Please Advise

BOJANGLES_4

I live in a 3 bedroom house, 1 bathroom,a large sitting room,1 dining room,and 1 kitchen. We have oil heating (none at present)
we have a key meter for electric with economy 7 and we have no gas
heres what I have :
cooker
microwave
washing machine
dishwasher
fridge
1 large chest freezer (few years old)
2 fridge sized freezers (new this year)
tumble dryer
tv
dvd player
surround sound
sky
1 pc
2 fish tanks- (1 is 3 ft, 1 is 2 ft)
portable tv
immersion heater
small cd player

obviously we have lights and bedside lamps
We turn off all lights and watch telly at night with the fishtank lights
we turn off all other lights (outside included). I have not used the tumble dryer since the beginning of the year. The dishwasher goes on overnight (on economy 7) as does the washing machine. I try to use the microwave as much as possible as it is only small to heat.We have mostly energy saving bulbs in use the pc is turned off overnight.
We used to have an electric shower but now we have a shower that runs straight off the pipes, we have had this since the end of april (it is not a power shower).
the immersion heater was on all the time as we was told it is cheaper to run it like that instead of keep turning it on and off.

Right...at present we still turn off all unnesacery lights and we are turning the immersion off at 7 in the morning and turning it back on at about 10 at night ,so that it heats some water for a shower, it is left on overnight on the cheaper tariff.
My charges at the moment are:
Day = 13.48 per kw
Night = 4.925 per kw
with 51p per day standing charge, I am with EON

So....the advice I would like is.. am I using excessive electric or what..
this is what I have put in my meter
Tuesday 9/09/08 = put in £30.00 - 7 days later we put in-
Tuesday 16/09/08 = put in £30.00- 8 days later we have-
WEdnesday 24/09/08 - we have 91p left
Wednesday 24/09/08 = put in £40.00
Friday 26/09/08 = we have £34.09
so in 15 days we have used £60.00 of electric !!
everyone i speak to says that this is excessive and most of them use between £35.00 to £40.00 a month, with roughly the same amount of items I have
at this rate we are using roughly £120 per month on electric- totalling to £1,440.00 per year. I know someone who hasnt paid their electric bill for 2 years and that was £700. A friend whom I work with has a shop and has been billed £400 and he has told them that is no way and they are looking into it , also my brother is on a key meter (same as me) and his wife uses their tumble dryer 3/4 times per day and they put in £15/£20 a fortnight these people all have accounts with Eon , When I have complained -they say that I am a heavy user
Is this normal or am I feeding a very large and fat donkey ?

Magentasue

I'm wondering why you have Economy 7 when you don't have storage heaters?

I know there are people who maintain keeping the immersion on isn't any more expensive than using a timer but that's not what we found when we had one. I'd try putting it on from 6 til 7 in the morning.

I'm sure someone on here has said that fish tanks use a lot of energy. Plasma TV? I think they use a lot too.

So many freezers! There's six of us and we manage with one tall one. They're not cheap to run as they're on 24/7.

We use between 8 and 16 kwh - most days it's 12 or 13 which at your rates would be 195 x 13.48p =£26.29 + 15 x 51p = £7.65 = £33.94

You're using twice as much as us and we're being more careful than we used to be, but still high users.

BOJANGLES_4

hi magentasue, weve always had economy 7 dont know why- Eon said they could change it to a normal one where the standing charge would be 35p per day and all kw 11p
we have a lcd tv and it only goes on at 4pm for son in from school.and it is not on standby
i observed over a 2 day period how many kw we used and..
day 1 (3pm-3pm) 25.2 day and 5.4 night (immersion on)
day 2 (3pm-3pm) 15.73 day and 4.35 night (immersion off)

NB I forgot to include that we do not have a kettle ,we have one of those tefal quick cups (3 sec )

Magentasue

That's a lot of units! When your immersion is on, it appears your night usage changes marginally whereas your daytime increases by almost 10 units. Could the 'timer' be out of sync? There are other threads on here about this - it does happen.

welshnoonoo

Oh now this is interesting, I too am with Eon and I too have a pre-payment meter. Just this week I said to Mr Welshnoonoo that I felt there had been a dramatic increase as we had gone through far more electricity than normal!

