Energy bill increases

[rogerzilla]

It is way cheaper to boil water on a gas hob than to use an electric kettle. The kettle is more efficient (less wasted heat) but gas is a quarter the cost of electricity, which far more than cancels that out.

 

[MrGrumpy]

We had a boiling tap put in when the kitchen was done. Expensive but only uses 10w when not in use. Hoping it will save money

 

[Fab Foodie]

Oh yes, agreed, we use a dishwasher but only when it's full. The sort of washing up I'm talking about is perhaps to wash hands after chopping onions, slicing fish, tossing a salad, rinsing a pan, wiping down surfaces or to wash my kitchen knives which I don't like to put in the dishwasher.

My wife says I'm anal but I've always stacked the dishwasher properly and only wash when it's full and in eco mode.

You sound completely 'normal' to me! First job when cooking is to get some hot soapy water in the bowl.
Our dishwasher has 'autosense' but I might review the eco prog again, IIRC, it uses very slightly less water and very slightly more lecky (OK with Solar) than most of the other progs.

 

[Fab Foodie]

It depends. If you have a hot water storage tank, it's probably cheaper to use the kettle to add to not-hot-enough tank water for washing-up instead of boost the tank back up, unless you will use more hot water after. Heating a kettle will be maybe 2p/litre at the mo, while it's 20-40p to bring the 170litre tank back up (depending how low it went).

Combi boiler I think will normally be cheaper than a kettle if it is near the sink and pipes are insulated (and are copper that warms very quickly).

No water tank, and the boiler is quite a distance from the kitchen (from the West wing at Foodie Towers ) I have I have no idea of the pipe insulation.

@PaulSB made the point about the 'wasted' cold water before the hot comes, we have a fair bit of that due to the pipe run but other than fill a few watering cans, no way to capture this sensibly.

I usually boil water in a kettle for boiling rice/Pasta and without gas will continue this habit, probs will start doing that for the hot soapy water in the bowl when cooking.

 

[Fab Foodie]

We had a boiling tap put in when the kitchen was done. Expensive but only uses 10w when not in use. Hoping it will save money

Contemplated having one of these as an option in the new house (I even started a thread about them), with the way energy costs (and no doubt soon our water costs too) are rising, it might have been a reasonable investment....

 

[mjr]

We had a boiling tap put in when the kitchen was done. Expensive but only uses 10w when not in use. Hoping it will save money

You say "only uses 10w" but the LED floodlight outside is only 4.5w, so what's it doing while off? Floodlighting the undersink cupboard?

 

[Alex321]

No water tank, and the boiler is quite a distance from the kitchen (from the West wing at Foodie Towers ) I have I have no idea of the pipe insulation.

@PaulSB made the point about the 'wasted' cold water before the hot comes, we have a fair bit of that due to the pipe run but other than fill a few watering cans, no way to capture this sensibly.

I usually boil water in a kettle for boiling rice/Pasta and without gas will continue this habit, probs will start doing that for the hot soapy water in the bowl when cooking.

I think the waste is made worse there by the hot water that is left in the pipes to cool after you finish filling the bowl, which then becomes that wasted cold when you next come to do so. So you have heated that to no purpose, before letting it cool, then throwing it away next time.

We used to have a similar issue in our last house - a combi boiler one end of the house, with the kitchen the other end - and it was a BIG house. It took at least 30 seconds for the hot water to arrive at the tap And even worse, that combi boiler ran off LPG gas, way more expensive than mains gas.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Just a warning for anyone contemplating filling the kettle from the hot water tap don't the water that is held in the header tank can be quite nasty, not so bad with a Combi boiler as that is reasonably fresh water.

 

[PaulSB]

It is way cheaper to boil water on a gas hob than to use an electric kettle. The kettle is more efficient (less wasted heat) but gas is a quarter the cost of electricity, which far more than cancels that out.

Do you have some more on this because it is partly how I have been thinking but I'm unsure? My kettle takes 4 minutes 10 to boil 1.7 litres, the gas hob takes 8 minutes 25 - double the time. Currently we pay 33.0p/kWh for electricity and 10.3 for gas so one-third less.

For arguments sake lets just say the kettle costs £1 to boil, if the unit costs were the same the gas would be £2. However gas is one-third the price of electricity so using this example I think the gas cost would be £1.00/3 = 33p * 2 =66p so yes definitely cheaper. The real costs are much smaller and I'm not convinced the gas is cheaper over such a short period, if you get my drift.

 

[MrGrumpy]

What LED floodlight outside? It’s very very dim under the sink and the LED light on the tap only comes in when in use. Cost I’ll maybe never get back but it’s is more efficient than turning the kettle on.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Do you have some more on this because it is partly how I have been thinking but I'm unsure? My kettle takes 4 minutes 10 to boil 1.7 litres, the gas hob takes 8 minutes 25 - double the time. Currently we pay 33.0p/kWh for electricity and 10.3 for gas so one-third less.

For arguments sake lets just say the kettle costs £1 to boil, if the unit costs were the same the gas would be £2. However gas is one-third the price of electricity so using this example I think the gas cost would be £1.00/3 = 33p * 2 =66p so yes definitely cheaper. The real costs are much smaller and I'm not convinced the gas is cheaper over such a short period, if you get my drift.

Your calculation assumes the kettle and gas burner have identical power output. They certainly will not have, and could be wildly different.

 

[MrGrumpy]

Contemplated having one of these as an option in the new house (I even started a thread about them), with the way energy costs (and no doubt soon our water costs too) are rising, it might have been a reasonable investment....

Not cheap !! However if doing a kitchen renovation it’s probably the time to do it !

 

[Fab Foodie]

I think the waste is made worse there by the hot water that is left in the pipes to cool after you finish filling the bowl, which then becomes that wasted cold when you next come to do so. So you have heated that to no purpose, before letting it cool, then throwing it away next time.

We used to have a similar issue in our last house - a combi boiler one end of the house, with the kitchen the other end - and it was a BIG house. It took at least 30 seconds for the hot water to arrive at the tap And even worse, that combi boiler ran off LPG gas, way more expensive than mains gas.

That's a very good point.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Not cheap !! However if doing a kitchen renovation it’s probably the time to do it !

Too late now!

 

[Jody]

We had a boiling tap put in when the kitchen was done. Expensive but only uses 10w when not in use. Hoping it will save money

Is that 10w hourly? Out of interest, what does it use when boiling the water?