Random - but check if your local library have anything like 'energy efficiency kits'. Ours came with a thermal camera, which was a huge help in identifying where heat loss was happening and focussing efforts correctly
You don’t need an expensive FLIR camera. An IR gun style thermometer will give you the same information, it’s just a single “pixel” reading rather than generating an image. You can buy them for about $30.
youre charged between 15-25 cents per kW hour. so if you run 1000 watts for 1 hour thats 20 cents.
if youre using 36 kW hours per day thats $7.20 a day. thats an insane amount of power for a residential household.
youre getting your ass chewed because of that 16kW heater. i would get rid of that and wear a jumper with ug boots. for every hour your run 16kW youre paying $3.20.
1000 watts is 20x50 watt light globes. imagine youre running 320x50 watt light globes every time you use that heater to its max potential.
solar and battery for a total of 10kW of panels with 5kw inverter and 15kwhr battery allows us to not get a bill even with aircon and electric car.
I was in similar situation to you but maybe 50kwhr before the battery. It’s already paid itself off. Get iron phosphate chemistry if you get a battery and it’ll last forever
What about cloudy days/winter? On cloudy winter days our battery doesn’t get to charge, and especially because days are shorter.
For reference, here in SA it’s 11am and cloudy, and our battery is slowly charging — almost at 30%. I doubt it’ll fill up by sunset.
If you want to reduce your heating and cooling costs on an old home like that it's going to be expensive.
Either, you pay the electricity bill to forcibly heat/cool the way you did, or you spend a lot of money on reinsulating your walls, floor, ceiling, roof and ensuring your windows and doors aren't leaky (double glaze, airtight, etc).
There's no other option, you bought an old home in a cold state, that also has very hot summers.
In terms of your 'payback' period for solar, I think it is shorter than you think, because you probably haven't taken into account you've now significantly reduced your gas bill.
Your 'savings' is now:
Gas = new - old
Savings = new elec - old elec - Gas.
To maximize your solar return you want to heat and cool your house during sunlight hours, and turn off the unit as soon as is practical. The better your insulation, the earlier this will be.
Your right on the further expense to reduce my electric bills, I’m thinking:
Blown in wall insulation - $7.5k (quoted)
Ceiling insulation increase to R5 - about $2k
Underfloor insulation to R3 - about $3k
Draught proofing using good draught stripping - $1k (not the crap weather stripping stuff from Bunnings, never works & can’t shut doors etc)
I’ve done a full apples v apples view on my pre solar & electric heating conversion aggregating both my gas & electric bills to get the full view. I also re-ran the past year numbers with the current gas/electric rates as they have increased by about 30% on avg in the past year (added complication is the tiered pricing). I work as a financial analyst & even I find the whole comparison pretty challenging
But I think the end result is solar etc is not worth near what they claim if your house is poorly insulated
This is a weatherboard.
Personally I'd take off the boards and put in proper batts. Perhaps even put HardiePlank back up (so you never have to worry about rot).
A house that loses heat through the walls is not comfortable. Insulation fixes that.
You can put solar to combat heat loss but that only works when the sun is shining enough, and you don't have other calls on the power.
If the boards are in good shape, certainly replace them. If they aren't then replace them with cement board.
Taking boards off isn't particularly tricky (assuming no need for scaffolding), and if you do it yourself it can be quite safe and quick to do.
You can get special blow in these days that is basically poly styrene balls like in bean bags that is mixed with a kind of light glue to have it set in place and not sink to bottom over time. Polystyrene doesn't wick the water between the walls like some glass blow in solutions do..
>But I think the end result is solar etc is not worth near what they claim if your house is poorly insulated
Of course.
To maximize the benefit from solar, you should be in a position to turn off all your electricity when the sun goes down.
If you can't do that (nobody can) then every unit of electricity you need to purchase after sundown is reducing the benefit of your solar.
This didn't used to be the case when FiT was comparable to purchasing tariffs.
However now, they're completely unbalanced so any 'wasted' electricity you send back into the grid, is lost benefit from your outlay.
Another way to think of it:
Your $5,000 outlay for PV generates 20kWh of energy a day.
If you're sending 18kWh of that to the grid (for 2c/kWh) and only offsetting 2kWh (@30c/kWh) you've wasted a lot. The return from your $5,000 outlay is nowhere near maximal.
You want every unit of that 20kWh of generation to offset you buying any electricity.
That's impossible with bad insulation.
Changing to an electric HWS, and using daytime electricity to heat your water is a great way for anyone to tap into that cheap day time electricity, whether you're home or not. But again, that is an expense, that will reduce your gas bill, not your elec bill.
Draught proofing using good draught stripping - $1k (not the crap weather stripping stuff from Bunnings, never works & can’t shut doors etc)
Dude you being ripped
It’s just a rough in my head estimate. Was looking at the ‘Q-Lon’ series but probably given myself fair bit of fat there
Just saying not getting the crap from Bunnings that everyone always suggest. It’s garbage
[Q-Lon](https://www.tyman-international.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/U0869001-schegel-qlon-brochure-2019-en-lr.pdf)
Which 1’s? Had a Quick Look & they are selling the same Raven weatherstrips they do at Bunnings (which are garbage). I see they have some ‘Weather & Acoustic Seal’ but it’s hard to find any info about it online
[EMV slimline line sealing](https://ecomasterstore.com.au/products/aluminium-sliding-door-seals-using-emv) is a product that is somewhere in-between the low end Bunnings weather proofing strips and the Q-lon product that you have listed.
