Cutting the Cost of Household Bills?

schlumpf_louise asks: "I'm in the UK, and I'm about to move out of university accommodation and live in a house, for the first time. When we move, we will have to pay for water, electricity and gas. We'll still be students renting from a landlord, so we can't make any major physical changes to the property. The house has gas central heating and a gas cooker. Four computers will be running pretty much all the time, in addition to the usual general household appliances. What tips do any of you have for (legally) saving on bills? Are there any technologies that are worth buying for long term savings? What should we not do, or not use?" What other saving tips, and frugal suggestions might you have for a house full of college students?

Comments

Do your computers always need to be on?

[orin]

It is the four computers running all the time that will cost you a significant amount of money. What you should all do is work out when your computers actually need to be running. Although its nice to sit down and instantly start working, or to check your email when you are up at 3am going to the loo, if you are pinching pennies you'll notice that even over the course of a month, shutting down computers when they aren't doing anything will save you a significant number of pounds. Chances are as students you'll be spending a lot of time away from the house anyway at the pub, classes, the pub again, the local curry place, the pub. If you add that to your sleep routine you'll probably find that the number of hours each week that you actually need your computers is only a small fraction of the 168 that they will be on. Set your automated tasks to occur when you are eating dinner or watching the TV rather than having your computer on at 3am just to backup and download updates. Is having a great distributed computing score worth the price of several meals each month? Also consider. If you all already have mobile phones, do you really need a landline?

Re:Do your computers always need to be on?

[quadong]

"A computer is a very inefficient way to heat a house. The amount of power it uses up will NOT simply come off your heating bill. Certainly not if your heating is anything other than electricity"

Ahem. Physicist here. First of all, he _said_ that he had electric heat. If you have electric heat, then running your computer while the heat is on is free, just as he says. A computer converts all of the energy it uses into heat, just as an electric heater does. If you're interested in making heat, then you could call both devices 100% efficient. The only difference is that in the computer, some of that energy does more interesting things before turning into heat.

As you say, if you have gas heat, this is not true. Gas is cheaper per unit of energy (although this is hard to tell from your bills, since they measure them in very different units!).

Re:Do your computers always need to be on?

[Jettamann]

Going to the PUB 50% less (stay home) will save you more money then any other suggestion here.

Turn off

[Duhavid]

Turn off any and all electrical devices not in use.

Pile on the blankets, dont run the heater.

And lose Internet access

[tepples]

If you all already have mobile phones, do you really need a landline?

If you don't have landline voice service, you can't get dial-up. If the local telco is unwilling to unbundle the local loop, and you don't have landline voice service, you can't get DSL. If you don't watch a lot of TV, and the local cable company is unwilling to sell Internet access to those who aren't cable TV customers, then you can't get cable Internet access. So yes, you may need to keep landline voice service or give up Internet access altogether.

Learn to cook

[Frumious Wombat]

Frankly, that one will save you more than most of the rest. There are a wide variety of not bad foods that can be made in semi-bulk (so you only have to cook new every couple of days), that can be dressed differently at the table for varied meals. It's how I survived grad school.

Follow that one by shoping for clothes at the local version of Goodwill, turn down the heat, plug the drafts, and unplug appliances not in use. Consider adding an insulating blanket to your hot water heater, if it's not an instant-on type.

And, of course, don't do anything that makes holes in walls. Those are pricey to fix and tend to make landlords a bit touchy. The same comment applies to carpets.

Re:LED Flashlight

[SagSaw]

Convince your house mates that switching to LCDs in going to save everyone even though they're relatively expensive up front. A 19" CRT sucking down 100W will cost a fortune compared to the operational cost of a good LCD. The less power used means the less heat generated which leads to lower home cooling costs in hotter months.

I don't know about that. A LCD of similar size and resolution to my CRT would cost about $600. Let's even assume that by CRT draws about 200W (the label on the back says 1.7A/120V, but that's going to be worst case.). In my area, electricity costs $0.08 per kWh. The LCD would take 37,500 hours to pay for itself $600/($0.08/kWh)/0.2kW. At that rate, I would take over 4 years for the LCD to pay for itself, even if I leave my current monitor on 24/7/365. To me, the savings just aren't enough to make me rush out and buy an LCD. I might consider it when it comes time to replace this monitor.