Be Excellent To Each Other

Hey all.

Whilst at Lidl the other week (stocking up on their amazing roasted peppers and sliced dills for sangers) I spotted a small toast-r-oven.

Basically it's a small stainless steel oven around the size of a microwave. It has a grill at the top (ours is ruined in the top oven because we had to use it as an oven once when the bottom ones thermostat went) and an oven part in the bottom with an optional fan (for fan asst). It was £30 and I snapped it up and it's been heavily used since.

Now. With it being a quarter of the size of our main oven I would imagine it's cheaper to run. And the only thing it can't really do are roasts. Plus they would likely wreck it.

It has on the front "1350w" which is around 450 more than our microwave. In order to try and work out if it would be cheaper than our oven to run I got out the manual for our leccy oven.

On the back page it states - Power usage 10.9 - 11.3 KW

So that sounds like it uses 10900 - 113000 w

Is that really right? and does that mean that our main oven costs ten times the amount of money to run over this marvellous wee one on the kitchen counter?

Also, is there a way for me to work out how much each costs to run by using the given wattage?

Thanks, I find this all rather confusing.

That's a good example of the 1 in 10 electrical item that will set your house on fire

edit: your main cooker has 4 rings, a grill, and two oven elements, right? So with everything turned on it can draw that much.
The oven alone might consume 2kW or so. Yes, it will cost more to run than that small counter top one, mainly because it's larger and will lose more heat. Maybe twice as much..

What's a mistake? clarify that man !

I need to figure out if I am saving money using this wee one and try and find out how much I can save.

The only way to find out how much energy they are taking is to measure it. Just the power rating doesn't tell you much.

Since you can't plug a meter in between the big oven and the wall, the only easy way of doing this is to turn off everything else in the house, record the meter reading as accurately as possible, run the oven for an hour at 200' and then see how much energy it used. Do the same for the small one.

It'll be of the order of 1 unit per hour for the small one, 1.5-2 for the big one, at a guess. So 12p / 18-24p.

Sorry I thought you said the small oven had that rating, which couldn't be true. See my edit.

Don't worry JC, electric companies don't have a fair usage policy if you run your toaster oven too much.

Toaster ovens are perfect for re-flowing PCBs though.

Build a stainless steel box and attach it to the fan output on your pc. Temperature regulation may be tricky on the more graphically intensive areas of new Vegas though.

Be sure to flash the biscuit

I want to see an alienware case mod on that oven before the week is out.

Because derailing a thread with a load of tripe is being completely excellent to each other.

I hope that T J Watson & Son it's crashed into is a butcher's that specializes in tripe.

What about getting one of those new energy monitors from your supplier? I've seen them advertised on the tv and the in laws have one.

It gives a digital reading that measures how much electricity your using at any one time.

I would like one but I think I'd be scared of how much electricity I'm using.

I wouldn't call it derailing. Kalmar's provided the answer you need, and I don't believe we count among our members anyone with more electrical knowledge. Except perhaps Joans.

Agreed. the question has been answered as well as it can be. Twice.

Good idea. I shall look into that. I just want to know the best way to save money. Especially during the winter with soaring energy costs (mainly down to this inclement weather we are all experiencing right now). Last winter was pretty costly.

Craster. Every time I post a thread I get the same shit. It was funny for a few months yet I don't find it so funny any more.

My PC gaming hardware thread is literally littered with bullshit and attempted derailment of what goes on in there. I understand that some people don't find it interesting and see people who fuck around with PCs all the time as stupid wankers obessed over benchmarks because it has been made clear. I don't, however, act in the same manner.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5409&p=420323&hilit=get+an+m11x#p420323



Is an example. One of which I was fully aware of and you will note the lack of any more postings from me in that thread. See also the recent questions I had about Android. I had no idea about it as I hadn't spent weeks keeping up in a thread that I had no interest in. However, I also didn't go in there to state my opinions and views about what I think and feel about mobile phones and portable devices.

Maybe now people can begin to understand my adverse reaction to the threads posted here about moderation and needing to have moderators. It was mostly because I'm pretty tired of being shit on here yet the views can seem somewhat hypocritial when reversed. I don't get to go around shitting on people's threads so why the fuck do I have to put up with it? Yes I don't take it personally but it's a fucking good thing I don't really isn't it?

Would be very easy for me to feel that the reason I get so much shit thrown at me is because I suffer with a mental illness that can slow me down and fuck up my ability to percieve things. That would be pretty disgusting on a forum where persecution is frowned upon.

Now I'm not saying that that's why people take the piss out of me but I am a human and I do have feelings.

Mr Russell.

I'm just sick and tired of having to pick peanuts out of poo on here.

Did you try flashing the BIOS?

Not sure why my name's been pulled out of the hat, but regardless:

A long while ago it was requested that any thread asking a question be refrained from having the funny injected until the question had at least been answered. If no funny is required then you use the serious pipe Dimlie.

As kalmar had posted the answer about the oven drawing the full wattage when everything was on in one post, and then provided costings (based on 1.5-2x useage) in another post, then I proferred my agreement that the answer had been reached and that it wasn't unreasonable that the funny commence.

Naturally if this is not right then a simple "actually, I'm still after an answer here chaps" is all that's required.

I'd be interested to know if my guess is accurate if you do measure it though John, and apols for the teasing if it was OTT!

By the way those clip on meter things are very handy but might not give you a good answer for this.

