Electric useage nearly tripled in one month

calleyw · 29 November 2005 at 1:53PM

seaniboy wrote:

4)have been using on the odd occasion to keep warm a little electric heater so I warm one room rather than the whole house. Use it for about 5/10 mins and then switch it off until I feel cold and then put it on again

here is your culprit, they are darn cheap to buy and expensive to run

Well as I said that and tumble drier where the only things that I thought could be racking it up.

But I use it very rarely so I don't have to crank the central heating up and heat the whole house.

I will be avoid using at all until the 24th and the same for the tumble dryer and slow cooker and see what it is like on the 24th of November.

Yours

Calley

calleyw · 29 November 2005 at 1:58PM

Cardew wrote:

178 units in a month in winter is still very low. You are only using an additional 3.5kWh per day more than Oct - which is easily accounted for.

The clocks going back and an extra hours lighting would account for some of this, and your post gives the other reasons.

I can't believe lights would add that much over the course of a month as apart from the one in the bathroom and the ones in living room they are all energy saving bulbs.

And only the ones on in hall are left on for hours on end until bedtime.

You say that 178 units is low it maybe is to you. But to me from what I was using last month it has gone up by 2.7 times. So to me it is a huge jump and something that I have to keep on top with only one wage coming in at the moment.

Yours

Calley

robnye · 29 November 2005 at 4:38PM

wots the average monthly usage then,

just become aware of the excessive bill, but wanted some idea to gauge the 'normal' level
current usage level seems high, about 10 units a day.
house is a 4 bedroom house,
we have electric showers, does anyone know what usage they have?

Penny-Pincher!! · 29 November 2005 at 5:14PM

Hi There

Your useage does seem very low/efficient, but if it has nearly trippled in 1 month, then I would be worried too. Have you contacted your supplier to have your meter checked? Thats what I would do hun.

We are very high users, using about 800 units each month. Our monthly DD is £55 :eek: Our gas on the other hand is only about £65 a year. Gas company recently suggested dropping DD from £18 to £6, but I comprimised and agreed £12-I dont want to be stung if the weather is bad and need GCH on 24/7..LOL. The only gas products we have, are: GCH (only on in winter), gas hob and gas fire in lounge (on only in extreme cold weather) Im disabled and feel the cold alot. I am indoors 24/7 as is OH who is my carer..poor guy! Although people are going to say I use to much electric, I dont think I do. Coz of disability I have to use WM about 15-20 times aweek, I use the TD if weather not good, have a DW and use daily, all the normal mod cons etc etc. I have looked around for cheaper quotes but can not find any even close ATM.

Do you have an immersion heater? If so, maybe check that to see if its on constantly or button broken etc.

Hope you sort it.

PP
xx

Edinburghlass_2 · 29 November 2005 at 5:30PM

I would be more than happy to pay just £55 a month for my electric as I pay £85 a month on dd every month of the year

And even at that the house isn't warm as its night store heaters. Last estimate from Transco about two years ago was £6000 per house to bring gas to the door.

I would love to have gas central heating and even better to be able to heat my water all year round with gas but its not looking likely in the forseeable future. Two bedroom terraced cottage with very thick walls, cold in the summer and freezing in the winter

Think I will need to start looking into reading the meters more often to see where it goes.

calleyw · 29 November 2005 at 7:01PM

Penny-Pincher!! wrote:

Hi There

Your useage does seem very low/efficient, but if it has nearly trippled in 1 month, then I would be worried too. Have you contacted your supplier to have your meter checked? Thats what I would do hun.

We are very high users, using about 800 units each month. Our monthly DD is £55 :eek: Our gas on the other hand is only about £65 a year. Gas company recently suggested dropping DD from £18 to £6, but I comprimised and agreed £12-I dont want to be stung if the weather is bad and need GCH on 24/7..LOL. The only gas products we have, are: GCH (only on in winter), gas hob and gas fire in lounge (on only in extreme cold weather) Im disabled and feel the cold alot. I am indoors 24/7 as is OH who is my carer..poor guy! Although people are going to say I use to much electric, I dont think I do. Coz of disability I have to use WM about 15-20 times aweek, I use the TD if weather not good, have a DW and use daily, all the normal mod cons etc etc. I have looked around for cheaper quotes but can not find any even close ATM.