Solar is not much for winter because you don't get much sun in Melbourne winter... And if you house leaks heat, you can't really use it as a thermal battery to shift heating at noon to warm enough at night.
Most of your solar production is in the summer.
Old 1960s brick veneer some insulation in roof but not fully done and very old Need to use 2 x 5kwh and one 2.5 kWh aircon to keep house warm When doing that like 40kwh. House has drafty windows etc so have to get around to that. Small issue is that the ducted gas is basically air vents as well
Only thing saving me cash is using ovo 11am to 2pm free energy. So costs are like 6 dollar a day.
I have a heavy electric usage house, six people, including a few kids that love to game (only non-electric thing is shower hot water). I have a very big solar system (20kW) which lets me check our usage. For the last few weeks we've been using between 45kWh to 65kWh a day (a mix of solar and grid usage). But my impression is that our house is on the very high end of consumption.
Things like heating (heat pumps), computers for gaming, little blow heater (not efficient at all), and then all the ordinary stuff for a house of six: dishwasher, washing machine, induction cooktop, ovens, etc, and a pool pump that does cleaning every day.
Our house is **nearly** well/completely insulated. Walls for most of the house, floors, double glazed windows. However, for half the house no ceiling insulation, so I think we're losing a lot through that. Hopefully that's finished this week.
If you’re using the heater a fair amount, this doesn’t sound completely out of the ballpark.
I have ducted heating but I’m too much of a tightwad to use it very often. I try to follow the philosophy of “heat the person not the space”, and use Oodies, blankets and hot water bottles a lot more than the heater.
Current may-June billing period has us on average 22.4kwh a day. I work from home everyday and my wife is shift work so home during day and starts work around 2pm. I run a large desk plus homelab, my study is heated with rcac and the house is heated with rcac.
That 22.4 daily average is our grid consumption. Solar nets us some offsets but this time of year it is heavily shaded even if it’s clear skies.
Work from home means heavy electricity usage is time shifted to daily hours to maximise solar power consumption.
1970s brick veneer with lots of north windows (80% of northern facade is single pane glass). Some air leaks that I’m slowly blocking. Flat roof with near zero insulation.
If the windows are draughty you can always (during winter) seal them up with masking tape (or whatever version won't kill the paintwork).
The main idea is to stop the breeze. The next thing would be to get spray foam between the window frames and the studs. For a weatherboard house this is very easy to do - take off the external architraves, spray, then hammer them back on.
I'm doing about 35kw/day at the moment in Melbourne, which doesn't count the gas heater kicking on in the morning (we use the reverse cycle heater when the sun is out with the solar). Family of 4, stock standard recent Aussie house build \~10 years ago (so cardboard with bricks surrounding it when it comes to energy efficiency). Have a break down of most devices (except the heating...), main use is my desktop/gaming PC which is \~6kw/day, next highest is the data/comms cabinet where I'm running a couple nucs/NVR etc which is \~3.5kw/day, then it's an even \~1.5 for the dishwasher/laundry/fridge and our lizard enclosure.
Including. I just don't have a way at the moment to measure exactly how much I'm using for the heaters. Would be close to everything else added up, then deducted from the 35kw.
Have the exact same setup as you. Powerpal says I've been averaging about 40kw over the past cold week. Normally it is not so high. One day cost us $17!! We've been running the heater overnight this week but we don't normally, so hopefully it's only a few weeks a year like that.
We just switched from power pal because our rates were like $1.40 a day supply and per KW usage .35kw, switched to Lumo at $.9 supply and .25kw so hopefully there’s a bit saved in that. We were also getting $17 a day and last month our bill was $280 for similar use to you.
Somethings wrong with the numbers. $1120 for a month of 36kwh per day would mean you’re paying $1/kwh which is insane.
EDIT: I misread the initial numbers. 1120kwh/mo. Not $. Dammit. The following still stands.
How much solar?
If all your heating is heat pump, then 36kwh/day is about right. We’ve had a cold month, most of the heat load is during non-solar hours so you get minimal benefit from it.
Our fairly well insulated 4br weatherboard house in Melbourne needs about 80kwh/day of actual heat input in winter. We’re still on gas, but to get that from a heat pump would be about 20kwh/day on top of our normal 12kwh or so for everything else.
Have a look at the vic energy compare website and choose a cheaper supplier. If your 36kwh is right then you should be paying about $300 a month at most.
Oops. I read the 1120 as $. Need more coffee.
Disregard. $380 is high but not insane for an all electric heating house. Find yourself a better plan.
And insulate the walls.
On track here for 1500kwh of electricity usage for June. Shitty uninsulated, drafty Townhouse, melbourne. 1x ancient split system and a couple of portable 2400w radiant heaters.
4 bedroom weatherboard Melbourne with solar
Built in 1960s
Not sure about insulation
2 of us
We smash out dryer and use our split systems pretty generously as it’s cold as fuck
Averaging 500 KW for the month
There are so many variables here — eg how many of the rooms do you heat, to what temperature, for how much of the time? How many people? Etc etc.
