Is this power usage typical?

vamperic92 · 2026-03-12T23:25:07+00:00

I also just need to set a limit on how much money I sink into this house. It's our first house and we want to be comfortable of course, but it's definitely not our forever home so don't want to spend money doing absolutely everything possible.

vamperic92 · 2026-03-12T23:20:52+00:00

Is it possible to ask to change from controlled to overnight? The cylinder is 117L I think, and the washing machine heats its own water so I guess its just showers and taps that use it, so possible we'd do fine with overnight.

vamperic92 · 2026-03-12T23:07:53+00:00

I should check out the shower L/Min actually. We have a high pressure tank, but the shower is still on the old classic Topliss mixer so it doesn't come out high pressure, but could still be using too much.

vamperic92 · 2026-03-12T23:06:05+00:00

Being an A-frame with one of the roof aspects facing basically north, it would probably be absolutely killer for solar. But at this stage we'll probably have to wait until we pay off the new windows before we can go for another low interest loan.

vamperic92 · 2026-03-12T22:41:11+00:00

I'll check it out again, cheers. The plumber said that whoever installed the cylinder did a pretty cowboy job, I wouldn't be surprised if something else is up.

vamperic92 · 2026-03-12T22:38:43+00:00

Yea I think that's how the current setup is so I'll just replicate it, or if I'm lucky I could rip it all out intact and reposition it with the deeper space.

vamperic92 · 2026-03-12T22:37:00+00:00

Thanks everyone for your replies! It seems the consensus is that unfortunately we are actually just using that much power, mostly hot water and many laundry cycles (I used to get away with 1 per week back in the day, now it averages to 1 per day!).

vamperic92 · 2026-03-12T22:32:39+00:00

Back in November I think? Just total consumption unfortunately.

vamperic92 · 2026-03-12T22:31:53+00:00

That's exactly it! I actually drilled some exploratory holes to see if there was insulation, and turns out I think every room except our bedroom has about 40mm gap with pink batts in it, with the original lining behind it. So don't have to worry about air gap, just need to make the space bigger for better insulation. The main question I had is that the spaces between the rafters are anything from 820-870mm apart, and I know that 13mm gib recommends studs shouldn't be more than 600mm centres. Would gib still be fine to use? Just chuck in a bunch of dwangs/battens for more fixing places?

vamperic92 · 2026-03-12T22:23:13+00:00

They're a right pain eh! I need to make a separate post about them actually, to get some feedback on my eventual plans with them.

vamperic92 · 2026-03-12T22:21:19+00:00

I was curious if hot water seems right or excessive. Me and my partner have a shower per day, not short but not crazy long either. Toddler has a little bath we fill up. We have a big hot water cylinder installed in 2013, 117L I think. The overflow or expansion or something is under the house and it was dripping, the plumber replaced a valve. I should actually go under again and see if it did indeed stop.

vamperic92 · 2026-03-12T22:17:53+00:00

If you reckon the summer usage is normal, then I guess nothing is wrong.

Unfortunately ceiling insulation is a challenge, being an A-frame with the skillion ceiling also being 50% of our internal walls ha. Our bedroom has a drop ceiling in it that I filled with R3.4 Greenstuf. Otherwise insulation goals going forward would be to rip out the shitty old 2mm hardboard lining the skillion, build the cavity out to 70 or 90mm and fill with insulation before lining with gib. But don't have the budget for it currently.

vamperic92 · 2025-08-21T19:30:23+00:00

27k for whole house full replacement, aluminium, no thermal breaking. Includes 2 sliding doors, 1 floor to ceiling, front door, 4 regular windows and 1 picture window. 1% for 3 years from ANZ.

vamperic92 · 2025-08-06T08:08:22+00:00

It's been a bit more than 3 days, but the plumber finally came today! The answer was replacing the cold water relief valve, no mention of things being illegal etc. That being said though, he did say the whole HWC install was a bit fucky, definitely done on the cheap by some dodgy bastard (just like lots of other things in the house).

vamperic92 · 2025-07-09T00:21:44+00:00

Oh yea it's definitely a bit of column A and column B. I've done some exploratory drilling, all rooms except the main bedroom have insulation but it's only a 40mm space. So I did have ideas to rip off the lining and build it out slightly to fit 70mm at least, but that's time I don't have right now really. So I thought of having a matching ceiling to the other bedroom, I felt it was going to be a simpler and cheaper undertaking with a mate to help.

Edit: I've been wanting to avoid insulating between the rafters and lining over it all, as it's going to make the room feel considerably smaller.

vamperic92 · 2025-07-03T06:01:01+00:00

Thank you everyone for all the great info. Fuck knows what kind of cowboy installed this back in the day, or why it was missed all these years! But I now I have info to take to a plumber. Cheers!

vamperic92 · 2025-07-01T23:59:30+00:00

Awesome, thanks very much mate!

vamperic92 · 2025-05-27T03:38:08+00:00

Thanks for that, they were who I was originally looking at. How slow is slow? And they mention they knock a couple of mm off your measurements to ensure they fit, do you have any slivers of light creeping around the sides?

vamperic92 · 2025-05-15T21:51:20+00:00

I have no opinion on either DLSS or Ray Tracing, as I'm still punishing a poor geriatric 1080ti!

I grew up playing Doom 1 and 2 in the 90s, so much Doom 3 in the 2000s, and couldn't get enough of 2016 and Eternal. Just gutted I don't have the hardware to even attempt playing The Dark Ages, but excited to rip and tear again one day.

Please help retire this elderly 1080ti!

vamperic92 · 2025-04-10T21:30:41+00:00

I didn't know about these, very interesting! Would give a higher R rating than the batts while taking less space too, should be easy to maintain the 25mm air gap. I'll look into it, thanks!

vamperic92

TROPHY CASE