We have one of those at work for loadshedding.
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14 units a day on average, costs us about R1k a month. Four people, 2 adults, 2 kids. Our geyser is solar heated. We also use a gas stove 90% of the time.
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We still use the electric stove - mum is set in her ways, altho my dad got an airfryer and now we are using that almost daily - it makes a huge difference. The 2 plate gas stove we have for loadshedding is in need of repairs, there is something wrong that the gas doesnt reach the stove. In winter we use a gas heater for the most part.
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I probably should’ve added, we use the kettle a lot, and we’ve got a conventional electric oven.
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CHARLIE!!!
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Haha I showed the video to my wife over December. She didn’t know about Charlie at all.
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Edit: too muggy inside
turns on aircon
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FTFY.
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Unfortunately for me, I’m too stubborn and whatnot to open windows due to insects, but also, it is hot and humid outside. Our ground is so wet from all the rain, and my residence is the lowest one here, there is an overflow pipe of sorts that has been draining since the weekend into my garden.
Maybe I should just look into getting a dehumidifier, I’m sure it would only use a fraction of the electricity my aircon’s ‘dry’ setting would use.
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Lemme know what you find. we bought 3 fans as we have the same “humidity wetness” issue in our place, since the bottom area is like all tiles. so there gets to be like a damp sheen on things, and we have had to fight off mold once already. Dehumidifiers are just SO FRIKKING EXPENSIVE, so we got 3 seperate fans and they seem to be doing the job, havent had the mold issue since, as everytime its rainy or hot immediately after being rainy we just switch fans on and point them at the floor…does the job 
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That’s what I was afraid of… How many months of aircon will I have to sacrifice to be able to afford one…
I wish my aircon had a better timer system. It is by the hour… And if the thermostat turns off the outdoor unit, the indoor unit continues to run. I have developed the habit to hit 1 hour on the aircon, and something I even go “ok that’s good” and turn it off. Other times I don’t even notice it go off after an hour, and at some point after that think, “the aircon isn’t working too well”. Then I look up and it is off, so I put in on for another hour. I just wish I could do it in 30 minute intervals.
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We’re quite heavy users. Depending on how hot it is, our “idle” usage is about 2kw per hour. We have 2 inverter aircons running 24/7 so if it is hot, that idle usage goes up to 2.5kw/h and if it is cool, it goes down to about 1.5kw/h. That excludes the geyser since that isn’t running through our solar system so don’t know how much that usage is per day. So our idle usage mentioned above is basically for 2 fridges, a 165" tv, 2 inverter aircons, 2 high-end PCs (and they’re mining) and 4x 32" screens / TVs.
Some fun facts:
- Kettle uses a lot of power. About 2kw/h while on. We’ve replaced our stove top with gas so we boil the kettle on there now, but it takes forever.
- Induction plate uses about 1.5 - 1.8kw/h, but it finishes quicker than conventional stove top.
- Dishwasher uses about 1.5kw/h for 10 minutes, then nothing for a while, then again for 10 minutes and so on.
- Tumble dryer uses over 2kw/h
- Defy 18000btu aircon (non-inverter) uses about 2kw/h
- Samsung 18000btu inverter aircon uses about 2.2kw/h when you just turn it on (if it is hot) and then it can go down to using about 100-200W/h. I think it is probably more economical to just leave it on as it drains a lot of power that first while to try and cool down the room.
- Washing machine is barely noticeable
- Geysers <= 150L uses 3kw/h while heating and Geysers >= 200L uses 5kW/h while heating.
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You posted a lot of valuable info there, thanks!
I’ve always thought this way, but after my last bill… Then again, maybe I should just leave the house for longer periods of time (like work from the office instead of home) so it would be warranted.
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Thread necro
Bear with me here.
I have been, for the most part, successfully living within my budget for prepaid electricity and water for the month. Though this has been a thumbsuck based on past expenditure. I was wondering if there is a way to calculate it more precisely.
e.g.
if R200 prepaid electricity gets me ~75KWh and I use approx. 15KWh per day which should last me 5 days.
If there are 30 days in a month that should be R200 x 6 = R1,200pm on electricity usage.
That’s not taking into account the fact that sometimes I can spend the same ammount but get a different amount of units. It seems the more you spend, the less you get. So it would make more sense to buy a larger initial ammount once off.
Does my logic compute?
#Icantmath
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You actually get the same amount whether you buy in bulk or top up during the month. The first x amount will give you a bit more electricity (cant remember how many units) then after that the price goes up and you pay more for less.
We tend to buy in bulk R1500 per month and then I sneakily top up with at least R300 a month as well since my dad refuses to pay more and cannot understand that when he runs certain things aka aircon for cooling or heating…
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You have a tiered system. lets say for argument sake tier 1 = 400 units. That means the first 400 units you buy cost you say R5 a unit (just example, dont tell me what it costs :P)
tier 2 is then R7 a unit.
The tier resets first of every month… so say you need 400 units a month. so you buy 400 units at start of month (costing R5 a unit). Now its near end of month (say 30th) and you wanna top up. Well if you buy another 400 you gonna be paying R7 for those next 400…rather buy say 40 units (at R7 each) and then at start of month buy the rest when it goes back to R5.
This only applies if you use enough to reach the next tier, which varies between municipalities. But basically if you bought in bulk at start of month, dont be an idiot and buy in bulk near end of month, rahter “top up” and then buy in bulk again at start of new month.
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Thanks ya’ll, that makes sense.
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Been tracking a bit of our usage of late and thought I would share in order to compare to others…
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Are you tracking manually?
Blue is electricity
Red is hot water (my building has a central boiler)
Yellow is average of electricity
PS: Not on prepaid electricity
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Ironically I too have recently started tracking my usage a bit, but it’s basically me taking a photo of the prepaid meter whenever I remember so that I can put it into a chart… at a later stage, which is 3 weeks in and hasn’t happened yet 
It’s interesting to see that you top up with small amounts compared to buying bulk at the beginning of the month. I don’t know which is better.
Are there any good apps to track things for us? I can google it but then it’s about trial and error.
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