I'm going to start a daily thread about our electric consumption from Monday to Sunday.
A little about ourselves, we currently live full time in a Coachman Pastiche 575 and will be for the next 14 weeks, hopefully the delayed new build house will be finally finished as its around 4 months behind first predictions. We arrived on site from another site with inclusive electricity yesterday morning.
Michelle and I (Darren) accelerated our retirement plan to move from industrial West Yorkshire to Cornwall after Michelle was made redundant from her role, I as a lorry driver given todays demand thought I'd jump on a job at a time best suited after we arrived and settled in.
So that was the plan, sell up and ship out for a lifestyle of outdoor activities and a better work life balance, and as far as it has gone, house build to one side, every single box has been ticked. Michelle has the same role here in Cornwall as she had "Up Country" as we have learnt to say from the locals, and I landed a driving job with sensible working hours within 3 days of arrival.
Financially the wife is earning the same money for alot less hours, whereas I'm 10% down on the money front, but on the working hours at least on average 30% less than before, so both of us are very happy with our workplace choices.
We chose the house which is a small semi rather than a detached we left behind because we can buy it mortgage free and as its new its massively insulated with the latest in gas central heating, and having a first hand account from a person I've met who lives in the same style house energy bills are low, which brings me back to our caravan life and being on a metered pitch, the energy bills could sky rocket, in all our lives we have never worried about bills, but given the lack of insulation in the caravan heating on any fuel is going to be expensive at this time of year so my frugal head is very definitely switched on!
Alde 3020 heating,
I've watched the panel as probably many of us have, in my case for hours, did anyone know that the system carries on heating the glycol once the room temperature had been achieved?
I didnt.
So because the heating flips on and off we have the water heating turned off. I can report that at Night Mode temperature of 11 degrees currently the water tank is at 42 degrees. Night mode is 10 pm until 6 am.
In our caravan with its end bathroom, fixed transverse bed, flimsy curtain thing, then kitchen area finally the lounge bit, the joke for us for the almost 6 year's of owning the van was the flimsy curtain thing which is now actually coming into its own and helping to save electricity!
Yesterday for example in the late afternoon whilst Michelle was at work I'd finished setting up the caravan and sorting out my car so I'm sat in the lounge fretting over the predicted heating costs based upon an hour of Alde use, eureka moment, close the curtain and use the thermostatically controlled electric fan to heat up the front bit of the caravan, a few minutes later I was lovely and warm a huge success on reducing the leccy spend.
The fridge is no longer on maximum its on the third setting or middle ish which seems exactly the same as before, its hard to tell, my bottle of cider didn't seem any warmer last night which was the new settings ultimate test, Cornish cider too!
We both own Dry Robes, its an item of clothing popular with beach folk, a very thick durable baggy coat, designed to change into swim wear on the beach and to act like a waterproof floor mat to sit on. I have one because I've taken up sea swimming, managing 25 minutes in winter sea temperatures, been going every Sunday for the last 6 weeks, anyway I digress, as part of frugality we are for the first time using the site facilities for showers the dry robe being "Ideal" another Cornish localism, for the trek to and from.
At the moment I'm writing this sat in the lounge at 6am under an electric fleece, which uses on high setting an ish of 0.7 amps an hour which is my last way of saving heating money, normally Alde would be providing the heat.
I bought it a couple of years back as a way of being warm in the awning without the Alde heating turning itself off in the caravan, little did I know its future importance.
Because we are on a meter we did ask if we could bring our tumble dryer which we did. Yesterday was wash day, 2 loads in the onsite laundry(£3 a go for a proper laundrette style washer a good deal) and 2 loads in the awning full size tumble dryer.
The last savings idea is when we leave the caravan unoccupied for work or leisure pursuits. The caravans fuse board has 3 Mcb's, Fridge charger, Sockets, Boiler, the later 2 will be switched off. Now when we arrive back at the van its going to be clock cold with no hot water, so a combination of cooking, fan heater and combined gas and electric on Alde as the Alde manual states a more rapid heat up not only on dual use, a bit obvious, but the gas burner increases efficiency, which lends the idea of gas price's with our little 6kg bottle lasting around 6 weeks, well it did, but a bench mark for costing.
So with 3 hours 21 minutes to go before our first 24 hours I'm excitedly waiting to see the cost, even tho for other people to compare because of the tumble dryer it won't be totally comparable. Our normal couldn't care less what electric we use as long as the bollard doesn't trip was predicted to be around plus £70 a week very easily indeed. Alde pre metered pitch was on 24/7 even when we left the caravan, Night temperature was not that less than day time, and as I'm an early riser 17 hours a day the temp setting would be 21 degrees!
Even on day one its clear to me if I owned a site, almost did once, metered electric would very definitely reduce clients consumption, it has us and our disposable income is very healthy indeed so perhaps as the cost of a kwh increases it may become common place on UK caravan sites, especially those that operate in the colder months.
Having said that we are on a reduced rate from other sites we have used with inclusive fees, my goal is to not spend more than £31 a week on energy, as that and pitch fee puts us around the same cost as other sites within the area, which incidentally we couldn't use as they don't have a residential license.
As we are here for 14 weeks savings of X Kwh's a day will be multiplied 98 times, so could run into hundreds of pounds by the time we leave, a concentrating factor for this tight Yorkshireman to dwell on.
