What ideas have you had for reducing Electricity consumption

[Phil Pascoe]

If it is not free standing then why not get some of that two pack expanding foam that boat builders use and fill up under the bath so it sits in a mass of insulation.

I missed the chance here, but I insulated around the bath ( a 1200mm corner bath) in our old house - it was worthwhile. If you use 2 part foam ensure it's not restricted anywhere, though.

 

[Sideways]

If it is not free standing then why not get some of that two pack expanding foam that boat builders use and fill up under the bath so it sits in a mass of insulation.

It's going to have to come out for a bathroom makeover sometime in the next year or two so I don't want to fossilise it in place, but if I just use a can or spray foam over the bottom I doubt anything will rust out before it gets replaced (enamelled / pressed steel tub).

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Why not use rockwool or glasswool?

 

[ajs]

If it is not free standing then why not get some of that two pack expanding foam that boat builders use and fill up under the bath so it sits in a mass of insulation.

Great until you have a leak or need to access the stopcocks for some other reason.

 

[Flynnwood]

The most significant saving has been the discovery of a fault in the ring main that serves part of the ground floor..With this faulty circuit out of the loop. our electricity consumption has significantly reduced.

@niall Y
Could you explain a little more please? I'm not understanding this. What was happening?

 

[Thingybob]

Great until you have a leak or need to access the stopcocks for some other reason.

Stopcock under a bath ?

 

[Geebee]

Just bought a new freezer.
I put one of the energy monitors on our old freezer and I have to admit I was shocked.

It never turned off and was always running, so guessing it never got cold enough. Did some calculations and it worked out at approx. 1500kwh a year.

New freezer is projected to cost 300kwh a year.

Guess it did well for being 20+ years old

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I got rid of two old fridge freezers and bought one new one.

 

[baldkev]

Im sure i posted this somewhere else a while back, but to save electric, see if one of your neighbours has an outside plug

 

[Dibs-h]

Just bought a new freezer.
I put one of the energy monitors on our old freezer and I have to admit I was shocked.

It never turned off and was always running, so guessing it never got cold enough. Did some calculations and it worked out at approx. 1500kwh a year.

New freezer is projected to cost 300kwh a year.

Guess it did well for being 20+ years old

I crapped myself a my years back when I checked the consumption on our old fridge freezer - 52kwh in 2 weeks. New one got ordered a day later. Uses about 150kwh annually.

 

[Jaydee]

Re bath insulation. I‘ve recently refurbed the bathroom and when installing the bath I glued that bubble wrap type insulation to the underside. I also replaced damaged floorboards and sprayfoamed any gaps around pipes and floor boards. The Mrs reports the bath stays lovely and warm and doesn’t need a hot water top up.

 

[Ozi]

we binned all the standard bulbs for LED's.....we actually leave it by the centralised bin's and those that need can take it....
some of the wall lights had high watt halogen strip bulbs.....converted outside halogen flood light to LED's....
Water solar heating was the biggestsingle saver....
as the white goods fail we buy the high buzz unit's.....
she's now looking towards one of those air fryer's.....?????
plus on a house clearance we was given a table top oven with 2 hobs.....
she cooks in the smaller oven now even cakes.....can see the big oven going.....
the biggest saving was getting rid of the kids......
plus, all year we collect wood from the bins inc wrecked pallets...this get's mixed with the Olive wood for the heating in winter....
plus we often get useful bits of hard wood from furniture....

HOW!!!!! Did you get rid of the kids?

 

[GuitardoctorW7]

I thought it might be useful to have a sort of think tank of ideas on how we can become more energy efficient in our homes this Winter.
We have become so energy reliant and wasteful over the past few decades. Back in the early 60's our house was one of the first in our street to have central heating installed. How did we manage back then with so few electrical appliances .
Can we perhaps re-learn something from how our Grand parents coped

This may sound stupid but I've been doing it for quite a few years now when cooking.... If you're gonna cook vegetables, bring them to the boil and then turn the gas/electric off. Carry on preparing the rest of the meal and the said veg should be nicely done by the time you need them. if not give them a gentle boost for ` couple of minutes. Also works with big pans of soup etc and you can cut the energy consumption down by half at least.
Awaiting flack

 

[Suffolk Brian]

Buy a Ninja Foodi 15 - 1. Cuts your electricity consumption by miles.

