Habeck claims anyone could quite easily use 10% less energy

[keith2011 2,648]

45 minutes ago, toBnruG said:

I installed a digital / programmable wall thermostat in every room this Autumn to prepare for an energy saving Winter. We have underfloor heating throughout our apartment.

They run off the AC mains supply of our existing heating system and so they do not require batteries (they just include some capacitor or other to provide power during outages so that the clock doesn't get reset every time the power goes out for a few seconds). Can't yet speak to reliability but they should be extremely reliable since the electronics inside is very basic.

T

Just for clarification I was referring to  the battery operated digital radiator thermostats, they replace the thermo-mechanical ones which do not require power so no mains connection is usually available.

[jeba 4,364]

2 hours ago, Gambatte said:

 

Why such a very huge spread?

BTW, for a 1997 180qm house 10000 kWh/yr seems very little. Our house is 2019 117qm and consumes for heating ca 9600 kWh/yr gas.

Because some winters have been colder than others. Plus in the first year there might still have been some moisture in the walls and floors which needed to be evaporated (probably not much though as it was build with Ytong).

[jeba 4,364]

2 hours ago, Krieg said:

 

He does not live in Germany, whatever jeba says is irrelevant to us.

These numbers are from my house in Germany, of course.

[Gambatte 928]

22 minutes ago, jeba said:

These numbers are from my house in Germany, of course.

Fine.

 

25 minutes ago, jeba said:

Because some winters have been colder than others.

Yes some years are colder than others. But the spread, 10-15 is very huge, hard to see it caused by year-to-year fluctuations.

Could it be you didn't record gas consumption accurately? Most people I know don't (in fact, none of the people I know bother to track it properly) 

 

Is this German house (almost) constantly occupied? 

If it is, I still don't get the surprisingly low consumption: 1997 180qm don't match 10MWh/yr (in fact, not even 15MWh/yr I would say). Again: our 2019 117qm is 9600 kWh/yr with 19C indoor.

[Fietsrad 413]

German people are oftentimes very thorough, they keep all their energy bills and analyse them with spreadsheets.😉

 

Any such people on TT?

[jeba 4,364]

1 hour ago, Gambatte said:

Fine.

 

Yes some years are colder than others. But the spread, 10-15 is very huge, hard to see it caused by year-to-year fluctuations.

Could it be you didn't record gas consumption accurately? Most people I know don't (in fact, none of the people I know bother to track it properly) 

 

Is this German house (almost) constantly occupied? 

If it is, I still don't get the surprisingly low consumption: 1997 180qm don't match 10MWh/yr (in fact, not even 15MWh/yr I would say). Again: our 2019 117qm is 9600 kWh/yr with 19C indoor.

It was built in 1997, so it wasn´t heated until April. Also, some years it was only partly occupied in winter. So the lower numbers aren´t too meaningful. But the upper limit was never exceeded, even if fully occupied all year.

[jeba 4,364]

21 minutes ago, Fietsrad said:

German people are oftentimes very thorough, they keep all their energy bills and analyse them with spreadsheets.😉

 

Any such people on TT?

Except for analysing them (by spreadsheet or otherwise) I´m one of them. I still have my bank statements from more than 40 years ago.

[toBnruG 1,152]

2 hours ago, keith2011 said:

Just for clarification I was referring to  the battery operated digital radiator thermostats, they replace the thermo-mechanical ones which do not require power so no mains connection is usually available.

Okay. I think silty1 was talking about under-floor heating so I assumed they were asking about on-the-wall room thermostats.

By the way, I got the cheapest units possible with the minimum functionality I needed so they cost a little under €30 per pop. You can spend a hell of a lot more than this, so I don't consider this a money-saving measure so much as an energy saving measure. I would have liked to install something which was centrally controllable but I only found (reasonably priced) products which communicated with radiator body thermostats, nothing for the wall units.

[Gambatte 928]

34 minutes ago, jeba said:

some years it was only partly occupied in winter. 

Alles klar.

[Gambatte 928]

25 minutes ago, jeba said:

Except for analysing them (by spreadsheet or otherwise) I´m one of them. I still have my bank statements from more than 40 years ago.

 

Ouch, this beats me.

I thought I was the weirdest, but apparently no. Not sure this is a reason to cheer or to despair.

