Is Old style really money saving?

livinginhope · 5 October 2006 at 2:18PM

Just come off the phone to Powergen following my review of gas and electricity payments,not a happy bunny,they are going to increase my payments from 45/month to 225/month eeek!
We have EVERYTHING A rated,all energy bulbs and no excessive usage,the only thing we do a lot of is COOK! could all this old style living be causing such a massive increase in bills?
I use the slow cooker nearly everyday and bake cakes etc in the oven,does the slow cooker use a lot of electric? if it is the baking,could I bake cakes in the microwave? I assume this would be cheaper.
So can anyone can give me any recipes for cake making in the microwave please.

hilstep2000 · 5 October 2006 at 2:20PM

I'd get your meter checked if I were you! And try uswitch to see if anone else is cheaper. I was with Powergen, but they just kept putting my monthly payments up and up, so I switched.

MrsTinks · 5 October 2006 at 2:26PM

You CAN bake cakes in the Microwave - personally I don't like to - they're just not quite right... I use the breadmaker.

The increase they have mentioned seems somewhat - well - OUTRAGEOUS!
I wouldn't have thought the oven could account for quite that much... Slowcooker doesn't really use much electricity to be honest so I wouldn't have thought this was a culprit.
A few things: Do you use a Tumbledrier? These SWALLOW electricity. Turn everything in the house off and go and look at your elec meter - by the amount they claim you are using it should be zooming round like a mad thing. Then turn the oven on - can you see a difference?
Could the meter be broken? Is it a semi detached house? Once in a Semi I discovered that the previous owner had managed to get a mains line in from the house it was attached to and was basically using next doors electricity! (we tied a note to the wire saying "think this is yours" and sealed the wire safely and pushed it back through the hole in the wall... ).

T

livinginhope · 5 October 2006 at 2:29PM

Thanks hilstep2000,meter already been checked at my cost??? nothing wrong found and now I can't switch until the outstanding amount has been cleared.
Looks like we will have to eat cold salad or beans until this is paid.
The only thing we have done differently lately is cooking more,surely the bills haven't gone up that much,I always thought OS was cheaper

livinginhope · 5 October 2006 at 2:35PM

tine wrote:

You CAN bake cakes in the Microwave - personally I don't like to - they're just not quite right... I use the breadmaker.

The increase they have mentioned seems somewhat - well - OUTRAGEOUS!
I wouldn't have thought the oven could account for quite that much... Slowcooker doesn't really use much electricity to be honest so I wouldn't have thought this was a culprit.
A few things: Do you use a Tumbledrier? These SWALLOW electricity. Turn everything in the house off and go and look at your elec meter - by the amount they claim you are using it should be zooming round like a mad thing. Then turn the oven on - can you see a difference?
Could the meter be broken? Is it a semi detached house? Once in a Semi I discovered that the previous owner had managed to get a mains line in from the house it was attached to and was basically using next doors electricity! (we tied a note to the wire saying "think this is yours" and sealed the wire safely and pushed it back through the hole in the wall... ).

T

Have you any recipes for breadmaker cakes?
We do have a tumble drier,but TBH we only use it if necessary about once a month,so that wouldn't account for the increase,ALL our appliances were renewed last year following the fire and are all energy efficient so would have thought costs reduced.
We live in a detatched house with sheep for neighbours,so unless they are plugging in their TV for Emmerdale doubt it's them LOL.Cheek of your neighbour though.
Will try watching the meter later to see if anything makes it go crazy
Thanks,your thanks button not showing.

tom_and_barbara_good · 5 October 2006 at 2:40PM

I used to make cakes at home as my job, around 50 -70 per week in an electric oven, it was on all day from 9am to 6pm 5 days a week, I also ran a big mixer and 2 freezers as well.

I also took meter readings for a whole year in 1998 and have kept these readings and refer to them now and again out of interest. I stopped making the cakes 4 years ago so I expected that the electrcity we use now would be much less but not so - my average then was around 210 units per week - it's still averaging 210 per week and the oven is on for about 3 or 4 hours per week, which is the same as most households.

I put lack of change in the amount used down to the fact that now there are 2 computers on all day, both me and OH work from home and there are 4 TVs in the house (one in each of our adult kids rooms) and try as I might I can't get them to switch them off rather than leave them on standby, my son is out all day but his laptop is on standby, why??????.

Your slow cooker is only using the power of a strong lightbulb so I think that there is something else that is going wrong with your consumption.

dronid · 5 October 2006 at 2:52PM

Maybe time to invest in a few timers for the TV & Laptop plug sockets. And maybe pass them the bill!

Could you have run up an additional charge over a period of time? Have you just come of a great capped rate onto the current awful rate?

Have you left the cooker on for a month?

It seems very excessive. How long until you pay off your bill? And check out alternative rates with other companies and cross reference them with your current companies rates. Trust me, it's really not your cooker unless you're roasting whole ox on a spit over the rings!;)

tom_and_barbara_good · 5 October 2006 at 3:00PM

Just to add to my previous post ...

I think that it would be a very good idea to take a meter reading every week, same day, same time for at least 4 weeks to get to know what is 'normal' for your house and maybe come back here and ask how it compares with other peoples readings.

As dronid is saying it may be your providers poor rates rather than usage that's causing it to be so high

saving-grace · 5 October 2006 at 3:18PM

Did they say if you had been underpaying for your usage for a number of months and now you are paying extra to cover the underpayment? In this case the £225 isn't a true reflection of what you're actually using now.
We are an all electric household (no gas here) and we're paying nowhere near that.
But I like to pay quarterly rather than by direct debit (even if though there is a discount for DD) because I find it easier to keep track of usage and know I'm paying for exactly what we're using. A friend recently had a bill for £1000 because her usage for her DD payment had been underestimated.

katiekoo_2 · 5 October 2006 at 3:26PM

WE once bought a house that had a faulty immersion heater. Even when switched off, it was on all the time. We could hear water bubbling away all the time - huge waste of electricity.

I hope you get it sorted out.:)

Do you have night-storage heaters or some other electric heating? Could someone else be 'tapping' into your power?

sarahs999 · 5 October 2006 at 3:27PM

I was going to say what saving-grace just said. THis very thing happened to us (Atlantic put us up from £14 a month to £75 to cover a shortfall - we had got behind because they never sent anyone to read the meter). When we complained that it was far too much they put the amount down to £54 which is still a ridiculous jump but better than £75. When we've paid off the excess I shall demand that someone come and measure exactly how much we use a month.

S

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Is Old style really money saving?

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