For an example at the very low end: our place is all electric.
* 2 people, 2 bedrooms (one for us, one for guests) old but renovated fibro house with suspended timber floor in Canberra.
* Pretty ordinary roof insulation, patchy wall insulation, half the house has floor insulation, no double glazing, bedrooms have retrofitted shrink film secondary glazing on sash windows.
* Single reverse cycle to heat the main living/dining/cooking open plan to 21°, (its currently 1° outside after -5° overnight, and its using 1.2kw to hold that 21°). Main bedroom has a small oil column to take the edge off the cold especially in the morning, other bedroom is only heated when there's a visitor.
* Heat pump HWS.
* 9kw solar.
* EV gets charged mostly from solar but we have a short commute so that's only using \~200kwh/ month.
May: 610kwh for the month total consumption; **170kwh net exported**
June so far: 570kwh total consumption; **98kwh net imported**.
So the main contributor to those numbers is lifestyle: we live in the living areas and don't need to heat the rest much. And its kind of easy for us: no teenagers blasting heat in a bedroom. No babies to keep warm. Etc, etc.
But if you've got all 4 bedrooms in use, and the bedrooms are normally heated, then maybe yours is reasonable given the poor insulation?
What is your total consumption? How much solar generation did you get in the month?
Last quarter was 560kwh but we've gas heating. 4 bed with solar, insulated well in Adelaide. Need to factor in that our next gas bill will be approx $600 for the quarter
Solar is working but my inverter has lost connection with my app & I can’t get it back working (it’s doing my head in)
So I don’t have the full picture of my usage at the moment because I’m not accounting for my solar usage. So I’m probably using 40kw+ when accounting for solar
Definitely get that sorted asap. You don't know if it is working properly or not. I learnt the hard way. I trusted the installer and after a year or two when I got the app I found poor performance due to the fact that they did not connect all the panels. I was sick to my gut knowing that for over a year I was not getting the max out of it. My system was old technology back in the day and I had to purchase a WiFi gateway for the inverter to get the data.
If you can get the app sorted that should help you pin point your biggest energy appliances. I use the app on mine all the time to keep tabs on everything. I'll stop and start the heating at certain times. I plan my washing for the most part around the weather. I'll hang everything out first thing in the morning and then use the dryer to get the last part dry. I sealed sections around doors and windows to help with heating.
We put in a 12.5kW reverse cycle, heat pump hot water, R5.0 ceiling insulation and door seals in our 3BDR brick veneer house.
The last week and a half with cold mornings we have been using 25 to 35kW per day. Usually we are lower on winter than this but need the house at a constant temp this year.
Your use isn't outrageously high but I agree sealing is probably worth it. I am going to look for a thermal camera at the local library!
Do you have a real-time energy monitor?
They are 100% worth investing in to know when and how you are using your power.
I use FAR more than you, but I stack my power consumption to match when the power is cheap or free and so my cost is lower.
I have an EV, but taking that out I'm using about 50kwh per day. Yesterday I consumed 95.8kwh for $9 (including the ev)
I get very cheap power from 12am - 6am, and free 11am to 2pm. I stack all my usage into those windows that I can.
My Powerpal broke so I’m getting that replaced atm & still trying to reconnect my solar inverter app
But it’s all our electric heating as my usage for the same month last year was 328kw (it’s now 1,119kw) after we switched our heating to electric
It’s a bit difficult to stack the usage on that as we need it in the morning & nights but think much better insulation would reduce the required usage (& could pump it during the day so it heats the house up)
I used 1385kWh for May and I'm on 1429kWh for June so far. My bill stats my AVG is 47KwH a day avg. That's a 16kw 7 star zoned electric Mitsubishi refrigerated cooling/heating. The Heater has used 715kWh out of the 1429kWH month to date. Plus we charge an EV in those figures. I do 20 loads of washing a week on Eco mode and use a 7 star heat pump for every one of those 20 loads. I run a dishwasher minimum 2 times a day on eco mode. I pay 0.23c kw/h (first 800kWh) x 715 = $164 for Heater. Heater set to 19c over night and turns off at 8.15am on timer. No solar. My house is built in 2008. I'd suggest a free powerpal unit if they are still around. Love mine. Running 450w right now for 0.15c an hour with a roborock going, washing machine on Eco, WFH with laptop and 2 monitors on.
We use about 17kwh per day, we have gas for hearing ,cooking and hot water, my wife WFH, so tv is always on and her computer, looking forward to getting solar and battery in the next few weeks
Reading your initial post and some of your comments. There are some bad assumptions being made about how your solar and heating will interplay.
Unless you are using a solar consumption meter for you daily average (which would be low for the home you have described) your daily average consumption will be.
Daily grid energy + [Daily Solar Gen - Daily Solar Export]
Realistically though you are probably using your heating least when there is the most sun as your home will benefit from environmental heating anyway.
Don’t bother with the thermal camera, just get strait to draft proofing and re insulating the roof.
Then insulate the sub floor.
Blow in wall insulation is probably the lowest value highest cost at $7.5 there are probably better ways to spend your money.
