New Home (renting).... 2nd electricity bill a lot more than 1st! Advice/Help?

mickym

Just received our second Electricy Bill from British Gas, its a quarterly bill for the period 10 Oct - 19 Dec, it is £282.30

Our first bill was £60 (Mid Aug to Mid Oct)

Is the most recent one unusually high?

Heres the info.

We rent a 2 bed bungalow which is totally electric based.

Heating is provided by some sort of mini boiler unit which is controlled by a thermostat and heats the radiators around the home. This boiler does not heat any usable water, only radiators.

Water heating is totally seperate, an we believe it to be an economy 7 boiler, as it has a timer for overnight heating.

We rarely use this, as we prefer to have showers and just boil a kettle if we need to do a bowl full of washing up in the evening.

We are also very cautious and unlug all items that dont need to be plugged in.


During our 1st billing cycle we were very cautious with our heating as the weather was mild.

As it has got colder in recent months we have put the heating on a lot more as the place can get very cold. I work from home, so we may have it on early to late morning, then put it on later in the afternoon if the temp drops. then have it on for a few hours in the evening, then totally off when we are asleep.

We also were suffering from a lot of condentation in the place, and as we had start to dry clothes inside the home due to bad wertaher outside we have been using a dehudifier to help take moisture out of the air when drying clothes to prevent it getting worse.

I work from home, but was doing the same during the first bill.

So the only differences i can see are:

1.) Using the heating more

2) Using the new Dehumidifier we bought.

is this enough to bring the bill up this much?

The latest bill says they estimated this reading... i did submit a new reading to them the other day, but it wasnt in the period for the 2nd bill cycle so doubt it was considered.

This is our first home, so i am just ensuring we are not over doing things...or worse paying too much!

All help / info would be appreciated!

Thanks

M

KimYeovil

mickym wrote: »

[...]
During our 1st billing cycle we were very cautious with our heating as the weather was mild.
[...]
So the only differences i can see are:

1.) Using the heating more

2) Using the new Dehumidifier we bought.

is this enough to bring the bill up this much?
[...]

! Yes.

But as you say it was estimated, by how much was the estimation out?

(£95 per month for electric heating when you are working from home strikes me as being relatively cheap! Remember some of this is a deductible work allowance.)

Fire_Fox

If you had Economy 7 you would have two meter readings. If you do your day rate will be about twice as expensive as your night rate. Check your bills to see the prices per kwh.

You may simply be the victims of an estimated bill, but if you have submitted readings you will usually get an amended bill. However it sounds more like you are just using a lot of electric at peak times.

See my thread for more info on the cost of electric heating
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1397217

Magentasue

There are a few things here. Firstly, if you're not using much electricity overnight (doesn't sound as if you have any storage heaters) you'd probably be better off ditching Economy 7. Secondly, electric heating is expensive so your bill looks reasonable for what you describe. Thirdly, our dehumidifier uses about 4kwh a day. Lastly, make sure you budget for the actual reading if the estimate was low.

mickym

hmmm this tale seems to drag on.

took the last bill as just one of those things with having to use electricity for heating due to cold weather.

Just got our 2nd proper bill from British Gas for the electricity we use (its our third in total but the first one we received was very shortly after we moved in).

The bill is £573 for the quarter!!

As stated before we are quite good with cutting out electricity when not required.

Since the last bill, we havent had to use the heating that much as the weather has got milder, and used the humidifier at night mostly.

The only additional thing we have got which may have added something is our new plasma tv which I doubt could have made that much of an impact on our bill.

Are we being stung for another reason?

The wrong tariff? Paid too little in the previous bills and are making up for it now?

We do not have the heating on other than maybe an hour in the morning, we do not heat the water really as we mostly have showers and wash up by boiling a kettle of water.

Between the last bill and this one I submitted quite a few readings to try ensure they got the bill right. Please see a copy of these here:




can you guys make sense of it for me as I am struggling...other than some of the readings having huge consumption amounts.

mickym

I just want to add that on my bill it states i am on:

Tariff:
Elec: Single Rate

but we have an economy 7 boiler timer and 2 sets of meter readings (day and night)

Is this the same thing?!

Cardew

The 3 columns of consumption figures on your chart makes no sense to me.

From your meter readings in the period 16/8/08 to 14/4/09 you have used 1,472kWh* on your night meter and 5,867kWh* on the day meter - a total of 7,369kWh.

* (18023-16551 and 49006-43139)

You don't give your area or what BG tariff - but an average figure for that consumption would be £800 to £900.

I suspect that your property was at one time on an Economy 7 tariff. This has been discontinued but you have retained both meters. (this is exactly the arangement I have and BG just add both readings together.

In any case as you only use 20% of your electricity at night it would not pay you to have an economy 7 tariff.

To use only 7,369kWh for 8 months, including a cold winter, in an all electric bungalow is excellent.

Magentasue

mickym wrote: »

The only additional thing we have got which may have added something is our new plasma tv which I doubt could have made that much of an impact on our bill.

You wish. Much more expensive to run than a 'normal' TV.

Also, electric showers can clock up quite a few kwh.

mickym

Cardew wrote: »

You don't give your area or what BG tariff - but an average figure for that consumption would be £800 to £900.

Tariff on the bill states:

Tariff:
Elec: Single Rate

I am based in bedfordshire.

Magentasue wrote: »

You wish. Much more expensive to run than a 'normal' TV.

Yep agree there, but when looking into my purchase was advised by others that had similar that it didnt add much to the electric bill. (I expected to pay more for it, but didnt think this bill was high due to just that)

So is almost £573 a fair amount to pay in our circumstances then? We did use the heating a fair bit in the snowy weather we had in Feb/March, but have hardly had it on since it becoming milder.

Remember, as I said, we hardly ever heat water with our boiler and we use heating sparingly.

If the bill is that high with us making those sacrifices, what would it be if we had to have those things on?!

Thats why i was wondering if there was something wrong with my bill/tarriff/meter readings etc.

We are a couple who have only been living away from parents so are just wanting to make sure we are paying what we should, and not over the odds.

Thank you Moneysavingexperts, appreciate your advice as always!

Magentasue

mickym wrote: »

Yep agree there, but when looking into my purchase was advised by others that had similar that it didnt add much to the electric bill. (I expected to pay more for it, but didnt think this bill was high due to just that)

So is almost £573 a fair amount to pay in our circumstances then? We did use the heating a fair bit in the snowy weather we had in Feb/March, but have hardly had it on since it becoming milder.

Remember, as I said, we hardly ever heat water with our boiler and we use heating sparingly.

The heating will be the villain here. But a plasma TV will probably cost twice as much as an LCD model the same size, and electric showers can add up to as much as, or more than heating a tankful of water. Dehumidifier could be another 4kwha day if on all day. As said, your bill isn't bad for all electric and could be so much worse if you used more heating etc.

mickym

thank you for your advice and feedback...would appreciate some more from others too if they have a similar situation to us.

Without getting into a LCD vs Plasma debate, its often a common misconception that Plasmas use more than LCD in terms of power.

Due to the way each works, the power they consume is different. An all white screen on a plasma will mean it will be using its max consumption, an all black screen will be drawing its lowest. So the power consumption isnt constant and depends on what you are watching.

LCDs on he other hand are backlit and draw pretty much the same power all the time... so really it balances out.

From the readings i have presented.... is there a chance we may have paid too little on our last bill (£282), and we are paying for it now by making up for what was estimated?