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Got a question on energy usage.
We had an office built in the garden for my husband, and an electric car charger for his electric car. Since then, the energy usage has rocketed. We know how much the car uses and it’s not that much as he doesn’t use it often.
The garden office is heated with UFH. He has a server in it (he works in IT). When I say the only thing that’s changed is the office and his heating and IT equipment must be using a lot he gets very defensive and says it’s the oven and the washing machine.
Which I just can’t rationalise in my head. He is completely adamant his UFH and IT equipment don’t use a lot. His office is always very warm. Is there a way to get to the bottom of this when he is completely uncooperative in investigating ? The bills scare me and I will end up paying the bulk I know.
I just want a way to get to the facts without him getting more angry at me.
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12 Replies
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Turn as much as possible off except his shed, take a meter reading, wait an hour or two, take another meter reading. Scale that up for daily/monthly use. If you want to go full nerd, do it a few days on different temperatures, eg now, mid frosty season, etc.
If it’s his business use, I’d imagine there’s some way for him to offset even partially as a business expense.
Also, I’m concerned for your wellbeing if your husband is willing to use anger to stop you investigating this, or to force you to shoulder the costs for his office running. There’s a book by Lundy Bancroft on angry men. It might shed some light on things.
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Sorry can’t help with the convincing of him.
However, if you can afford it maybe consider investing in battery + inverter (or solar + battery+ inverter if budget stretches that far).
Prices for batteries have come down a lot and with an EV you’d qualify for electric tariffs like Octopus Intelligent Go or Eon Next Drive which is like 7p overnight.
So you charge EV and house battery overnight at cheap rate and run your house off the energy stores in it during the day meaning you use very little peak energy from the grid.
I’m having mine installed a week on Monday.
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Yeah I’m guessing the UFH must be electric if it’s out in the garden and that costs a fortune to run as the main heat source if so. I have it but only as secondary in my living area and it’s fine because it’s only on for a bit to take the chill off and then it trips off when to comfortable temp. The radiators do most of the work. Seems to then stay warm without needing to come on much again.
But I could see that when I had a smart meter as soon as that was on it was something like 46p an hour to run and that was before the massive energy price hikes a few years ago. That was for an area about 18 sqm and I think it’s a KW per sqm.
When it was installed did they put insulating boards underneath it too? If not it could also be that as much heat is lost underneath as comes out above into the room. When I replaced the floor in my old bathroom the previous lot of UFH was on top of some sodden polystyrene Not good on so many levels I got them to put new insulating boards underneath where the new UFH and floor was laid and it did seem to be really effective x
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We went with an air conditioning unit that has hot and cold feature for our heating. As UFH is expensive. The computer equipment won’t be what is using so much electricity it will be the UFH. My husband has used his garden cabin to work from home for 5 years, he is a software developer. He has powerful computers, tv and even a kitchen down in his cabin and it doesn’t use an excessive amount of electricity.
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We have ufh around the house and it’s very expensive! But with solar panels we’re able to accumulate credits during summer which we use during winter, last year of i remember well we started “paying” for electricity just in January. Also, an average washing cycle consumes only 0.4kWh so cannot be the culprit
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Any devices around the house will have a rating – stated in Watts or kilowatts – if that’s turned on for an hour, then you can work out how much that’s adding to your electricity bill as you are charged in kWh.
Or is you have a smart meter, it’s very easy to turn off devices and check the meter for immediate confirmation what’s being used.
Then it is now your word against his, it’s facts and figures
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I agree with the comments re investing in a battery and inverter. It’s a good investment as you fill the battery at a cheap rate and use this to power the house, EV etc. This group GivEnergy Battery and EVC Owners or Solar & battery UK are worth following to explore options.
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You can get every monitors that just plug in… You plug the monitor into the socket, and then whatever equipment you want to measure into the monitor. This will give you a kWh measurement.
Also, if you are charging an EV without solar panels installed, your are definitely going to see your builds go up. That said, there are devices that essentially allow you to use your EV battery just like you would a solar battery… So you can charge off peak and then use the energy during peak times if you aren’t intending to drive that day. I would definitely look into this. I think Octopus have a service that can help with that, so if might be worth giving them a call. And of course, if you don’t have solar, it sounds like a great time to install some, even if it’s just a single panel or two on the office, they will pay for themselves arrow quickly in today’s energy market.
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Thanks everyone he has agreed to something that monitors the power going to his office which is good, hopefully he will try a different heating method to compare the cost (thanks for all suggestions above).
Would using a Dyson heater be cheaper to run than UFH do you think? I don’t want him to be cold out there but these bills- ouch. Meanwhile I sit in the house with a jumper and a blanket and sometimes fingerless gloves rather than use the gas heating!
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I have the ‘Loop’ energy app, which allows you to see how much electricity you are using and how much it’s costing each day/week/month.. it’s really good and it allows you to then see what appliances you had on the most expensive days. For example, I know our most expensive days are when then washer and the dryer has been on for a bit. I was worried about our new range cooker, but it hasn’t made a difference to costs when that’s been on for any length of time.
My husband and I both work from home, and it is cheaper on days he’s out for meetings all day, but your talking 20p..so it does appear to be the electric UFH that’s the culprit of your high bills..and potentially the car charger. Hope you find cheaper alternatives.
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I’ve had a smart meter for a while now, and have a look at the 30 minute usage data every now and then. I’m with octopus so this is easy to download. But there are other apps such as glow that I’ve used too. Before I had a heat pump I got to understand what my overnight base load was, (fridge freezer, internet router, some monitoring kit on 24/7 etc.) and then made a note of when I did laundry, used oven, watched tv etc during the day and compared with overnight baseload. You can get a good feel for what the different appliances use (as long as you’re not doing everything at once of course!).
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Either get a smart meter which should help you see where the power is going, or invest £150-200 in a standalone electricity usage monitor that clips onto the circuits coming out of your fuse box and displays how much electricity each circuit is using in real time in an app. They can be installed as a DIY project, but I’d recommend getting an electrician to do it.
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