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Whatever do you need 9 PC's for in a 5 bed gaff?, presume theres routers, modems, network switches etc as well;?...
Their gas has only just gone up, at the end of September but their electricity seems quite expensive or at least it worked out that way for me (5000KWs/year)
Andy
That would seem like an ideal opportunity for some thin clients and virtualisation ...
Owain
WRONG!!!
MBQ
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 10:00:49 +0100 someone who may be Andy Cap wrote this:-
Ebico's tariff, which doesn't have a standing charge [1], means that those who use a lot of electricity may well find a better price elsewhere. However, price is not the only reason for making a purchase and their tariff does send the right signals on reducing electricity consumption.
[1] it really doesn't have a standing charge, unlike others who just claim not to have a standing charge.
I've found that most things left plgged in even if OFF and not in standby such as computers and TVs seem to draw 5-10 Watts, I have one of those plug-in energy usage monitors (maplin). I think the 'leakage' is due to mains filters on equipment, especially those on computers in-built in to IEC connector. Even my rechargeable vacuum cleaner charger gets warm even if the cleaner isn;t connected, as long as the transformer is plugged in it'll use power not much but annoyingly something.
Another thing that's easily missed are labtop PSUs, they can be 40-70w when charging the internal battery and that's when the laptop is off.
Yes, I was just surprised how much. The old washer didn't; it had one of those mechanical rotary switches/timers.
Somebody had to ask....!
Firewall, mail server, backup mail server/file server, PBX....etc. etc. Eight are in one room.
There are more that aren't on all the time...but the four above are 20W,
30W, 50W and 35W respectively.
Even with a reduction - that's almost half of the OPs electricity usage through leaving PCs on. I've often wondered how power crazed my PCs are, put into that context I'll have to start charging myself each time I use it!!
5 bed detached 1905 house, 4 children, dishwasher, 2 x freezer, 1 x fridge, 2 x TV, 1 x PVR, 1 x digibox, 1 PC, 1 laptop, tumble drier ("emergency use only"), gas CH - ranges between 10 and 15 kWh per day according to the "energy tracker" feature for my Eon energy account. Just reviewed the meter readings, and that gives 11.3kWh per day since Sept 2006. Quite happy with that, given others seem to have much higher usage!! 37kWh for the OP seems incredible!!Matt
A quick search shows average electricity usage per household in the UK is estimated at anything from 2500 to 5500kWh per year, so range would be 6.8kWh per day to 15kWh per day. Seems your consumption is very high!
Matt
For the Eastern region Ebico have just increased their Economy 7 prices thus:
- day: 15.81 p/kWh - was 12.56 p/kWh - 26% increase
- night: 6.59 p/kWh - was 4.61 p/kWh - 43% increase!
They're certainly far from competitive now for E7 users with a high average night consumption.
I've put in yet another switching application. The best I could find for my consumption (~9800 kWh pa of which 65% at night) is EDF Energy's new "Online Electricity V6" tariff:
- day (1): 15.64 p/kWh for first 900 kWh pa
- day (2): 9.03 p/kWh
- night: 5.34 p/kWh
(All prices quoted ex-VAT.)
I changed to ebico last year for gas. The headline rate was higher, but for the first so many units it was much cheaper, which more than compensated for the higher headline price.
The effective standing charge from the high first so many unit price with Npower was the greater part of my bill with them.
Just? I've not had a letter from 'em telling me of an increase. Looking at their site I can see that they have gone up again since the last one on
1st April but there is no "effective from" date that I can obviously see.Might have to start looking again but the two Equipower tarrifs I have are very low useage so any tarrif with a stannding charge (up front or hidden) has to be pretty cheap to compete.
Sounds like you need this:
Older fridges and freezers can help push the consumption up . How do you dry the washing during the wet weather ? Take readings everyday and go round switching things off as suggested
(Summer 12Kwh per day winter 20 kwh per day - 3 storey town house with poor natural lighting.)
Old TV's can be that high. There are many countries which now require Even my rechargeable vacuum cleaner charger
Yes. Manufacturers of the small transformers used in wall warts have been making them more cheaply and less efficient over the years. Regulatory bodies have noticed this, and I suspect legislation will come in to force minimum efficiency on load, and max power dissipation off-load. This will almost certainly result in a move to all SMPSU's in wall warts. Some of these are now extremely efficient -- there's no point unplugging my Nokia charger as it's off-load power dissipation is too low for me to measure, and it stays stone cold.
Yes. Some modern Toshiba ones I checked a couple of years ago had much less than 0.5W off-load consumption, but as you say, when left plugged in to a laptop which is switched off, it is higher (although I never saw figures anywhere as high as yours). The power draw does not cease when the battery is charged either. In the office, this resulted in a recommendation to unplug laptop from PSU, but don't bother unplugging PSU from mains (which would have meant rummaging around down the backs of desks in all the cabling). At home, I would suggest unplugging to reduce risk of fire, but it was pointless to save power.
No. Couldn't have the mail server and the backup mail server on the same physical box, for a start. There are similar arguments for some of the others too....for example, I want the firewall to be a dedicated machine.
In any case, a machine capable of virtualisation would probably use more power than the sum of what I have. The four machines use only 135W between them.
We've got the combi in a utility room with a radiator, and an airer on pulleys in that room. Clothes dry even quicker in the house on that airer in winter than in summer, so even less need to use the tumble dryer. SWMBO uses the tumble dryer only on wet summer days when the heating isn't already on in the house.
The appliances are A or A+ rated too, which helps. I guess we use quite a lot of gas to compensate for the electricity as the house is badly insulated (limited double glazing, single brick construction
1905 house).Matt
2nd October, see
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