Biggest waste of electric / gas / water

[Spare tyre]

Found my loft lights on the other day, thankfully I was up there last week and they are led

Found my house pipe on in the garden the other morning, my kids had been out playing with it at the weekend,probably 3 days running

Thankfully no gas issues


As a kid my family had a caravan in France, it had a nasty electric fire that never got used, but naturally we kids played with it

Arrived in July, it was on, no one had been down since October the previous year, whoops. Thankfully the electric was included in the site cost

I can now see why smart meters could play a part in this, sending you a notification that there is a constant pull, look into it

[Gary29]

I keep accidentally leaving my gas hob on. It's difficult to see/hear the flame when it's turned down to minimum as is often the case when I'm serving up. I've left it on a couple of times now, I even went out for the day after cooking breakfast and came back late afternoon to a warm kitchen and the hob still on. What a plonker. Learnt my lesson now I think/hope.

[Spare tyre]

Gary29 said:

I keep accidentally leaving my gas hob on. It's difficult to see/hear the flame when it's turned down to minimum as is often the case when I'm serving up. I've left it on a couple of times now, I even went out for the day after cooking breakfast and came back late afternoon to a warm kitchen and the hob still on. What a plonker. Learnt my lesson now I think/hope.

I’m sure my Nan did this, I seem to remember some sort of sticker or something that was near each ring, it was black if cold and maybe red if warm / hot - simple but worked

This was early 2000 ish

[StevieBee]

Few months back, had lunch with a pal and inadvertently left the car running for the hour and half we were there! (Jag XF)

Two years into owning it and I'm still not used to autostop thing that switches it all off if you open the door so I often end up pressing the button to restart it! Normally recognise this but on that occasion I didn't!

[Stick Legs]

If it put baking trays through the dishwasher I'll put the oven on to 100C to dry the out otherwise they rust on the folded edge.

I did this the other day and went out for the afternoon.

Luckily I go home before my wife and simply turned the oven up and chucked some spuds in. Baked potatoes go with most things and take ages.

[Samcat]

My teenage kids!

[beko1987]

I've left the oven door open when cooking food. Gone away for the 20 minute timer, come back to a warm kitchen and the sodding oven door swung open 😡

I've also forgotten to turn it off after cooking too, and come back an hour later to a red hot oven (door closed of course) marrily keepinmg itself at 250 degrees empty 😡

I barely use any gas so even being extravagent with the heating occasionally doesn't cost much more.

[nute]

I jump started the lawn mower off of the car last year. Car nice and quiet, mower bloody noisy, forgot to shut the car off. Went to bed 6 hrs later and on glancing out the window whilst pulling the curtains I thought why are the dash lights in the car on … went to investigate and found the thing still running. Didn’t seem to have used much petrol

[ChocolateFrog]

I feel a bit annoyed if I leave a 6w LED bulb on for a few weeks while on holiday.

Biggest waste for us is occasionally leaving the CFL tube on in the garage for a couple of days.

[Cotty]

Gary29 said:

I keep accidentally leaving my gas hob on. It's difficult to see/hear the flame when it's turned down to minimum as is often the case when I'm serving up. I've left it on a couple of times now, I even went out for the day after cooking breakfast and came back late afternoon to a warm kitchen and the hob still on. What a plonker. Learnt my lesson now I think/hope.

I accidently turned on a gas ring on my hob when lifting something out of the oven and placing it on the hob. Gas on, no flame.
Woke up the next day wondering what the funny smell was. Luckily it was summer and the gas boiler didn't need to fire up the heating

[Riley Blue]

I've pushed the fridge door shut with an elbow after lifting something out double handed and gone back the next morning to find it didn't quite close and was working its nuts off trying to get down to the set temperature.

[E63eeeeee...]

I have a fan in my office in the summer but it's behind me and it's pretty quiet so occasionally I forget it's on when I finish work for the day, or for the weekend...

I specifically bought a hob with massive knobs where you can see if the burners are off from the other side of the room.

[Spare tyre]

Oh yes I got invaded through the back doors in December

The back door was open for 2 or 3 days and the heating was trying to compensate despite being on away mode

British Gas reported excellent profits that quarter

[vikingaero]

StevieBee said:

Few months back, had lunch with a pal and inadvertently left the car running for the hour and half we were there! (Jag XF)

Two years into owning it and I'm still not used to autostop thing that switches it all off if you open the door so I often end up pressing the button to restart it! Normally recognise this but on that occasion I didn't!

About a decade ago my sister had a Lexus. Very quiet petrol engine at idle. She once parked it on her drive on a Friday, went to start it on Monday morning and there was a screech from the starter motor as the car was already running.... all weekend.