£220 a month on electric!!!!

Enliten

Im interested to see other peoples views on this. I know electric has gone up alot recently, but scottish power have just put my Direct Debit up again to £220 a month, which seems a little high to me. To give you a little details:-

I work from home alot so i generally have 2 computers, 1 TFT switched on most of the day. I have a small fish tank (These i have used an electric monitor and dont seem to use more than 0.3 kW an hour)

I dont tend to have any heating on during the day to save costs.
We cook on electric.
The property is a double glazed bungalow in cornwall with 2 bedrooms, 2 adults and a 9 month old. I know we do run the washing machine about once a day and the tumble dryer (although that has a delay timer and so is run over night on econmy 7).
We do have night storage heaters but they are all off at the fuse box as we either use a log burner or have underfloor heating.
We heat the water using a megaflow boiler.

Ive tried several things, at present we have not have the underfloor heating on at all, we have been a little obsesive over lighting and never have more than 1 light on in the eveinngs. The water is heated in the moring and night. The washing machine is run once a day, tumble dryer is run once at about 2am so on econmy 7. Yet we are still using about 40 units a day even then.

From what scottish power are saying we use about 60-70 day units a day. I find it hard to believe other people are paying this much and i dont see how i can reduce it (apart from not heating water or the house - which trust me with no heating on the last few days has been VERY cold even with the log burner in the lounge.)

I tried calling scottish power but have a LONG chat with them i gave in at the point they insisted that even the smallest under floor heating system uses 33 units and hour!! (Ive monitored ours and it uses 3kW per hour while heating but obviously turns off when the room is at temperature)

Am I unreasonable in thinking 220 a month is alot? Is there anything im missing in saving money / electric.

Any advise would be great.

Many Thanks

Aadrian

Mandie_2

Hi,

You're not alone, I've just had my bill from Npower and they want £222 per month. this was only £22 per month when we switched a couple of years ago.

It's ridiculous.

KimYeovil

£220 for electric heating (at E7 day rates, which are more expensive than standard units) is remarkably cheap*, I'm afraid. That's only double the monthly average for someone with gas heating.

If you have no intention of using the storage heaters and are heating electrically then you should not be on E7 (although I would try the storage heaters for a while first to see what they cost.)

* Oops - okay, the direct debit is £220, not your useage. How much did you use each of the last two months?

Vestra

What is your annual usage? Do you have any arrears on your account?

savemoney

We use around 16-18 tops a day on average hardly goes down even in Summer. I am at home most days as I work from home 3-4 days a week. I have a large 24" LCD screen and energy efficient pc with 85% efficient PSU. Heating is CH so only only when its really cold during day and very low, around 16-17c

Its very expensive using electric for heating during day. I wouldnt use electric for heating my home

Dont use Tumble much, but we do have 3-4 pcs on a night at times with kids and big LCD TV. WE can use around 800-1100watts at peak time for around (2 hours at most), tv and pc's etc on

Enliten

Thanks for replies. Annually we use about 16000 Units. Im wondering if an E7 rate is a good idea or not. The storage units were in when we got the house but several were in very bad condition and I find them a bit frustrating as they are not giving out heat at the times you need them (unless its just these ones are rubbish) generally the heat has gone during the day nad isnt around by about 8 in hte evening.

Enliten

Oh ment to say, we do have a small balance to clear on the account, about 150 quid, but that has built up over the last 6 months as the 175 wasnt enough to cover the usage.

As I say we are still using around 30 - 40 units of DT electric even wihtout the heating and with not using the tumble dryer or dishwasher.

I did try leaving the hot water system on all day rahter than timing it yesterday and it did reduce the usages as some people say with these megaflow boilers being so well insulated (they basically give no heat out) its cheaper to have it just topping the heat up for say 5 mins an hour rather than having to heat all the water back up twice a day.

Adrian

Michael_Nottingham

Enliten wrote: »

Oh ment to say, we do have a small balance to clear on the account, about 150 quid, but that has built up over the last 6 months as the 175 wasnt enough to cover the usage.

The debt recovery will be driving a lot of the increase
This time of year if you are heating with Elec you should be in credit as the intent it to get you to a zero balance in the spring
Once you have paid off the debt they should review & hopefully reduce the DD
Have you thought of options to reduce your consumption, whether E7 is saving you money and whether other suppliers would be cheaper given your consumption?

Mr_No

I've been paying a lot for electricity ever since moving into my current place (8 years ago). I'm currently paying around £150pm of pure usage (no debt) whilst consuming around 31 units a day.

I've been meaning to get it checked for a while and after the recent price increase I've decided to finally get it calibrated. nPower are sending someone out in a couple of weeks but in the meantime I picked up one of Maplin's plugin meters. I've tested that with a tumble dryer and everything else in the house off and it was only 0.05 off.

Using oil heating and have the usual array of other items, few TV's, few PC's (only 1 running 24/7) etc

Enliten

I think ill have to have a look at some other suppliers - i think it might be cheaper to move away from E7, ill let you know what i find out.

System

i pay £33 pm for electric and we have at the last bill £18 credit , we have all the usual stuff but make an effort to switch things off when not in use.