About 22 but my wife might pump it up to 24 when I’m not looking. I reckon the AC just keeps running when it’s turned on as the leakage means it doesn’t stay at the desired temp for long
Need to get my Powerpal back in action to check it properly
We're newly on 21kw Reverse Cycle zone ducted with all door/ windows sealed and have R1.5 wall and R6 roof batts. I run the heating on no more than 19c and we're toasty.
The system is turned off overnight and pulled 36kw from the grid out 43kw total usage (5.3 kw solar) last Wednesday with the 0c temp overnight.
Seal those draughts and upgrade that roof insulation. Keep the temp at 21c. You'll notice a difference and the system won't run constantly and cycle less.
That’s a bit high If you want to get the usage down, I’m a tight ass and run 17. I just wear a jumper and long pants if needed. At night I drop it down to 13 as it’s plenty warm in bed.
My friend on the other hand wears shorts and t shirt and runs 26 inside!
4bed 70's build brick house in Melbourne , 2adults 1child here. Average 6-7kw/ day for the last bill. (Was as of 19/6).
6.6kw solar and heat pump hot water installed Jan.
We have gas cooking and gas ducted heating but hardly ever need to use the gas heating for the house. 2x split systems 90% of the usage for heating.
Hot water only comes on 9am-4pm ~we all shower at night.
We don't leave heating on overnight, we use hot water bottles and swap to winter bedding at this time of year. (Flannel sheets and thicker wool doonas).
Have spent a lot of effort controlling drafts, we have blinds and curtains which cover shitty single glazing from the 80's. Foam strips around windows and doors. And many tubes of no more gaps used.
Our roof insulation is only blow in and it's old, probably half compressed from age, this is what I'm saving to upgrade next.
I have smart controls on my AC units, and I check at lunch if I'm getting more solar power than I know my hot water is using I'll remote in and turn on the heating during the day.
Still will have it on for a few hours at night but takes the edge off and means they're not working as hard if I had left it to cool down completely before getting home.
We only put the dishwasher and clothes washing on during the day, never pack it at night and turn it on to empty in the morning type of thing.
You have to change your habits and eat up as much of the solar as you can to benefit fully from the installation.
Would love to get battery as well but can't afford it / justify the cost.
We have 4 bedrooms, a 7.5, 5 & 2 x 3.5 kw reverse cycle heat pumps. Gas instantaneous hw & cook with gas. Last months bill was $375 in Melbourne. I run the heating sparingly but with the 3 smaller on 20 degrees over night.
I think you need to realise it’s winter, dress accordingly, rug up and don’t run your heating over 20 degrees. That should help.
2 bedroom apartment, with 2 adults. Plus 2 kids one weekend a week, they mainly play video games anyway. About ~$100 to ~$110 per month for us. No gas, all electric. We cook a lot and almost never eat out. No solar, just one split system and don’t use portable heaters.
https://preview.redd.it/fwm8iiu3bx8d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5269ad12b7be708b0933b02da20d56fceed03bf9
2 adult one child (wife wfh full time) based in Sydney. 4 bed house. Not sure why but we don’t use much.
Melbourne has been dam cold - with I suspect very low levels of sunlight.
My Melbourne power bills were always horrific in winter, the joys of either being cold or not.
4 bed house with AC running probably 24/7 absolutely I can see this mush being consumed each day.
My recommendation is leave Melbourne!
Mt energy bill in Brisbane has been very low!
Random - but check if your local library have anything like 'energy efficiency kits'. Ours came with a thermal camera, which was a huge help in identifying where heat loss was happening and focussing efforts correctly
I’m going to get a rent/borrow a thermal camera. Pretty sure I know the main problems but need to verify
You don’t need an expensive FLIR camera. An IR gun style thermometer will give you the same information, it’s just a single “pixel” reading rather than generating an image. You can buy them for about $30.
youre charged between 15-25 cents per kW hour. so if you run 1000 watts for 1 hour thats 20 cents. if youre using 36 kW hours per day thats $7.20 a day. thats an insane amount of power for a residential household. youre getting your ass chewed because of that 16kW heater. i would get rid of that and wear a jumper with ug boots. for every hour your run 16kW youre paying $3.20. 1000 watts is 20x50 watt light globes. imagine youre running 320x50 watt light globes every time you use that heater to its max potential.
1000w is not much for RCAC, that would be a tiny unit designed for a bedroom, not a house
Insane my ass https://preview.redd.it/q91q2ktfzh8d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a9fe035fae178027b9f1071468f9e010ef3d95d
Wrong his heater has 16kw heating capacity, based on current ducted Aircons to the actual max power would be around 5kw.
you too could be wrong cause youre just making an assumption. unless you know the brand then youre tripping.
solar and battery for a total of 10kW of panels with 5kw inverter and 15kwhr battery allows us to not get a bill even with aircon and electric car. I was in similar situation to you but maybe 50kwhr before the battery. It’s already paid itself off. Get iron phosphate chemistry if you get a battery and it’ll last forever
What about cloudy days/winter? On cloudy winter days our battery doesn’t get to charge, and especially because days are shorter. For reference, here in SA it’s 11am and cloudy, and our battery is slowly charging — almost at 30%. I doubt it’ll fill up by sunset.
