!!

Unless you're running a couple of PC's at high load it isn't your tech that's the problem.

Worst culprits are electric heating, showers, emersion heater, tumble dryers, washing machine, dish washers, kettle, cooker, hair dryers, curling tongues, vacuum cleaners

The above all gobble electricity, showers are the worst especially if either of you have a tendency to spend 20-30 minutes in it. That's 5kwh used in 30 minutes and more than half a days average use.

 

[Puzzled]

Get yourself a cheap energy monitor plug if you want to know, it will tell you how much energy the device is using and you normally set your unit price so you get a cost as well. I really wouldn't worry about it that much, your Mrs hairdryer probably costs more over a year (that might be a lie )

My gaming pc isn't the highest spec and quite dated but most pc's when idle only use about 60 - 80w if that. When gaming it will jump up, my gaming pc goes 90w idle, 340w gaming. That's a 3rd gen i7 6 core and a GTX970, the GPU is the killer as my office pc (i7-3770 with on board GPU) barely uses 45w in day to day use.

Both of those are old tech but its not bad really when a light bulb used to be 100w

 

[Bug One]

You're in London you say. Are you sure someone isn't leaching off your power? Turn everything in the house off and see if the meter still flashing.

 

[jonneymendoza]

You're in London you say. Are you sure someone isn't leaching off your power? Turn everything in the house off and see if the meter still flashing.

How can someone leech off of my power?

 

[dowie]

How can someone leech off of my power?

It's rather unlikely but chavs have been known to bypass electricity meters to run cables to lamp posts etc... so I guess possible that someone could just splice some wires at some point whether in the meter cupboard (but obvious) or elsewhere... perhaps if you live in a flat or have a terraced house with a shared attic etc...

 

[Psycho Sonny]

As i imagine most of us here have lots of electrical tech like computers, game consoles, nice tv's etc etc, what is your average electricity bill each month and who is your provider?
My average bill is around £60-£70 a month and my missus thinks thats way too much and watching my use now on the tech i use and buy
For your information i have the following:

• 42 inch 1080p TV(missus wont let me get a bigger one!)
• ps4console
• denon 5.1 surround sound system with sub woofer and AV unit
• HTPC with a 980gtx inside and 4 core i7 cpu
• Desktop PC with 6 core i7, 64gb ram, around 5 ssd's inside it and a 2080ti card
• one 32inch 4k wide gamut hdr monitor from asus
• one 30inch dell wide gamut monitor
• Old midi hIfi system with 2 speakers for my pc
• a desktop tower server with about 8-9 WD Red NAS drives inside it(i use to have this on 124/7 but not anymore)
• raspberry pi 4 connected to two external 2.5 hdd's for my always on file server
• another Raspberry pi 3 running pi-hole all the time

Is this overkill? Am i paying way too much for electricity?
I only live in a 2 bedroom flat

why does your HTPC have a 980GTX? sell it and buy a 1030. you should tell your misses or educate yourself that a 55" tv will consume the same power as your old 1080p 42" at best it will make £10 per year difference which is £1 per month. why do you have 2 x 30 inch monitors? i have a 32" and there is no way i need another.

as for everything else they will only consume power when turned on and tbh that isn't a lot of tech. i must have 20 times what you have and my leccy bill is half yours. the biggest consumers of energy are heating water or air (kettles, washing machines, hairdryers, tumble dryers, etc). as well as things you leave on all the time like lights. change all your lights to the cheapest LED'S from screwfix. stop using your tumble dryer and let clothes air dry inside or outside in summer. get rid of electric shower and get a power shower, etc.

i must have more tech in my spare bedroom than what is in your list - serious.

 

[james.miller]

Psycho Sonny:
Why do you have 2 x 30 inch monitors? i have a 32" and there is no way i need another.

Also Psycho Sonny:
I must have more tech in my spare bedroom than what is in your list - serious.



@jonneymendoza your usage is pretty low - our average is 750kWh for example. As you've seen you can shave some of the cost off your bill by changing supplier and could still save some energy here and there but honestly I don't think you would put a big dent in it. I would suggest that if the Mrs is not happy with the cost then why don't you just pay it yourself? Problem removed.

 

[jonneymendoza]

Psycho Sonny:
Why do you have 2 x 30 inch monitors? i have a 32" and there is no way i need another.

Also Psycho Sonny:
I must have more tech in my spare bedroom than what is in your list - serious.



@jonneymendoza your usage is pretty low - our average is 750kWh for example. As you've seen you can shave some of the cost off your bill by changing supplier and could still save some energy here and there but honestly I don't think you would put a big dent in it. I would suggest that if the Mrs is not happy with the cost then why don't you just pay it yourself? Problem removed.

Yea I already offered to pay 2/3 of it. If she kicks off again I'll argue my case.

Me personally I don't mind paying for the whole thing. But I can't sacrafice more things just for costs when I can easily afford it

 

[edscdk]

Probably already mentioned but if you have not changed to the cheapest supplier there should be a 20% saving straight of, swap every year.. You are not a valued customer to these big companies you are a money generating scum

 

[Daff_Duck]

Dual fuel too with bulb and ours is about £110 per month averaged over the year in a 4 bed house.

Pfft - I am with Bulb and only have a mid terraced. The house is empty most of the day and my average is £99 pm. I think the scallys next door are tapping my Energy .

On a more serious note I can’t see anything that would eat Electricity all our appliances are less than a year old and AAA rated computers are never on so at a bit of a loss ( and depressed now having read this thread)