I now for a fact that nothing has changed in our household - I think it may be worth putting a call into Eon! I was originally told they can somehow change things remotely via the keys???

BOJANGLES_4

we dont have a timer on immersion heater we are going to be putting one on tommorow, we got one from screwfix.
I just dont know what to do . I have just seen a couple of wireless electric monitors that show you how much electric we are using i can buy for roundabout £30, to see whats going on and also a plug in version from maplins for £10

BOJANGLES_4

welshnoonoo wrote: »

Oh now this is interesting, I too am with Eon and I too have a pre-payment meter. Just this week I said to Mr Welshnoonoo that I felt there had been a dramatic increase as we had gone through far more electricity than normal!

I now for a fact that nothing has changed in our household - I think it may be worth putting a call into Eon! I was originally told they can somehow change things remotely via the keys???

ive phoned EON 5/6 times over this last week and all she keeps telling me is that ..
I shouldn't compare my usage to other peoples and we use loads of electric
at this moment in time -hubby is watching tv in the dark ,disabled son has gone to bed and will have his video on and the landing light on which is a small 20watt pygmy bulb and im on here in the dark
like blinking goblins we are

BOJANGLES_4

thanxs in advance for any help people, Im going to switch off now and go to bed
donna

Magentasue

But you are using a lot of units - 20-30 a day with no heating.

That's twice as many as us, a family of six with gadget fiends everywhere I look. The only difference is that we don't have an immersion heaters, fish tank or an electric cooker. We also only have one freezer. We use our dishwasher and washing machine at least once a day.

Immersion heater would be my bet, but I've had bad experience with them.

brysiewysie

It does look like high usage. I think the idea of an energy measuring plug from maplins etc will help you identify areas of savings. I also think the wireless monitor will help but be aware that some don't work correctly on an E7 setup.

If you ask Eon their computer system gives a % breakdown of day v night use over all previous bills and as long as they are based on real readings will help you work out if E7 is good for you. Usually something like 18-25% night use makes E7 cheaper.

In my experience the use of an immersion heater on a timer will make a big impact but other factors are relevant - how well insulated is the hot water tank? How old is the system - that could cause it to be less efficient than it should be.

Have you checked that there is no debt collection rate on your meter? Putting the key in the meter and pressing the display button will cycle you through some other settings on there and will confirm if you're paying debt too.

I know you say you have low energy bulbs mainly. You do mean the ones that are rated at something like 9 or 11 watts don't you? It's just you seem to have an exceptionally dim 20w bulb on all night rather than a cheaper, much brighter low energy one that would use half the power?

Have a look at the ineractive house and the energy saving survey on the eon website, they may provide some ideas for you.

http://www.eonenergy.com/At-Home/Going-Green/Energy-Saving-Advice/Interactive-House/?WT.mc_id=Interactive_House&WT.svl=8

Finally (for now at least) because you have a disabled son get Eon to register you as a Priority Services Customer. Talk to their Caring Energy team (0800 051 1480) and also find out from them if you qualify for their free loft and cavity wall insulation scheme.

BOJANGLES_4

thanxs brysiewise for that,
hubby is putting timer on immersion right now as i type, we dont have a debt on the meter.
the low energy bubs are either 9 wt or 11wt, the only reason we use the pygmy bulb is that we only want a little bit of light so that son is not in complete darkness, we dont have a socket on the landing for a night light
I dont know what else to do , suppose im just gonna have to see how this timer thing works
have just checked meter - £40.91 on wednesday at 9 am- now at 10.30am
£31.19= we have used £9.72 in 3 days so we are still nearly doing £10 in 3 days. WHAT?????
£9.72 =3 days
£19.44= 6 days
£29.16 = 9 days
so im still using £30.00 for 10 days WHAT?HOW?
we have turned everything off and the immersion heater ...