Tips to save electricity please :)

I need to cut back my electricity bills urgently. I am trying everything I know to save $. this includes:
Using sand snakes under all doors to avoid draughts
Closing curtains etc to keep in heat.
Only having a lamp on in lounge and the range hood on the stove.
Our heater isn't the greatest (radiant heat) but it's new and it has a thermostat.

Our latest bill was HUGE compared to last years bills. The only thing we have been doing that i thought may cause excess usage is leaving a little oil heater on low overnight in dd's room, but this is only when she has a cough or is sick.

Any other tips?

Turning off everything at the wall when not being used. Stand-by mode chews a lot of power. If you are cooking, utilise the heat from that, rather than the heater.

Are fridges/freezers working ok? Make sure they are dust free near compressors. We bought a "cheap" fridge for our business but it cost us heaps as it was inefficient to run. Test out your heaters etc. by turning most things off and just running the thing you are testing for an hour and see how much your meter goes up.

Buy an electricity monitor. Maybe not right now with the financial stress of that massive bill (hugs...) but when you have some spare cash, invest in either a wireless or mains electricity monitor. You can pick one up for about $70-$100 or thereabouts. We got one that is directly connected to the mains - you need a licensed sparky to do that bit - and then it sits on our wall glaring at us with these LARGE NUMBERS that show, in real time, the dollar value of our energy consumption.

We have worked out what our "resting" power consumption is, so what we expect to see when everything is off and only the essentials are on. We also know now about what our oven costs us when it is heating, plus what our dryer costs to run ($2 every time!!!!).

We look at it now and go "80 cents. Why is it on 80 cents??? What's running???" And go round turning off lights, turning down the heater etc. It's making us very aware of our consumption.

I thought maybe faulty appliances, but our fridge is a really good one. Our washing machine is a 4.5 star rating too. We also have a split system, but never use it because it's way too expensive to run. Even more expensive than the radiant heat one.

Can't believe that 5 years ago we had my brother live with us for 12 months (different house) and our gas bills were about $120 and our electricity bills were about $180. How times have changed in just 5 years :(

Ours is up too on last year, but not consumption, on $ amount due to tariff increases.

Do you have a plasma screen tv? Are you watching it a fair bit? They can run the bill up.

Change all the light bulbs to LED ones it saved us a lot of money swapping over my kids are hopeless at turning lights off. Agree with the TV too plasma's are very expensive to run, they generate a lot of heat. We are saving to swap over as it's always on.

Also check if you can get on a cheaper tariff. We ended up on the most expensive one with AGL but swapped and get 20% off with energy Australia if the bills are paid on time.

I second the LED bulbs suggestion - although it takes a while for the cost to pay off. We also got noticeable savings by installing count-down timers & kill switches on appliances (eg, all the stuff in DD1's bedroom is on a timer that switches them off after 1.5 hours).

Also, think about how you're cooking. Use a pot that's the same size or bigger than the stove element, cook with the lids on as much as possible, turn the stove off a few minutes before you're finished so the food cooks on the stored heat.

And if you've got electric hot water, get that checked. They chew through a lot of power when they're nearing the end of their life.

ETA - have a look at the hardware store - they sell stick-on draft-sealing tapes that you can run around doors & windows.

And check the seals on your fridge & oven. And experiment on washing at a lower temp.

And measure out the exact amount of water before you boil the kettle so you're not heating water that's just going to cool down again.

We also found some LED strip lights at Ikea that we've set up for evening lighting in the kitchen. Obviously not enough for cooking, but better than the range light if you're just getting a drink or something.

Your local council might have free energy/ water saving stuff like light globes etc that you could access. I think free energy audits might be available too.

We turn everything off at the power points, esp. The TV. We have a huge old plasma, plasma tvs are just heaters that coincidently give off light and you can watch it. We are also very anal about lights and what lights we choose to use if we are in that room.
The other girls have said some great suggestions.

We turn everything off at the powerpoint when not in use.

I heard a man talking about this on the radio not long ago and he recommended timers for your appliances like dishwashers, washing machines and dryers to come on 2-3am in the morning. He also recommended keeping the house cool or warm rather then waiting for it to get too hot or too cold as the heater/cooler uses more power trying to cool/heat the place.

Those oil heaters are energy suckers so only use them and turn the off when not in use. And perhaps you need to spend the money on energy efficient heating which will ultimately save you lots of $$$$ on bills.

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Those oil heaters are energy suckers so only use them and turn the off when not in use. And perhaps you need to spend the money on energy efficient heating which will ultimately save you lots of $$$$ on bills.

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I have heard that the oil heaters do use heaps of power, but when i mention it everyone says they are great! So I googled and yes, they use heaps. But less than a little fan
heater I guess.
We are still renting so unfortunately the heater choice is out of our hands :( What I wouldn't give for a good old gas wall heater!

Is the computer being used or on overnight? That chews up electricity.