Do you have an immersion heater? If so, maybe check that to see if its on constantly or button broken etc.

Hope you sort it.

PP
xx

No I have not contacted the supplier yet will see what it is like at the end of this month.

Wow your gas is low how do you manage that as I am home all day but only put the gas CH on when needed. But do have a gas cooker and combi boiler for the water. As my next bill for gas alone will be about £20ish.

May I ask who your supplier is as we have powergen at the moment.

We don't have a immersion heater as we have a gas combi boiler for the central heating and heating the water.

Yours

Calley

Penny-Pincher!! · 29 November 2005 at 7:13PM

Hey There

Wow I thought mine was steep at £55, let alone £85 pm :eek: Im sorry you cant get gas where you are, that must be awful. I dread to think what our electric would be if we had to use it for heating too..ouch!!

Our supplier is Npower and we havent had any problems with them...yet. Have been with them a while, but I update our meter readings every 10weeks to make sure we are paying enough etc. Alot of people have had many problems with them but we havent yet, so will not rock the boat..LOL.

Im not sure why our gas is so low. GCH is set at about 19c and we only have a gas hob and gas fire in lounge, but this rarely goes on and try to add more layers of clothing then if needed it goes on. Our cooker is electric fan assisted. Is your cooker electric or gas? Im very shocked with our love gas bill annually as I wouldnt say Im that tight with it-well try not to be, but it does only literally go on for about 10 weeks of the year-just when its colder. We dont have a gas combi, just a standard gas boiler.

PP
xx

calleyw · 29 November 2005 at 11:15PM

Penny-Pincher!! wrote:

Im not sure why our gas is so low. GCH is set at about 19c and we only have a gas hob and gas fire in lounge, but this rarely goes on and try to add more layers of clothing then if needed it goes on. Our cooker is electric fan assisted. Is your cooker electric or gas? Im very shocked with our love gas bill annually as I wouldnt say Im that tight with it-well try not to be, but it does only literally go on for about 10 weeks of the year-just when its colder. We dont have a gas combi, just a standard gas boiler.

PP
xx

I have my GCH on timed twice a day with a thermostat control as well. No gas fires.

My cooker is gas slot in and my boiler is a brand new well 2 months old condensing combi.

And i always put on extra layers before putting the heating on. But I suffer with cold hands and feet a lot.

We shall see how the winter pans out.

Yours

Calley

---lee--- · 2 December 2005 at 10:49PM

OP, why not look at the rating plates on the devices you are concerned about (slow cooker and electric heater). They should show you exactly how much power these devices draw.

The rating plate will either show the numbers of watts consumed per hour or the number of amps. It’s easier to work out consumption with watts.

If the rating plate shows amps, you can convert them to watts using the formula Watts = Amps x Volts. UK voltage is 230, so if a device uses 3 amps it would be Watts = 3 * 230. That’s 960 watts.

1000 watts = 1 Kwh which is a unit on your meter.

If for example your electric heater is 2KW, running it for half an hour will use 1 KW or 1 unit.

I’ve had a look on our slow cooker and it’s rated at 230 watts, so leaving that on for 4 and a half hours would use 1Kwh.

Hope this helps,

Lee.

PS. I would guess that using electric heaters instead of a nice new condensing boiler is probably a false economy. Only guessing though.

calleyw · 3 December 2005 at 3:59PM

---lee--- wrote:

I’ve had a look on our slow cooker and it’s rated at 230 watts, so leaving that on for 4 and a half hours would use 1Kwh.

Hope this helps,

Lee.

PS. I would guess that using electric heaters instead of a nice new condensing boiler is probably a false economy. Only guessing though.

Think my slow cooker is 320w on high.

But to me it seems silly to crank up the gas central heating to heat the whole house when I am only want to heat one room.

Yours

Calley

Electric useage nearly tripled in one month

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