Need Help Asap! Huge Electric Bill!

j2dao2dae

Hi there,

I am in need of some help rather fast! I have just moved into a small one bedroom flat with my partner. We have only been there a week however are rather scared by the electric bill. We a bill for the landlord but opened it due to no name being on it. The received bill was for £178.00 for 2 weeks in January, just before we moved in. Going by our calculations and readings off the meter we would have to pay around £250.00 a month !!! We are both not there in the day and only watch tv by night, we have even stopped washing the clothes in the washing machine to see if this makes a difference. We have been onto the landlord who says this is not right and our bill should be about £30 a month. We are on Eco 7 with everything being electric.

Does anyone know a rough price we should be paying a month and is the £250.00 out of this world?

Many thanks for your help!!!!

Rikki

Ignore the previous bill. Its before you moved in. You cannot guess you potential usage based on this bill.

You have the meter reading you took from when you moved in and took over the electricity. Take regular readings and run the flat as you would normally. That is the only way you can work out your personal usage.

sarah_elton

I'm in a two bedroom flat and my electricity averages out to about £70 a month over the year. In winter the quarterly bill works out to more than this due to the heating, and in summer its less. I'm expecting my winter quarterly bill to be about £400.

I have one large and one medium sized storage heater, electric oven/hob, and run all the usual household stuff. My usage is probably above average though as we don't have energy saving light bulbs and have the TV and various computers on a lot. Having said that we're both out at work full time as well.

mlz1413

As you are really worried spend a weekend doing this and it should put your mind at rest.

take a meter reading and then unplug everything , alarm clock, toaster, hair dryer, mobile chargers, washing machine, tv etc etc. Does the meter stop? The answer should be yes.

Then plug all the items in one by one, does the meter go mad? watch for about 1 to 5 mins on each item, if anything sends the meter spinning unplug it and leave it to the side, when everything is plugged in take another meter reading then take a reading hourly noting which items are used in each period. Is the useage constant? If yes everything should be fine.

If you know the tariff you are on and the unit charges you maybe able to calculate your bill, but remember the unit charge on the bill is not directly related to the units on the meter, electric is normally on KwH (Kilo Watt Hour).

fishpond

The received bill was for £178.00 for 2 weeks in January.
Was this an actual reading or estimated?

Wickedkitten

mlz1413 wrote: »

As you are really worried spend a weekend doing this and it should put your mind at rest.

take a meter reading and then unplug everything , alarm clock, toaster, hair dryer, mobile chargers, washing machine, tv etc etc. Does the meter stop? The answer should be yes.

Then plug all the items in one by one, does the meter go mad? watch for about 1 to 5 mins on each item, if anything sends the meter spinning unplug it and leave it to the side, when everything is plugged in take another meter reading then take a reading hourly noting which items are used in each period. Is the useage constant? If yes everything should be fine.

If you know the tariff you are on and the unit charges you maybe able to calculate your bill, but remember the unit charge on the bill is not directly related to the units on the meter, electric is normally on KwH (Kilo Watt Hour).

Adding onto that, Lidl have in energy monitors from today

http://www.lidl.co.uk/uk/home.nsf/pages/c.o.20090212.p.Energy_Monitor.ar4

ALISCOTLAND

Our bill just this morning was £873! That was just for 87 days and almost £200 dearer than normal. That works out at nearly £90 per week. We suspect that it could be the heating system putting it up and I am seriously considering switching it of through the day.We also have an oil fired stanley fire, similar to aga and think that that could be cheaper!

Wickedkitten

ALISCOTLAND wrote: »

Our bill just this morning was £873! That was just for 87 days and almost £200 dearer than normal. That works out at nearly £90 per week. We suspect that it could be the heating system putting it up and I am seriously considering switching it of through the day.We also have an oil fired stanley fire, similar to aga and think that that could be cheaper!

O_o

What the......

Does your house have any insulation at all?

Chris2685

That is mental.

We got our first bill in the flat, and it was around £230 for 2 and a half months.
Not too bad I guess, but still a lot of money. We were REALLY trying to conserve the electric too, in the hopes that the bill would be really low and we could justify using more when it came through. Alas, it is quite high (in my opinion) and so we are continuing to live with minimal heating (only a single storage heater in the whole flat is on, with one on a thermostat in the bedroom overnight due to having baby).

£250 a month sounds insane though!

ALISCOTLAND

We live in an old farmhouse, quite drafty with partial doubleglazing! The boiler that we have is probably now about 12 years old. It was a former partner ,business, who put it in and he thought that it was the best! Yeah, maybe for a small flat!!
This thing has 4 immersian (sp) heaters on it and works on thecomfort plus white meter tarriff. We get cheap ? 5.807p/kw night time and daytme is 12.848p/kw. There is a control tarrif at 5.166p/kwStanding charge is 21.880p/day. We are with Scottish Power.
Like I said seriously thinking of switching it off and seeing if the stanley is any better.
We also have a log burning stove in the sitting room.

RandomDan

j2dao2dae wrote: »

Hi there,

I am in need of some help rather fast! I have just moved into a small one bedroom flat with my partner. We have only been there a week however are rather scared by the electric bill. We a bill for the landlord but opened it due to no name being on it. The received bill was for £178.00 for 2 weeks in January, just before we moved in. Going by our calculations and readings off the meter we would have to pay around £250.00 a month !!! We are both not there in the day and only watch tv by night, we have even stopped washing the clothes in the washing machine to see if this makes a difference. We have been onto the landlord who says this is not right and our bill should be about £30 a month. We are on Eco 7 with everything being electric.

Does anyone know a rough price we should be paying a month and is the £250.00 out of this world?

Many thanks for your help!!!!

Are you electric only, or do you also have gas? I am in a 1 bedroomed flat with electric only and pay £50/month and I consider that high.

What I suspect has happened is that the landlord took an actual meter reading before you moved in and the previous bills have been based on estimated readings; so this bill was the first proper reading for some time and the high figure was down to the discrepancy. Ask your LL if this is the case.

Other than that, do as mlz1413 suggests to check if something else other than your flat is making the meter spin.