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How much do you pay for your Gas & Electric Per Unit?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Looked into this today cos my dad got over charged - realised the company he gets both from actually owes him about £700 cos their standing charges are well above what we use - he been with them about 18 months.
Then looked more into other companies and found we out loads you should know.
For example cheap rate electricty varies with companies but it's either from 11pm, midnight or 1am and for 7 hours
For all these years my mum has thought it starts at 10:30pm and so wait until then to turn onthe washing machine .. :chin:
Also the price per unit varies so much between companies just found one company doing gas for 2.55p per unit - gonna wait for them to sent me some info through the post but that's about 30% less then we pay now.
Then looked more into other companies and found we out loads you should know.
For example cheap rate electricty varies with companies but it's either from 11pm, midnight or 1am and for 7 hours
For all these years my mum has thought it starts at 10:30pm and so wait until then to turn onthe washing machine .. :chin:
Also the price per unit varies so much between companies just found one company doing gas for 2.55p per unit - gonna wait for them to sent me some info through the post but that's about 30% less then we pay now.
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Anyway, to answer your original question, my gas and electric cost me nothing per unit. It's included in my rent
1 Kwh (Kilowatt hour)
10 hours.
To run something that uses 1Kw for 1 hour costs one unit.
So a 1Kw fire could run fo 1 hour for 1 unit
A 2Kw fire could run for 30 minutes for 1 unit
A 100w bulb can run for 10 hours for 1 unit.
All electrical items come with a wattage rating.
So 1/rating (in Kw) = hours you can run said electrical item for the price of one unit.
Yep as been explained already it's 1,000 Watts of Electrcity over a 1 hour Period
A kettle probably uses about 1,000 Watts to boil Water, so say it take 3 minutes to boil a kettle then for 1 Kilo Watt Hour you'd have 20 kettles of water for 1 unit of electricity.
Items like VCR's on standby just showing the clock may use something like 7 Watts to 10 Watts, our VCR's only get used once in a bluemoon these days so they're turned off at the mains.
Really I need to sort out my Desktop PC cos it's also burning power when turned off, I can tell cos USB stuff still has power even when it's turned off (but on at the mains)
At an estimate there's probably about 100 Watts worth of stuff on Standby 24 / 7 , TV's, Videos, DVD players, Computers, Speakers, Laptop on Charge, ADSL Modem, etc
I'm gonna try and work out a way to turn off everything from the mains as a lot of things turned off from the switch are still using electrcity, espacially if they have a external transformer or a remote control.
Really things kept on standby could be costing as much as an extra £100 a year on your bill.
But 1 kilowatt IS 1000 watts. If a kettle is rated at 1000W, then it'll use that in an hour of usage. Not just each time you use it.
Nah. It'll be more like £20 or £30 for an average household, if that. If an item used 10W each hour it was on standby, it'd use 1.68KWh per week. Assuming 10p per KWh(which is rather a lot of money for electric, I have to say), then it'd use 17p per week. Five televisions on standby rated at 10W per week would cost 85p - over a year, it would cost £40.
In truth, most stuff on standby will consume between 1 and 7 watts of electricity, and at 8p per unit, it'll work out a fair bit cheaper than the above example.
What the heck are you talking about?
If a kettle uses a 1,000 Watts then uses a 1,000 Watts everytime you switch it on. (from the time it starts to boil water to the moment it turns off) - the same way a 60 Watt light bulb uses 60 Watts from the time it's on to the time you turn it off.
I didn't Say it uses a Kilo Watt HOUR each time you turn it on .. did I? I said at 3 minutes ago - you'd have to use it 20 times before you get to 1 Kilo Watt Hour (60 minutes divided by 3 minutes of kettle use each time = 20 uses)
Well there you go then your own workings out only goes as far as 5 TV's and already you've spend an extra £40 per year just keeping them on standby - what about all the other things in a house?
We have 5 TV's 4 of which have remote controls and get turned off and put on standby and 1 off by the switch as there is no remote.
But then we also have
2 VCR's
1 Personal Video Recorder
2 Sky Digital Boxes
3 Mains Powered Alarms Clocks
2 Mains Powered Telephones
2 Desktop PC's with UPS
2 Monitors for the PC's which go into Standby mode when not used
1 Set of TV Video Senders (transmitter and Receiver)
1 ADSL WiFi Router
1 Security Sensor Light
2 Night time lights to light up the stairs and hall
2 HiFi's With Clocks
4 Mobile Phone Chargers
Sounds to me using your own calculations for 5 TV's that's over £100 now. People are reporting on various forums a Sky Digital Box alone can use 13 Watts to 20 Watts on standby and the new ones with Hard Drives Even more.
http://blog.activehome.co.uk/2006/07/index.html
The Government is set to ban standby buttons on electronics devices like TVs and DVD players in an effort to reduce power consumption.
You might not have thought that the humble 'standby/on' button was much of a threat in the overall energy picture, but you'd be wrong. Standbyon The move comes just a week after the ‘The Rise of the Machines’ report from the Energy Savings Trust (EST) revealed that devices on standby accounted for 8 per cent of all domestic energy used.
In the latest Energy Review from the DTI, the government outlines plans to outlaw standby buttons on consumer electronics devices and gadgets. Wasteful products that must be redesigned, according to the government, include computers, TVs, chargers fridges, freezers, lighting and washing machines.