I have a laptop that is on pretty much all day actually. It's about 6 years old now so it takes like 15 minutes to start up properly when I turn it off lol. But I do turn it off before work and at night.

I would definitely check the hot water system. A friend halved her elec bill when she got a new one as her old one was not working properly and sucking power "on peak" not off peak.
If our tenant asked I would happily get an audit done and try and fix electricity sucking items. The cottage on our property (like our house) has a wood heater so although we buy wood it's an upfront cost and often we burn our way through an old tree off the block.
We changed all the light fittings in our house to fluro type ones. Made a big difference and we bought a new kettle and toaster. Also I don't iron.........and I dry clothes in front of the fire.

Our bill was $650 for the quarter. I have been told that this is normal. I work 3 days a week so I'm home 4 days. The house we rent is older so i know this is why. My brother lives in a new place and his water bills are like $60. Ours are $160. And dd only uses one extra bath a night compared to them.

We pay less than that in a house of 4 people, I'm at home 5 days a week, older house, teenage + school aged daughters. We live in SA so the price per kWh is more here than anywhere. BUT we have a gas space heater as main living area heating. I understand there are some highly efficient panel style heaters that are much cheaper to run, it might be worth lashing out a couple of hundred on one of those to save a lot more on power over the life of the heater. In the meantime, turn the heater's thermostat down and turn it off an hour or so before you stop using it because it will keep putting out heat for a while.

Also, look at the power settings on your laptop, set up the screen to power down to a low power setting after 10 mins of not using it, and to "sleep" when you're not on it during the day (saves power but starts up quicker). Also if you're using a modem, install a timer on it to switch it off when you're not using it. We have all this stuff set up to happen automatically. I don't mind paying for electricity we use, but i mind very much paying for power that is just leaking away for no reason.

I also meant to say check out how your power is charged. For eg, if you're on a smart meter it may be cheaper to do stuff at night than during the day.

Our bill is $300 per quarter. House is 118 years old and draughty. Our winter is much shorter than yours though, so much less heating! We have an electricity monitor, it's awesome. I'm same as OP as far as knowing exactly how much every single appliance uses. Our base level is $0.01 per hour in summer and $0.02 in winter. Goes up to 25c/hr if we have a single floodlight on! We paid $50 for it, I think?
We also got a power board that switches off standby items. Haven't noticed a big difference. We don't use a dryer, they're power leeches.

Our bill is $300 per quarter. House is 118 years old and draughty. Our winter is much shorter than yours though, so much less heating! We have an electricity monitor, it's awesome. I'm same as OP as far as knowing exactly how much every single appliance uses. Our base level is $0.01 per hour in summer and $0.02 in winter. Goes up to 25c/hr if we have a single floodlight on! We paid $50 for it, I think?
We also got a power board that switches off standby items. Haven't noticed a big difference. We don't use a dryer, they're power leeches.

ETA - sorry, just realised how unhelpful some of my comments have been (ie re buying stuff to save power) if $$$ are tight. Still, try to focus on what you can do & you will be able to achieve some savings without spending anything.

Is your oven gas? We have a gas oven but everything else is see electric, I put the oven on to warm the flat up, as gas is so much cheaper, and the oven seems to warm the place up quickly, so I don't need to leave it on, and often think of something to cook in it while is on.

Good idea wysiwig! Yes our oven is gas :) My brother just popped over and I asked him what his elec bills are. He said around $400 and they leave their ducted heating on low all day!! It's ceiling ducted too.
can't work out why ours is so expensive! All our big appliances are relatively new and good ratings. It sucks that we are renting! i hate this house! I know it's something with the house because all our stuff is fine. The house is tiny so doesn't take much to heat, but it is always freezing inside. I block all draughts and close blinds. ARGH, just so annoyed by this. We just can't afford to pay for ridiculous bills. And we can't afford to move out! :(

Might be an insulation issue??
Is the flooring tiles or floorboards? We have tiles and even when the heating is on, the tiles and tiled areas are freezing!

Maybe speak to the landlord and ask about insulation?

ours is up too, but we are running an extra heater (DS coslept last winter) and our insulation sucks

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Maybe speak to the landlord and ask about insulation?

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There is no way the landlord would fork out for insulation if there isn't any. DH will have a look today though. I haven't had very good experiences with landlords fixing their rentals. Our last place had a mouldy bathroom from water in the walls and they refused to fix it. Also the tiles lifted away in the dining area. A tiler came out to do a quote and then 2 weeks later the landlords 'handyman' came and fixed them, with the wrong colour tiles. The security screen had broke just before we moved in and thr same 'handyman' just bought heavy duty fly screen mesh and pop riveted it on to the old screen frame. So yeah, bit hesitant to ask for anything. Plus we just had our rent put up so we are now paying what others are paying for a new house. And we don't have the money to move out. Bit off topic sorry. I will get DH to check today....