Very interested in one of these - seem to be all the rage at the moment - but the initial cost is eye watering. How long before you get you investment back?

 

[NormanB]

Why would anyone insulate the rafters? The roof space should be ventilated so it would be pointless.

Converting a ‘cold roof’ to a ‘warm roof’ is a good idea but only if you intend to use the space for habitation.

 

[Sideways]

This may sound stupid but I've been doing it for quite a few years now when cooking.... If you're gonna cook vegetables, bring them to the boil and then turn the gas/electric off. Carry on preparing the rest of the meal and the said veg should be nicely done by the time you need them.

We eat rice regularly and it cooks the same way. Rinse, drain, measure the water, put on a lid, bring to the boil and then just let it stand for 25 30 minutes. Perfect. So your idea sounds good to me.
But you can't boost rice at the end, it goes mushy.

 

[NormanB]

Being interested in this I wrote a spreadsheet to do heatloss calcs for every room of the house.
Mimicking what energy surveyors and heating engineers might do.
When I added a line for ventilation - recommended at 2 air changes an hour for the whole house - the energy consumption increased massively, unaffordably.

My conclusion : yes you need ventilation, but a few strategic draughts might be enough for me !

Doing the heat loss calculations is a a necessary step in understanding what is going on BUT it is a theoretical application and not reality. You could with a lot more effort calculate actual heat loss if you monitor outside temp, maintain and monitor your rooms at your desired temp and then calculate energy consumed to maintain the status quo for each ambient outside temp say, from -2C to 15C. Takes a long time and instruments (I have weather compensation on my boiler plus a slack handful of blue toothed temperature/humidity sensors which I place at strategic points around the house. I have not got a smart meter so rely on taking gas meter readings daily. It’s all ‘handraulic’ and it would be nice to have some sort of data logger to capture the data automatically (but not worth splashing out for one house).

 

[GuitardoctorW7]

We eat rice regularly and it cooks the same way. Rinse, drain, measure the water, put on a lid, bring to the boil and then just let it stand for 25 30 minutes. Perfect. So your idea sounds good to me.
But you can't boost rice at the end, it goes mushy.

I cook rice with the absorption method which is basically the same as you. Wash the starch off thoroughly. 2.5 parts water to rice, bring to a boil. Cover/ simmer on the lowest heat for 8 mins then leave for 10 but never removing the lid beforehand. I usually get perfect fluffy rice although it's now a no no for diabetes .

 

[Sideways]

Doing the heat loss calculations is a a necessary step in understanding what is going on BUT it is a theoretical application and not reality. You could with a lot more effort calculate actual heat loss if you monitor outside temp, maintain and monitor your rooms at your desired temp and then calculate energy consumed to maintain the status quo for each ambient outside temp say, from -2C to 15C. Takes a long time and instruments (I have weather compensation on my boiler plus a slack handful of blue toothed temperature/humidity sensors which I place at strategic points around the house. I have not got a smart meter so rely on taking gas meter readings daily. It’s all ‘handraulic’ and it would be nice to have some sort of data logger to capture the data automatically (but not worth splashing out for one house).

That's a step too far for me !
I can write a sophisticated enough spreadsheet and tune stuff like indoor, outdoor temperatures, day and night hours, seasonal variation, ventilation, etc but real time logging is too costly or time consuming for me except for the one sensorpush temp logger in the garden.

The advantage of doing theory is that it does point you towards where most of the heat's going so you can spend your money on what will make the most impact.
Oh, and help me decide how much to increase the last few original, undersize radiators when I swap them out

 

[rogxwhit]

but the initial cost is eye watering

Oh, come on, you could get two for the price of a single Mafell jigsaw ...