Darren.
A little about ourselves, we currently live full time in a Coachman Pastiche 575 and will be for the next 14 weeks, hopefully the delayed new build house will be finally finished as its around 4 months behind first predictions. We arrived on site from another site with inclusive electricity yesterday morning.
Michelle and I (Darren) accelerated our retirement plan to move from industrial West Yorkshire to Cornwall after Michelle was made redundant from her role, I as a lorry driver given todays demand thought I'd jump on a job at a time best suited after we arrived and settled in.
So that was the plan, sell up and ship out for a lifestyle of outdoor activities and a better work life balance, and as far as it has gone, house build to one side, every single box has been ticked. Michelle has the same role here in Cornwall as she had "Up Country" as we have learnt to say from the locals, and I landed a driving job with sensible working hours within 3 days of arrival.
Financially the wife is earning the same money for alot less hours, whereas I'm 10% down on the money front, but on the working hours at least on average 30% less than before, so both of us are very happy with our workplace choices.
We chose the house which is a small semi rather than a detached we left behind because we can buy it mortgage free and as its new its massively insulated with the latest in gas central heating, and having a first hand account from a person I've met who lives in the same style house energy bills are low, which brings me back to our caravan life and being on a metered pitch, the energy bills could sky rocket, in all our lives we have never worried about bills, but given the lack of insulation in the caravan heating on any fuel is going to be expensive at this time of year so my frugal head is very definitely switched on!
Alde 3020 heating,
I've watched the panel as probably many of us have, in my case for hours, did anyone know that the system carries on heating the glycol once the room temperature had been achieved?
I didnt.
So because the heating flips on and off we have the water heating turned off. I can report that at Night Mode temperature of 11 degrees currently the water tank is at 42 degrees. Night mode is 10 pm until 6 am.
In our caravan with its end bathroom, fixed transverse bed, flimsy curtain thing, then kitchen area finally the lounge bit, the joke for us for the almost 6 year's of owning the van was the flimsy curtain thing which is now actually coming into its own and helping to save electricity!
Yesterday for example in the late afternoon whilst Michelle was at work I'd finished setting up the caravan and sorting out my car so I'm sat in the lounge fretting over the predicted heating costs based upon an hour of Alde use, eureka moment, close the curtain and use the thermostatically controlled electric fan to heat up the front bit of the caravan, a few minutes later I was lovely and warm a huge success on reducing the leccy spend.
The fridge is no longer on maximum its on the third setting or middle ish which seems exactly the same as before, its hard to tell, my bottle of cider didn't seem any warmer last night which was the new settings ultimate test, Cornish cider too!
We both own Dry Robes, its an item of clothing popular with beach folk, a very thick durable baggy coat, designed to change into swim wear on the beach and to act like a waterproof floor mat to sit on. I have one because I've taken up sea swimming, managing 25 minutes in winter sea temperatures, been going every Sunday for the last 6 weeks, anyway I digress, as part of frugality we are for the first time using the site facilities for showers the dry robe being "Ideal" another Cornish localism, for the trek to and from.
At the moment I'm writing this sat in the lounge at 6am under an electric fleece, which uses on high setting an ish of 0.7 amps an hour which is my last way of saving heating money, normally Alde would be providing the heat.
I bought it a couple of years back as a way of being warm in the awning without the Alde heating turning itself off in the caravan, little did I know its future importance.
Because we are on a meter we did ask if we could bring our tumble dryer which we did. Yesterday was wash day, 2 loads in the onsite laundry(£3 a go for a proper laundrette style washer a good deal) and 2 loads in the awning full size tumble dryer.
The last savings idea is when we leave the caravan unoccupied for work or leisure pursuits. The caravans fuse board has 3 Mcb's, Fridge charger, Sockets, Boiler, the later 2 will be switched off. Now when we arrive back at the van its going to be clock cold with no hot water, so a combination of cooking, fan heater and combined gas and electric on Alde as the Alde manual states a more rapid heat up not only on dual use, a bit obvious, but the gas burner increases efficiency, which lends the idea of gas price's with our little 6kg bottle lasting around 6 weeks, well it did, but a bench mark for costing.
So with 3 hours 21 minutes to go before our first 24 hours I'm excitedly waiting to see the cost, even tho for other people to compare because of the tumble dryer it won't be totally comparable. Our normal couldn't care less what electric we use as long as the bollard doesn't trip was predicted to be around plus £70 a week very easily indeed. Alde pre metered pitch was on 24/7 even when we left the caravan, Night temperature was not that less than day time, and as I'm an early riser 17 hours a day the temp setting would be 21 degrees!
Even on day one its clear to me if I owned a site, almost did once, metered electric would very definitely reduce clients consumption, it has us and our disposable income is very healthy indeed so perhaps as the cost of a kwh increases it may become common place on UK caravan sites, especially those that operate in the colder months.
Having said that we are on a reduced rate from other sites we have used with inclusive fees, my goal is to not spend more than £31 a week on energy, as that and pitch fee puts us around the same cost as other sites within the area, which incidentally we couldn't use as they don't have a residential license.
As we are here for 14 weeks savings of X Kwh's a day will be multiplied 98 times, so could run into hundreds of pounds by the time we leave, a concentrating factor for this tight Yorkshireman to dwell on.
Darren.
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