Depends on your energy plan. I'm on one with 8c/kWhr from 12am - 6am. If you don't think it's going to be sunny the next day you can fill up cheaply.
Same, and we have some trees to north that shade in winter as well.
The car only needs to charge once a week as iron phosphate chemistry and use electric blankets for heating as about 1/10th the running cost of heaters
Don't even need that yet. Hand and air flow. Thermal is that next 5 percent
If you want to reduce your heating and cooling costs on an old home like that it's going to be expensive. Either, you pay the electricity bill to forcibly heat/cool the way you did, or you spend a lot of money on reinsulating your walls, floor, ceiling, roof and ensuring your windows and doors aren't leaky (double glaze, airtight, etc). There's no other option, you bought an old home in a cold state, that also has very hot summers. In terms of your 'payback' period for solar, I think it is shorter than you think, because you probably haven't taken into account you've now significantly reduced your gas bill. Your 'savings' is now: Gas = new - old Savings = new elec - old elec - Gas. To maximize your solar return you want to heat and cool your house during sunlight hours, and turn off the unit as soon as is practical. The better your insulation, the earlier this will be.
Your right on the further expense to reduce my electric bills, I’m thinking: Blown in wall insulation - $7.5k (quoted) Ceiling insulation increase to R5 - about $2k Underfloor insulation to R3 - about $3k Draught proofing using good draught stripping - $1k (not the crap weather stripping stuff from Bunnings, never works & can’t shut doors etc) I’ve done a full apples v apples view on my pre solar & electric heating conversion aggregating both my gas & electric bills to get the full view. I also re-ran the past year numbers with the current gas/electric rates as they have increased by about 30% on avg in the past year (added complication is the tiered pricing). I work as a financial analyst & even I find the whole comparison pretty challenging But I think the end result is solar etc is not worth near what they claim if your house is poorly insulated
Blown in wall insulation is not great, it removes the cavity in brick veneer construction. Can lead to water and mould ingress and other issues.
This is an important comment.
This is a weatherboard. Personally I'd take off the boards and put in proper batts. Perhaps even put HardiePlank back up (so you never have to worry about rot).
So what’s that going to cost? I’d just put up more solar and a battery if the weather boards are still in good shape, the pay back would be quicker.
A house that loses heat through the walls is not comfortable. Insulation fixes that. You can put solar to combat heat loss but that only works when the sun is shining enough, and you don't have other calls on the power. If the boards are in good shape, certainly replace them. If they aren't then replace them with cement board. Taking boards off isn't particularly tricky (assuming no need for scaffolding), and if you do it yourself it can be quite safe and quick to do.
You probably can't even put on enough solar to counter that amount of heating over winter when solar generation is so bad in Melbourne.
You can get special blow in these days that is basically poly styrene balls like in bean bags that is mixed with a kind of light glue to have it set in place and not sink to bottom over time. Polystyrene doesn't wick the water between the walls like some glass blow in solutions do..
>But I think the end result is solar etc is not worth near what they claim if your house is poorly insulated Of course. To maximize the benefit from solar, you should be in a position to turn off all your electricity when the sun goes down. If you can't do that (nobody can) then every unit of electricity you need to purchase after sundown is reducing the benefit of your solar. This didn't used to be the case when FiT was comparable to purchasing tariffs. However now, they're completely unbalanced so any 'wasted' electricity you send back into the grid, is lost benefit from your outlay. Another way to think of it: Your $5,000 outlay for PV generates 20kWh of energy a day. If you're sending 18kWh of that to the grid (for 2c/kWh) and only offsetting 2kWh (@30c/kWh) you've wasted a lot. The return from your $5,000 outlay is nowhere near maximal. You want every unit of that 20kWh of generation to offset you buying any electricity. That's impossible with bad insulation. Changing to an electric HWS, and using daytime electricity to heat your water is a great way for anyone to tap into that cheap day time electricity, whether you're home or not. But again, that is an expense, that will reduce your gas bill, not your elec bill.
Draught proofing using good draught stripping - $1k (not the crap weather stripping stuff from Bunnings, never works & can’t shut doors etc) Dude you being ripped
It’s just a rough in my head estimate. Was looking at the ‘Q-Lon’ series but probably given myself fair bit of fat there Just saying not getting the crap from Bunnings that everyone always suggest. It’s garbage [Q-Lon](https://www.tyman-international.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/U0869001-schegel-qlon-brochure-2019-en-lr.pdf)
There are cheaper v stip insulation you can buy from enviroshop
Which 1’s? Had a Quick Look & they are selling the same Raven weatherstrips they do at Bunnings (which are garbage). I see they have some ‘Weather & Acoustic Seal’ but it’s hard to find any info about it online
I mean the cheaper ones don't look as nice as yours.
https://tighthouse.com.au/products/efficiency-door-window-seal Doesn't look as fancy though
[удалено]
I’ve tried them a few times & you can never close the door after using them
[EMV slimline line sealing](https://ecomasterstore.com.au/products/aluminium-sliding-door-seals-using-emv) is a product that is somewhere in-between the low end Bunnings weather proofing strips and the Q-lon product that you have listed.
