Energy usage Electric Gas Oil other

I am not sure, often the difference between heating bills between identical houses lies, not in the houses, but in the households.

A house where a working couple without children are out all day and often in the evenings as well will have lower energy bills than an identical house with a family with 3 small children, or the same house with an elderly disabled couple who need to have the heating on 24/7.

This is why I used to get really irritated when energy companies use to put on your bill, information about energy use by 'other people in your road'. Since my road contains everything from 2 bedroom bungalows to large 5 bedroomed detached houses, of every age from practically brand new to hundreds of year old. It struck me as a singularly useless bit of information.

I think practical suggestions to reduce a difference in energy costs between two similar households might be useful, but not just sharing the figures. If someone says “My house is very similar to yours and there are two of us too, but we only pay £x”, then . But if they go on to say, “We noticed a big difference when we…..”, then that might be useful?

Difficult to give exact figures in units because everything has been confused in the last year because of building work, new meter and changed supplier, who made a pigs ear of our last bill and has just repayed us over £500.

However we live in a listed 4 bedroomed house, about 550 years old, plus more recent extensions, with a floor area of approximatey 2000 sq ft.

The roof is fully insulated, most of the back of the house is modern extensions and is insulated to modern standards with whats left of the exterior walls above it iternally dry lined and insulated. Elsewhere three of the four bedrooms have had the interior walls dry lined and insulated and we have some secondary glazing

In 2021 our bills were as follows:
Electricity £550
Gas £1111

Sarah74

But suppose someone posts that they live in a similar size house but use twice as much (or 1/2 as much) electricity as you……? What can you do?

Looking at the electric use on MN particularly those using less than 2400kw per annum (200kw pm) it made me think about our usage and what I could do to use less particularly with 1 Oct increase.

Sarah74

But suppose someone posts that they live in a similar size house but use twice as much (or 1/2 as much) electricity as you……? What can you do?

Even worse is to find their bill was half yours!
That’s why I find comparisons fraught with problems

We often have the rest of the Oopsies to stay so we use extra for hot water when they are with us, plus the extra electricity for their iPads which are attached to them by some invisible thread.
MrOops is always cold.
As Maw says, there are too many different scenarios to make a comparison.

But suppose someone posts that they live in a similar size house but use twice as much (or 1/2 as much) electricity as you……? What can you do?

MtM - I thought a comparison on GN would be easier. Mainly one or two person households, using less electricity than a family with 2/3 children at home. Not all bedrooms having radiators turned up high. It certainly highlighted on MN those who are using large amounts of electric even when their homes are heated by gas.

Our annual usage is predicted by our energy supplier to be:
2613.5 Kwh Electric
8487 kWh Gas
2 bed 80s bungalow.
I do buy about 2/3 bottles of calor gas for our heater in the conservatory but hoping that will reduce this year as we are having the radiator moved to an inside wall instead of under the window.

“So many” not “do” ??

I think there are do many imponderables - age, type and size of house, insulation, single, double or triple glazing, size of rooms, number and age of residents, whether at home or out at work, whereabouts in the country you live, whether in a town or city, open countryside or a windy coastal town that comparisons are unrealistic.

All electric. 4400 Kw this last twelve months.

That's a reduction of about 30% on what we were using ten years ago.

This is for two of us in a two-bedroom 1930s terrace house.
It isn't particularly well-insulated.

The reduction is down to several factors: far less oven use; increased use of more economical cooking methods like microwave and air fryer; reducing unnecessary use of (and therefore unnecessary heating of) hot water; this year, turned off the air-source heating system completely in April, instead of leaving it running in the background with the thermostat right down. It won't go on again now until we really need to heat the house, though as my OH really feels the cold, that won't be long now.

These last two, hot water and heating system, are closely linked, because it is the air source heating system that heats our water! We've got around this by just turning the system on once a day for 30 to 40 mins just to heat the water for the day.

This last measure seems to have cut our energy usage by at least 4 kw a day!

The trouble is, once the heating goes back on, we will lose this control over the hot water, as the system automatically re-heats it to 51° every time the temperature in the tank falls to 46°, and as I've discovered this summer, this is far less economical for us than just heating the water once a day.

Electricity about £60 per month
Cooking bottled gas I large canister
Oil for heating. II20 litres £ 800
Wood. Lots £200 per trailer full
3 bed house. Fully insulated, triple glazing. Scandi design

5036 kw for 2021

2500 litres of oil for last 12 months.

No gas in village.

Detached 5 bed bungalow. Double glazed, cavity wall insulated and plenty of insulation in the part of the ‘loft’. that hasn’t been converted to bedrooms.

Heating in the Gym/garage and a detached home office both are all Electric. But only in use if somebody is in there.

We have used less Electricity this year, so far….. possibly due to Summer heatwave. The only item on Standby is the TV. We are away at the moment but MissOoops is house sitting.

Not sure about oil, I’ve just filled the tank 1500 litres will probably need a top up in February of around 1000 litres.

It is what it is, as my late FIL used to say to me.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/cost_of_living/4631393-what-is-your-annual-gas-and-electricity-consumption?page=1

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