In fact, flat TVs and phone chargers are some of the more deceptive devices. According to the EST, many people do not understand that chargers, even when not being used, are consuming power. In its report, it said:
“A significant proportion of the population leave their mobile phone charger plugged in and wasting energy all of the time whilst believing it to be inactive. Although the stand-by power consumption of a single mobile phone charger only averages 1 watt, the combined stand-by usage of approximately 25 million of these items adds up very quickly to 25 megawatts. This adds up to 219 GWh consumed per annum, enough energy to power the electricity needs of 66,000 homes for one year.”
Anything that forces manufacturers to build less power-hungry products and lower our electricity bills can't be all bad.
And she wonders why the electricity bill is going up!
On a side note, was reading on teletext this morning that we're the worst energy wasters in Europe, best being Germany, and it said 65% of britons admit leaving a phone charger plugged in once a week. Surely if the phones not connected, there's no current flowing hence no waste of electricity or am i being really thick and not seeing it ?
LIDL and some other places sell an energy monitor for about £7
You plug it into the wall and then plug your PC, TV, etc in that and it will tell you how much power it is drawing.
If your entire PC system is on 24/7 it must be drawing loads of power, by the sounds of it if all those things are switched on, PC, Speakers, Printer, Monitor, could be as much as 400 Watts on 24 / 7 - which is say roughly the same as leaving a kettle constantly on and boiling water for 9.6 hours a day every single day.
An alternative to fixing you PC is to turn on Hibernation mode - it will set aside an amount of space on your hard drive to match the RAM in your PC and when you say hibernate it will save your PC's current state just as it is and should start up just as you left it.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/russel_02march25.mspx
Tony Blair is going around the world telling governments and big companies to reduce their emmissions but really it's people added together that make a huge difference, The government are pushing Digital TV down our throats so they can then sell off the freed up airwaves for loads of money, encouraging us to buy seperate set top boxes but if they had any sense they'd make manufacturers build in the electronic to make a digital Tv work in the first place.
There's something like 8 million freeview boxes out there and growing - at an estimate of 20 watts at a time per set top box that's 160 Million Watts of power going on and off at various times.
I'm gonna try and find our energy monitor and see just how much various things use on standby and in use.
mind if i use that bit?
Huh?
It does work out cheaper in the long run if you're a big business, because things almost always explode etc. when they're switched on. So if you invest £5,000 in a server for your business, you might leave it on 24/7 to reduce the chance it will go kaput and you have to fork out another £5k for it. Of course, different things work out differently, if a lightbulb goes it's only 50p to replace it so turning them off makes perfect sense.
Naah a PSU's rating is was load it can handle and if it's a cheapo make that number is usually fake. Cheap power supplies often quote PEAK watts, which is like how high it can go for a fraction of a second - rather then for a sustained amount of time.
My own PC is almost fanless - there's only 1 fan inthe PC and that's on the CPU - the PSU is totally fanless and I did a lot of research into power supplies before buying it for £65, although most places were selling it for nearer £90
One of the things I load at was how effiecient the power supplies were, cos the higher the number the less electricty you'll use and also the less heat it will give off. I think mine was 89% effiecient.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article263-page1.html
For decent PSU's don't compare Watts, compare AMPs
A lot of things can blow up when turned off and then back on again too quickly
TV's and Computer Monitors in particular - if someone turns off a TV, like by accidently hitting the off button on the remote you sound give it about 30 seconds before turning it back on at least.
I think one of our TV's blew up cos it cos turned off and on too quickly.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6076658.stm
Personally I think energy saving light bulbs should be totally tax free
yeah i don't get it either. mine has been constantly plugged in for about 5 years!! most of the houses i live in its really hard to get to the plugs so its easier to leave it in. never realised it might be burning leccy
my housemate last year heard that things on standby can use electric so she tried to save the bill by turning off my fridge :mad: i was fucking furious
lmfao
No. My example you are quoting from was using blatantly exaggerated values. You should halve the power used to get a realistic value, and then reduce the cost of the electricity as the generic value used in my calculations was overly harsh.
Obviously when you add up each and every single item in a household, it will create a larger value that appears to be more substantial. But in reality, it isn't a huge amount. You'll likely find it cheaper having baths filled with water from a central heating system than a 10 minute electric shower.
The other side to all this wasted energy is heat. Wasted energy is usually exerted in the form of heat, meaning less energy is required from other sources to heat your home. Again, it won't be a huge difference, but it is a real one. Having just an average PC and CRT monitor turned on 24/7 can make a very real difference to the overall temperature of a room - I've yet to use my central heating this year, as I generally just use the one room. How many other households can say the same?
For telephones I did say "Mains Powered" - e.g. caller ID phones and ones with added featured that are mains powered. Like the Amstrad Emailer PLus telephones, or BT Easicoms.
Anyway have some real figures for you taken with my Energy Monitor
Kettle 1905 Watts
14 inch TV standby 5 Watts
14 inch TV in use 43 Watts
PVR standby 16 Watts
PVR in use 17 Watts
PC System in Standby (i.e. PC off but still supplying USB Power, ADSL Wifi Router On, Monitor totally off) 15 Watts
Then above + PC Switched on = 116 Watts
The above + 19 inch CRT Monitor switched on = 162 Watts
Also there is a huge spike when first turning on the monitor and the watts jumps to 1534 Watts for a split second.
The PC is about 4 years old now just an Athlon 1800 XP with 512MB RAM, one Hard Drive, 1 DVD Writer, however it does use a very good Power Supply Unit
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http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=28550
Don't look that different to what I have now, except it aint fanless.
But certainly can pay to change power supplies.
https://www.ukpower.co.uk/running-costs-elec.asp
Will be getting an antec p180 soon