Can’t work out why my bills are so high?

Lottiebear1 · 5 December 2017 at 11:46PM

Firstly, I’m sorry.. I’m sure this question gets asked 100 times, but I’m new here and not amazing with technology so I’m hoping someone will help me out without me having to trawl through to find other people’s posts!
We have a small two bed mid-terrace house with pretty standard electrical appliances but our electricity bills are extortionate! I’m paying about £120-180 per month!
I have done a tarriff comparison and we’re doing pretty good (utility warehouse at the moment). BT are offering a bit cheaper (£140 a year) but will only do quarterly bills & aren’t supporting smart meter so I would rather pay the extra £12 a month to stay with UW.

Right so smart meter is showing fairly good usage... it’s very low during the day when we aren’t home, rises a little bit in morning and evening (eg. For kettle, TV, tumble dryer, etc)
We’ve got some nice big spikes when heating is on but we only have it on for 1/2 hour in the AM & hour in evening so that’s fine.
We’ve also got some really massive spikes (off the top of the screen) which we have narrowed down to our shower - an electric shower.
We’re a pretty standard household.. probably average a load of washing a day and tumble dry half that. Couple of hours TV (only the one TV) in the evening, charge phones overnight. Turn lights and plugs off after use.

So I guess my question is, could our shower literally be causing us these ridiculous bills? How would I determine if it is? Am I reading the smart meter correctly is it just our general usage could be higher than normal? Could it be something else I’m missing?
Argh I don’t know, all I know is I’m freezing every night but can’t use the heating because I can’t afford my bills to be any higher! Someone heeeeeelp.

Tom99 · 6 December 2017 at 12:41AM

Do you has gas or electric heating? A 10kW shower will cost about £1.50 per hour if its electric.

Lottiebear1 · 6 December 2017 at 1:03AM

Hi Tom99, thanks so much for your reply.
Heating is gas. I don’t think it’s the heating as our bills are still much higher than average in the summer when we don’t use it at all.

Robin9 · 6 December 2017 at 7:16AM

Have a close look at your last bills. Are the readings Actual (A) or Estimated (E) ? What is the tariff ? Is your account in Credit or Debit ?

House_Martin · 6 December 2017 at 9:29AM

I would nt be concerned with staying with Utility Warehouse and retaining the smart meter. It will become dumb as soon as you rid yourself of U.W.. You can easily read the meters manually.The rest of the suppliers should be able to accept the Secure Liberty meters I think that U.W. use so long as they remain in credit mode. Its prepayment mode they struggle with.
U.W. are not exactly a cheap supplier. Just switch supplier and get that Kwh rate tumbling along with much cheaper daily standing charges. Eon have a fairly good dual fuel one and Cheap Energy club will pay a bit of cashback too after the switch. Make sure to get an accurate yearly kwh usage before using a comparison site
Iresa Energy will be a lot cheaper than U.W. for example.
Whatever the problem with your energy usage getting the lowest or nearly the lowest rates available is a good start.

matelodave · 6 December 2017 at 9:33AM

You really need to be doing a bit more recording of your consumption in kwh, low, average and high don't actually tell you or us anything.

I suspect that most households with gas heating and hot water would average around 8-10kwh of leccy a day which on a decent tariff of say 12-15p/kwh = £450-£550 a year so you are either using significantly more energy than most or you are on a ridiculously high tariff.

We use 7000kwh of leccy a year and only pay £75 a month so I suggest you do a bit more investigating of actual kwh consumption.

Start reading your meter daily for a a week or two and writing it down to see how much you are actually consuming (read it off the meter rather than the IHD or what might be recorded on your account.

As said above check that your bills are actual reads and not estimates and look at your tariff. Is having a smart meter really worth £12 a month or £144 a year.

Can’t work out why my bills are so high?

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