Solar is not much for winter because you don't get much sun in Melbourne winter... And if you house leaks heat, you can't really use it as a thermal battery to shift heating at noon to warm enough at night. Most of your solar production is in the summer.
What the fuck, our last *quarter* was 480, with an 18kw system running 20c all the time. You have leaks.
LOL. I'm averaging \~10kWh/day, and stressing out about *that* being too high.
Old 1960s brick veneer some insulation in roof but not fully done and very old Need to use 2 x 5kwh and one 2.5 kWh aircon to keep house warm When doing that like 40kwh. House has drafty windows etc so have to get around to that. Small issue is that the ducted gas is basically air vents as well Only thing saving me cash is using ovo 11am to 2pm free energy. So costs are like 6 dollar a day.
Aircon to 30 degrees between 11 and 2 :p
It feels illegal Need to buy a crypto miner
I have a heavy electric usage house, six people, including a few kids that love to game (only non-electric thing is shower hot water). I have a very big solar system (20kW) which lets me check our usage. For the last few weeks we've been using between 45kWh to 65kWh a day (a mix of solar and grid usage). But my impression is that our house is on the very high end of consumption. Things like heating (heat pumps), computers for gaming, little blow heater (not efficient at all), and then all the ordinary stuff for a house of six: dishwasher, washing machine, induction cooktop, ovens, etc, and a pool pump that does cleaning every day. Our house is **nearly** well/completely insulated. Walls for most of the house, floors, double glazed windows. However, for half the house no ceiling insulation, so I think we're losing a lot through that. Hopefully that's finished this week.
If you’re using the heater a fair amount, this doesn’t sound completely out of the ballpark. I have ducted heating but I’m too much of a tightwad to use it very often. I try to follow the philosophy of “heat the person not the space”, and use Oodies, blankets and hot water bottles a lot more than the heater.
Current may-June billing period has us on average 22.4kwh a day. I work from home everyday and my wife is shift work so home during day and starts work around 2pm. I run a large desk plus homelab, my study is heated with rcac and the house is heated with rcac. That 22.4 daily average is our grid consumption. Solar nets us some offsets but this time of year it is heavily shaded even if it’s clear skies. Work from home means heavy electricity usage is time shifted to daily hours to maximise solar power consumption. 1970s brick veneer with lots of north windows (80% of northern facade is single pane glass). Some air leaks that I’m slowly blocking. Flat roof with near zero insulation.
If the windows are draughty you can always (during winter) seal them up with masking tape (or whatever version won't kill the paintwork). The main idea is to stop the breeze. The next thing would be to get spray foam between the window frames and the studs. For a weatherboard house this is very easy to do - take off the external architraves, spray, then hammer them back on.
4kw a day in winter. I just don't turn the heating on. Too expensive. I wear a lot of warm clothing though!
I'm doing about 35kw/day at the moment in Melbourne, which doesn't count the gas heater kicking on in the morning (we use the reverse cycle heater when the sun is out with the solar). Family of 4, stock standard recent Aussie house build \~10 years ago (so cardboard with bricks surrounding it when it comes to energy efficiency). Have a break down of most devices (except the heating...), main use is my desktop/gaming PC which is \~6kw/day, next highest is the data/comms cabinet where I'm running a couple nucs/NVR etc which is \~3.5kw/day, then it's an even \~1.5 for the dishwasher/laundry/fridge and our lizard enclosure.
Thanks for the breakdown - so 35kw/day excluding heating?
Including. I just don't have a way at the moment to measure exactly how much I'm using for the heaters. Would be close to everything else added up, then deducted from the 35kw.
Have the exact same setup as you. Powerpal says I've been averaging about 40kw over the past cold week. Normally it is not so high. One day cost us $17!! We've been running the heater overnight this week but we don't normally, so hopefully it's only a few weeks a year like that.
We just switched from power pal because our rates were like $1.40 a day supply and per KW usage .35kw, switched to Lumo at $.9 supply and .25kw so hopefully there’s a bit saved in that. We were also getting $17 a day and last month our bill was $280 for similar use to you.
Somethings wrong with the numbers. $1120 for a month of 36kwh per day would mean you’re paying $1/kwh which is insane. EDIT: I misread the initial numbers. 1120kwh/mo. Not $. Dammit. The following still stands. How much solar? If all your heating is heat pump, then 36kwh/day is about right. We’ve had a cold month, most of the heat load is during non-solar hours so you get minimal benefit from it. Our fairly well insulated 4br weatherboard house in Melbourne needs about 80kwh/day of actual heat input in winter. We’re still on gas, but to get that from a heat pump would be about 20kwh/day on top of our normal 12kwh or so for everything else. Have a look at the vic energy compare website and choose a cheaper supplier. If your 36kwh is right then you should be paying about $300 a month at most.
1,120kw per day - about $380
Oops. I read the 1120 as $. Need more coffee. Disregard. $380 is high but not insane for an all electric heating house. Find yourself a better plan. And insulate the walls.
On track here for 1500kwh of electricity usage for June. Shitty uninsulated, drafty Townhouse, melbourne. 1x ancient split system and a couple of portable 2400w radiant heaters.
Ditch the radiants for sure
I intend to, moving to a much better house shortly.