I was responding to that. I got a notification before I replied that you'd posted, read it, said that. Wasn't anything nasty toward you mate so apologies if it seemed that way.



Thanks. I can't put one on the oven I don't think as the plug is behind the oven. It's in one of those super duper oven high powered jobbers IIRC.

As stupid as it sounds I might just have to watch the meter. Cook for an hour with the main oven, try it again on a different day with the small one and work out the unit usage

Just trying to save a few quid this winter. Last winter I was wiped out until May paying all the ruddy bills

10900 W to 11300 W.

If you do it that way, just remember to maintain the same conditions each time. If you cook in the main oven when there are other home watching telly or having showers or anything else that uses electricity, you would need to make sure all the same things are running when you try the wee oven. Otherwise you could get a result that is artificially high or low because you're actually seeing the difference of the other items not running.


We pay our heating bill by setting up a monthly amount, let's pretend it's £30. (I have no idea what it actually is) So every month we pay £30 regardless of what we use. In July, we might only use £3 and in December we might use £67 but over the course of the year it evens out. Once a year or so they check our balance and if we are in debit and it doesn't even out, they simply up the monthly payment to £35. If we are in credit, they lower the monthly payment. It is very useful as it allows you to budget and means the winter bills provide no shocks to us. Might be worth looking into it?

We have the same thing, we've lived here about 3 and a half years know and it's a quarter of what we were paying when we first moved in. If you factor in that there are 6 people in my family, the previous lot must have had everything on all the time or something!

Malc

Oh and on a related note, and I'm sure I could find out if i wanted to, does anyone know if it's more cost effecient to have a gas cooker/fire/heating/water or electric? And what about environmental impact?

I've had it in my head that gas is better in both respects, but is that a false assumption?

Malc

Heating / water heating = gas. Electric is more efficient at the point of use but plenty is lost turning the fuel (gas for example) into electricity. So it's cheaper to burn the gas yourself.
Heat pumps narrow the gap. Instead of 80% efficient use of gas, they can be 300% efficient on electricity.
Also you might consider where the electricity comes from - mine is all wind / hydro for example, whereas gas is always gas and it'll only get dearer in future.

For cooking, not so much - I think electric has the edge there both in cost and co2 etc. Or at least similar, so pick whichever you prefer.

Yeah deffo. I've seen Mythbusters a few times hehe.



Our company want big fat lumps of money in advance. If anything is left over they hand it back after the fact. I'm sure that's how it works. So whilst doing that brings the monthly totals down it's still a kick in the nuts when you consider Christmas presents and everything else

I seriously hate^* each and every one of you.

*Love

How come the previous tenants affect your bills?

Wow that sucks. So basically it sounds like the previous tenants didn't pay up and they got you paying it

I'm with Eon if that makes a difference? We did have Scottish something come around trying to con Mum into switching but when I went online it worked out more expensive.

No, no.

The previous lot used X amount of electricty and Y amount of gas, per quarter, so when we moved in, they assumed we would be using the same amount, so the direct debits were at £Z a month, after about 9 months we were in credit by several hundred pounds, so the amount went down, then a few months later it went down again, this repeated several times, and now we obviously use about X/3 units of electric and Y/3 units of gas (guessing as the standing charge stays the same) as our bill is now £Z/4 per month and we are no longer hundreds of pounds in credit (We got a few rebates as well, which is always nice, and has the added bonus of the price not going back up again, when all the credit has "been used up")

I've looked around a few times, and as far as I can see we're on the best package at the moment (it's the one the previous people had, so they must have either been lucky or done their homework) so that was nice too. But I just can't imagine what they used to do. Leave the heating on all the time, with the windows open? Leave lights and TVs on all the time? I mean I know they had grown up kids living with them, but surely that means they would use less stuff than young kids? not more?

Malc

Your new supplier needs an estimate to work from to determine your direct debit, so they may use previous tenants if that information is available. It all comes back (if, as in Malcs case) you use less.

However, I'm surprised Malc got lumped with something unreasonable, whenever I change supplier I always get to choose my starting direct debit amount (go low to start and get the catch up when they do your first reading, then move supplier when you move back into credit FTW)

We had no idea how much it would cost, we went from a terraced house in a city, to a semi detached house twice as big in the country (small town), on top of a hill, that gets quite windy. We just assumed that's what it would cost and went with their initial assumption.

Malc

I generally dislike saying, of an industry, that 'they are bastards like that' but, they are bastards like that. They always highball their estimate unless you give them one yourself, and it is a pain in the arse trying to get them to back down (I once found myself getting rather irate when my credit balance had increased from £50 to £150 over a twelve month period, energy prices had fallen recently and they were still trying to up my direct debit by 20%).

Generally speaking, the only way to prevent them using you as an interest free finance facility is to go with my approach and be very robust on moving as soon as you go back into the black (and also, careful on the time of year you change) but you do have to remember that your direct debits may well increase part way through the year.

Anyway, Gas and Electric are no way near as bad as Thames Water, who think that there are only 8 months in a year. Bastards.

Ohhhhhh I see.

I find it really hard to believe that these companies all seem to want the money up front.

Well, now I'm settled it's fine, I pay a fixed amount per month throught the year, making it easier to budget, rather than it being cheaper some months and more expensive other months.

Malc

Npower overestimated our use massively, so much so that despite using 120 quid worth of gas this last quarter, we were still in credit.