Chiclanagir

After having some horrendous electric bills we think our oven may be contributing to them, so my question is any recommendations for an energy efficient oven if there is such a thing?

olivefarmer

We have a couple of bottled gas cookers. Cheap to run. Cheap to buy

Downsides? Ovens don't have a thermostat so temp ranges from infierno to very hot. Hard to bake cakes and make meringues. Someone will come along and say you can buy gas cookers with an oven thermostat. Maybe, we have never seen one.

It is great having five burners but the "big" one in the middle doesn't get much use. Even the smallest one on lowest setting is a bit too hot for simmering. If you are replacing a 60 cm by 60 cm oven and hob you can buy bottle gas cookers that size. the bottle is stored outside of the cooker.

Gas is great by the way if you live somewhere where the electric goes off regularly!

Lynn R

We have a 60cm gas cooker too, we have it against an outside wall at the end of a run of units, and my OH installed a pipe to run the gas through from the gas bottle which is in the utility room on the other side of the wall.

Our electricity bills seem much lower than most people's, and I'm sure the gas cooker is the main reason for that. We use only about 1 gas bottle for 6 months' cooking.

Fred James

No, they are pretty much the same. It takes the same amount of electrical energy to heat up one oven as another.

Some may have better thermostats and a fan oven is marginally more efficient as it cooks at a slightly lower temperature.

Gas as an energy source is pretty much the same as electricity and the ovens and hobs are far less controllable.

Induction hobs may use less as they only heat the pan and contents, not the glass worktop and these small halogen ovens are going to be more efficient as there is less wasted energy.

Microwaves are good as again they heat the food not the surrounding metal.

That said, unless you do a lot of cooking it probably isn't too significant as you use it for short periods. You may find your fridge/freezer uses more power in a day than your cooker.

caroline c

It could be your well pump that is running 24/7 if your bills have suddenly become so high, this is usually the case. Give Graeme a call and he can check it for you.

pete_l

It depends what appliances you have and how much you use them.
The most expensive to run will be electric heating (room heating, water heating incl. electric showers, cooking - but cookers aren't usually on for as long as heaters, and during the winter the heat they push out reduces the need for a heater to some extent.
Next up would be air conditioning - most american households use more electricity in the summer keeping cool than in the winter keeping warm. Things like lights, kettles, TVs, computers don't use much at all.
So you'd have to have a view on what appliances you're using before you spend money changing your oven.

I reckon the average household in Spain can easily get through €1200 of electricity a year (which is 3 times more than my bills in the UK), so "horrendous" is a relative term

angiescarr

I agree that the oven without a thermostat can be a real pain. We rarely use it because of that and have a small electric oven as well. But gas hob cooking seems cheap. Our bottle lasts forever (it seems)!

Chiclanagir

Interesting......no air conditioning but do have a pool. Neighbour has a pool too and three beds and no air conditioning and his bill was half of ours. Don´t think there is anything wrong with the pump Caroline as there is no noise of it running 24/7. But when we put the oven on yesterday the meter was running around like nobody´s business. Also the seal has gone so I would have thought that would make a difference. Both the fridge freezer and the oven are 9yrs old so possibly not working efficiently. Have checked for leaks too but can find nothing but our son when staying did have the oven on a lot.

Lynn R

We changed our water heater recently as our bills had gone up quite a bit since we had a smart meter installed, and it was more than 10 years old. Our usage seems to have gone down a bit since we got the new heater, but only by about 40kwh per month.

jimenato

We started getting horrendous electric and water bills last winter and I started reading the metres every day and entering the figures on a spreadsheet. You soon start to build up a picture of what's happening.

The first and obvious thing to do is to check your readings with those on the bill - we found a huge error that way.

We also found that we used loads of water when we were in the UK for a month - which led us to a leak.

Chiclanagir

That is a good idea but wouldn´t have a clue how to do it.

Lynn R

For a couple of months when we were scrutinising our use very carefully we took the meter readings every day, but I just wrote them down on a piece of paper, the less high tech option!

jjh

Hello

When our pump was working 24/7 we couldn´t hear anything but the water coming from the hose was getting warmer all the time. It could be there´s a leak somewhere. Graeme can tell you if that´s the cause.

Also, when we refurbished our kitchen, about 6 years ago (old house) we bought an Edesa Efficient oven from the factory shop near Banca March, opposit McDonalds. It´s a really good fan oven. xx

agoreira

According to this, those with low useage "could" see their bills going up 50%.

Fred James

There have been a number of such claims about changes to the way they will charge for electricity.

One suggested a 77% increase in the monthly charge and a reduction of 23% on the unit charge. That would in most cases balance out but there has been another report that suggests that the monthly charge will increase by 36% and the unit charge will decrease by 40%.

That would result in a saving in most cases which I find hard to believe.

Reported here http://www.diariosur.es/20130731/loc...307310058.html

We will have to wait and see what actually happens.