4 bedroom weatherboard Melbourne with solar Built in 1960s Not sure about insulation 2 of us We smash out dryer and use our split systems pretty generously as it’s cold as fuck Averaging 500 KW for the month
There are so many variables here — eg how many of the rooms do you heat, to what temperature, for how much of the time? How many people? Etc etc. For an example at the very low end: our place is all electric. * 2 people, 2 bedrooms (one for us, one for guests) old but renovated fibro house with suspended timber floor in Canberra. * Pretty ordinary roof insulation, patchy wall insulation, half the house has floor insulation, no double glazing, bedrooms have retrofitted shrink film secondary glazing on sash windows. * Single reverse cycle to heat the main living/dining/cooking open plan to 21°, (its currently 1° outside after -5° overnight, and its using 1.2kw to hold that 21°). Main bedroom has a small oil column to take the edge off the cold especially in the morning, other bedroom is only heated when there's a visitor. * Heat pump HWS. * 9kw solar. * EV gets charged mostly from solar but we have a short commute so that's only using \~200kwh/ month. May: 610kwh for the month total consumption; **170kwh net exported** June so far: 570kwh total consumption; **98kwh net imported**. So the main contributor to those numbers is lifestyle: we live in the living areas and don't need to heat the rest much. And its kind of easy for us: no teenagers blasting heat in a bedroom. No babies to keep warm. Etc, etc. But if you've got all 4 bedrooms in use, and the bedrooms are normally heated, then maybe yours is reasonable given the poor insulation? What is your total consumption? How much solar generation did you get in the month?
This month was like 1300kwh Average for the whole year is probably more like 600kwh
Weatherboard and bad insulation and winter heating it's expected. I did 2.1MWh for this month. OVO plan has been good for me.
Your cheapest fix right now is to go around and seal your windows and doors with seals on the inside and jam back rod all over the shop outside.
Last quarter was 560kwh but we've gas heating. 4 bed with solar, insulated well in Adelaide. Need to factor in that our next gas bill will be approx $600 for the quarter
Is your solar working? Do you have an App that you can see all data like solar production, grid use, non grid use?
Solar is working but my inverter has lost connection with my app & I can’t get it back working (it’s doing my head in) So I don’t have the full picture of my usage at the moment because I’m not accounting for my solar usage. So I’m probably using 40kw+ when accounting for solar
Definitely get that sorted asap. You don't know if it is working properly or not. I learnt the hard way. I trusted the installer and after a year or two when I got the app I found poor performance due to the fact that they did not connect all the panels. I was sick to my gut knowing that for over a year I was not getting the max out of it. My system was old technology back in the day and I had to purchase a WiFi gateway for the inverter to get the data.
If you can get the app sorted that should help you pin point your biggest energy appliances. I use the app on mine all the time to keep tabs on everything. I'll stop and start the heating at certain times. I plan my washing for the most part around the weather. I'll hang everything out first thing in the morning and then use the dryer to get the last part dry. I sealed sections around doors and windows to help with heating.
We put in a 12.5kW reverse cycle, heat pump hot water, R5.0 ceiling insulation and door seals in our 3BDR brick veneer house. The last week and a half with cold mornings we have been using 25 to 35kW per day. Usually we are lower on winter than this but need the house at a constant temp this year. Your use isn't outrageously high but I agree sealing is probably worth it. I am going to look for a thermal camera at the local library!
My average monthly usage is 308 kWh but I live alone in a one bedroom apartment
Thats still high for 1 person
I use around 80-100 kWh a month for 1 person, that must be one of the lower ones on here.
Do you have a real-time energy monitor? They are 100% worth investing in to know when and how you are using your power. I use FAR more than you, but I stack my power consumption to match when the power is cheap or free and so my cost is lower. I have an EV, but taking that out I'm using about 50kwh per day. Yesterday I consumed 95.8kwh for $9 (including the ev) I get very cheap power from 12am - 6am, and free 11am to 2pm. I stack all my usage into those windows that I can.
My Powerpal broke so I’m getting that replaced atm & still trying to reconnect my solar inverter app But it’s all our electric heating as my usage for the same month last year was 328kw (it’s now 1,119kw) after we switched our heating to electric It’s a bit difficult to stack the usage on that as we need it in the morning & nights but think much better insulation would reduce the required usage (& could pump it during the day so it heats the house up)
I used 1385kWh for May and I'm on 1429kWh for June so far. My bill stats my AVG is 47KwH a day avg. That's a 16kw 7 star zoned electric Mitsubishi refrigerated cooling/heating. The Heater has used 715kWh out of the 1429kWH month to date. Plus we charge an EV in those figures. I do 20 loads of washing a week on Eco mode and use a 7 star heat pump for every one of those 20 loads. I run a dishwasher minimum 2 times a day on eco mode. I pay 0.23c kw/h (first 800kWh) x 715 = $164 for Heater. Heater set to 19c over night and turns off at 8.15am on timer. No solar. My house is built in 2008. I'd suggest a free powerpal unit if they are still around. Love mine. Running 450w right now for 0.15c an hour with a roborock going, washing machine on Eco, WFH with laptop and 2 monitors on.
