Utilities Estimates

moneysavingstudent_3

Hi All,

My friends and I are moving into a house next year. There will be 4 of us in the house. On all your experiences, how much have people been tending to pay each month for Gas & Electricity?

Cheers

moneysavingstudent

redmel1621

Hi
We are a family of 4 in a 3 bed house and Use about 50-60pm on each...If you have a gas meter, just keep putting the same in each mobth even though you may not be using it in the warmer weather or you will really regret in in the winter when you will probably actually use more than that (more like 90pm)..

Not exactly the same situation but hope that helps you a bit.

Mel x

tinkerbel

oooh great thread, I've been wondering the same sort of thing too!
Our house is an end of terrance or something - would that make any difference do you think??

Lokolo

Maybe make one side of your house colder??

Also it maybe quite hard to work out estimates as gas and elec companies are going crazy everywhere and changing prices.

janey_uk

Depends hugely on efficiency and type of boiler, size of rooms, insulation, how often you put the heating/water on and on what temperature etc. Also how many appliances etc you use - if all four of your have separate TVs/PCs and cook for yourselves it will likely not be comparable to a regular family.

Can landlord or former tenant not give any idea?

Oldernotwiser

You need to sit down with your housemates and decide how you plan to do this and agree on certain things. If some of them (or you) come from homes where the central heating is on all night in the winter and they're unaware how much it costs, you're going to run into financial difficulties.

Unfortunately, some people can be very selfish and if you're trying to budget by keeping the heating low and limiting the times it's on, watch out for people who try to override this by running an electric fire in their rooms as this will cost a fortune!

I think that Redmel's estimate might be enough for a family who keep regular hours together but many students' hours can vary immensely with some people (occasionally!) getting up early and others (more common!) staying up late and both groups wanting the heating on. You also find that people have study days (or are skyving off!) and expect the heating on all the day, just for one person!

You really need to monitor your heating costs closely as soon as it starts getting cold so that you can see when the power's being used and come to an agreement as to keep costs down. I'd reckon on allocating at least £30 per month each for bills (all year so that you have a "kitty" for the winter) but you could spend far more if you're not careful!