 

I still have all my bills of the last 22yr ago. Never mind I moved country 3 times and address maybe 10 times. And some of those bills are in a language I have never understood.

[Fietsrad 413]

Even identical homes could have very different energy bills/use.

 

Say, if all occupants work and take long holidays (in winter!) or if someone is mostly at home caring for children or elderly relatives. Some people like their home to be cosy warm and do not even like putting on more clothes. Some people have hobbies that use a lot of energy: carpentry, aquarium etc usw. Charging an €bike😠

 

 

Add cold or mild winters: the annual energy use of "identical" dwellings could be very far from identical

[snowingagain 5,359]

Our house is well insulated and on 3 levels (plus Keller).  Only using the radiator in the living room  (to about 17 or 18), and 1 bathroom a bit so towels dry. Main thing in bathroom is to give a very short sharp airing after use.    Heating is off overnight.  14 C in the Dach bedroom this morning which is impressive considering below freezing for over a week.   We had some sun but a bit too watery and weak to warm the house up.  Hope the gas usage is not to dreadful.  And btw found a Christmas pudding that only needs 2 hours.  It is so lovely outside now, clear, and heading to minus 10.  Not had this for years.   A thaw is due on Monday, which is good because the windows are filthy, but impossible to clean at the moment.

 

 

[kiplette 8,719]

Christmas pudding I hear can be steamed for 20 mins and then pressure cooked for a short time.

 

Bit of an explanation on  Pressure Cooker Ultimate Christmas Pudding | Ask Nigella.com | Nigella Lawson

[Gambatte 928]

17 hours ago, Fietsrad said:

Some people have hobbies that use a lot of energy: carpentry, aquarium etc usw. Charging an €bike😠

True, some have ebikes, that consume some electricity.

 

But at 20 Wh/mile ebikes consume very little. So if you like me rode 10000 km/yr and were in the top 1 percentile of cyclists, according to Strava at least, and you did it with ebike, this would have costed 125 kWh/yr. This is ca 5% of our yearly electricity, 2500 kWh, or (if you believe vendors of domestic PV Akku) 2% of the average household electricity of 5500 kWh.

[keith2011 2,648]

2 hours ago, Gambatte said:

And some have ebikes, that consume electricity.

 

And some use them as an alternative form of transport to other much less efficient motorized vehicles!

[Rushrush 296]

So I was today years old when I learned that leaving your heater knob at a touch under 3 keeps you bathroom reasonably warm, guess because of this

Quote

With perfect timing, winter has decided to make a return after a hiatus of several years right in the middle of an energy crisis. With the mercury well below zero already, this is one of the coldest Decembers in recent memory.

 

and Jorg goes on to say this

 

Quote

 

The weather Gods clearly have a dark sense of humour. One of the bitterest winters of the 20th century hit Germany a year after the end of the Second World War when many people were still living amongst the rubble of their bombed out cities. That winter was named the white death and killed hundreds of thousands of people. But the deaths were as much a man-made tragedy as a natural disaster.

So I was today years old when I learned that leaving your heater knob at a touch under 3 keeps you bathroom reasonably warm, guess because of this

 

 via the German Review - highly recommend subscribing, quite different from The Local

 

https://open.substack.com/pub/germanreview/p/weekly-digest-dec-18th-2022?r=8ahwm&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

 

[Fietsrad 413]

€bikes are sadly more likely to replace conventional cycles than to replace motor vehicles.

[fraufruit 42,196]

2 minutes ago, Fietsrad said:

€bikes are sadly more likely to replace conventional cycles than to replace motor vehicles.

 

They still aren't cars and help keep more cars off of the roads.

[Fietsrad 413]

7 minutes ago, fraufruit said:

 

They still aren't cars and help keep more cars off of the roads.

Any evidence or observations for that? My observations are that the big heavy fast €bikes use cycleways that are already inadequate and endanger real cyclists such as me. Really €bikes are just a scheme to make money. Are people trading in cars for €bikes? No, they are buying more cars, bigger cars. So big that you can put an €bike in the trunk.

 

One of the "last" things I want, where I live is more cycling!

[fraufruit 42,196]

1 minute ago, Fietsrad said:

Any evidence or observations for that?

 

I have several friends who ride bikes everywhere year round and, therefore, don't own cars. Not sure how many are ebikes.

 

They don't care if you don't like them.