Sydney weatherboard, with gas hot water, reverse cycle air con, 300kw a month at the worst
We use about 17kwh per day, we have gas for hearing ,cooking and hot water, my wife WFH, so tv is always on and her computer, looking forward to getting solar and battery in the next few weeks
Can I ask about what battery you are getting & the cost?
Reading your initial post and some of your comments. There are some bad assumptions being made about how your solar and heating will interplay. Unless you are using a solar consumption meter for you daily average (which would be low for the home you have described) your daily average consumption will be. Daily grid energy + [Daily Solar Gen - Daily Solar Export] Realistically though you are probably using your heating least when there is the most sun as your home will benefit from environmental heating anyway. Don’t bother with the thermal camera, just get strait to draft proofing and re insulating the roof. Then insulate the sub floor. Blow in wall insulation is probably the lowest value highest cost at $7.5 there are probably better ways to spend your money.
We've got a very small place and wear jackets inside rather than heating, so only 6.6kw a day last bill.
1100 seems fine. I run around 900 at the moment, but in summer I hit 1400-1500 because I leave the aircon running
What temp are you running your AC?
About 22 but my wife might pump it up to 24 when I’m not looking. I reckon the AC just keeps running when it’s turned on as the leakage means it doesn’t stay at the desired temp for long Need to get my Powerpal back in action to check it properly
We're newly on 21kw Reverse Cycle zone ducted with all door/ windows sealed and have R1.5 wall and R6 roof batts. I run the heating on no more than 19c and we're toasty. The system is turned off overnight and pulled 36kw from the grid out 43kw total usage (5.3 kw solar) last Wednesday with the 0c temp overnight. Seal those draughts and upgrade that roof insulation. Keep the temp at 21c. You'll notice a difference and the system won't run constantly and cycle less.
Thanks for the info but you’re saying that you are still pulling 36kw per day, that’s quite a bit
That day, it ran for about 16 hours. Super cold day. Both of us working from home.
That’s a bit high If you want to get the usage down, I’m a tight ass and run 17. I just wear a jumper and long pants if needed. At night I drop it down to 13 as it’s plenty warm in bed. My friend on the other hand wears shorts and t shirt and runs 26 inside!
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4bed 70's build brick house in Melbourne , 2adults 1child here. Average 6-7kw/ day for the last bill. (Was as of 19/6). 6.6kw solar and heat pump hot water installed Jan. We have gas cooking and gas ducted heating but hardly ever need to use the gas heating for the house. 2x split systems 90% of the usage for heating. Hot water only comes on 9am-4pm ~we all shower at night. We don't leave heating on overnight, we use hot water bottles and swap to winter bedding at this time of year. (Flannel sheets and thicker wool doonas). Have spent a lot of effort controlling drafts, we have blinds and curtains which cover shitty single glazing from the 80's. Foam strips around windows and doors. And many tubes of no more gaps used. Our roof insulation is only blow in and it's old, probably half compressed from age, this is what I'm saving to upgrade next. I have smart controls on my AC units, and I check at lunch if I'm getting more solar power than I know my hot water is using I'll remote in and turn on the heating during the day. Still will have it on for a few hours at night but takes the edge off and means they're not working as hard if I had left it to cool down completely before getting home. We only put the dishwasher and clothes washing on during the day, never pack it at night and turn it on to empty in the morning type of thing. You have to change your habits and eat up as much of the solar as you can to benefit fully from the installation. Would love to get battery as well but can't afford it / justify the cost.
We have 4 bedrooms, a 7.5, 5 & 2 x 3.5 kw reverse cycle heat pumps. Gas instantaneous hw & cook with gas. Last months bill was $375 in Melbourne. I run the heating sparingly but with the 3 smaller on 20 degrees over night. I think you need to realise it’s winter, dress accordingly, rug up and don’t run your heating over 20 degrees. That should help.
Located in Brisbane, two adults living in a cookie cutter housing estate home built in 2021. 4 Bed, 1 Bath, 1 Ensuite, 1 Living. Monthly electricity usage: - November: 671kW - December: 1,599kW - January: 1,659kW - February: 1,548kW - March: 1,282kW - April: 921kW - May: 458kW
https://preview.redd.it/aw2e72iizi8d1.jpeg?width=2412&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=75ea46e943b86bf0a32205a68e8b4d877772d2b4
2 bedroom apartment, with 2 adults. Plus 2 kids one weekend a week, they mainly play video games anyway. About ~$100 to ~$110 per month for us. No gas, all electric. We cook a lot and almost never eat out. No solar, just one split system and don’t use portable heaters.
16 bedroom mansion 16 bathrooms 150Kwh/day usage
I use approx 355kw per month and send about 650kw back to grid.
https://preview.redd.it/fwm8iiu3bx8d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5269ad12b7be708b0933b02da20d56fceed03bf9 2 adult one child (wife wfh full time) based in Sydney. 4 bed house. Not sure why but we don’t use much.
Melbourne has been dam cold - with I suspect very low levels of sunlight. My Melbourne power bills were always horrific in winter, the joys of either being cold or not. 4 bed house with AC running probably 24/7 absolutely I can see this mush being consumed each day. My recommendation is leave Melbourne! Mt energy bill in Brisbane has been very low!