I tracked six months of bills and tried about a dozen of the standard tips, and only two of them showed up in the numbers at all. Before I keep doing the other ten out of habit, I want to hear which ones survived other people's own testing. Household of two, gas heating and electric everything else, no solar.
I spent a fair amount on energy saving gadgets, smart plugs for everything, a radiator fan thing, a load of draught gadgets. The draught strips and the radiator reflector panels behind the two exterior wall radiators were worth it and cost almost nothing. The smart plugs saved nothing and now sit in a drawer, and I calculated that the whole gadget spend would take longer to pay back than the gadgets will last.
Partial disagreement with dismissing the small stuff. Individually the small habits are worth very little, but I stacked about eight of them, and over a year the combined effect was clearly visible against the previous year adjusted for weather. The catch is that only the ones you never have to think about survive, so timers, thermostat schedules and lower wash temperatures stay, and anything requiring willpower every day quietly stops after a month.
Get a plug in meter and a look at your smart meter data by half hour and you will stop arguing with strangers about this within a week. Mine showed a dehumidifier and an old chest freezer accounting for a surprising share of the base load, and neither was on anyone's list of tips. The general point is that your house has one or two specific offenders, and generic advice is aimed at an average house that does not exist.
Half hourly data showed us an immersion heater running at 2am on a schedule nobody remembers setting. One offender, exactly as you said.
Heating schedule, hot water timer, lower wash temperature, draught proof the two worst doors. Everything else is hobby.
@shopvac_ghost · 4mo ago · 3 replies
In every house I have measured, the big two are heating and hot water, and everything else is a rounding error by comparison. Dropping the thermostat a degree and putting the hot water on a timer instead of leaving it constant were the only two changes that showed up as a visible step in the bill. Unplugging phone chargers is a tip that refuses to die and is worth almost nothing, because modern standby draw is tiny, whereas anything that heats or moves water is where your money is. If you want one more, wash at a lower temperature, because heating the water is most of what a washing machine spends.
Reply
Report
@shopvac_ghost · 4mo ago
It is the single most reliable one I know of in a house with a tank. Nothing else comes close for the effort involved.
Reply
Report
@tidy_tuesday_max · 4mo ago
The hot water timer was one of my two that showed up. Good to know it was not a coincidence.
Reply
Report