Can my electricity bill be correct?

hmf_2

Hello all,

My Mum has recently received her first electricity bill in her new home for £450 for 2.5 months!
Naturally shes really worried about using her night storage heaters now.
She has two small storage heaters which she did have switched on for 24 hours a day for probably 2 months after following friends advice that they do the same!
She lives in a 1 bedroom house alone and uses very little electricity other than the dreaded night storage heaters.

Any advice would be great.

I have set her heaters on timers now to work between 12-7am now that we understand that there is a different price of electricity at night.

My mums bill shows her average usage as 1610kwh per month which averages out at a cost of approx £215 per month. My mum has a low paid job and in her fifthties cannot afford to pay bills like this.

She has phoned a helpline regarding help with the cost of installing gas central heating but was told that she was not entilted to this unless on benefits and her working tax credits did not count so she is stuck with her two storage heaters which do not keep her house warm even when were switched on day and night.

Thanks in advance for any help

freddysmith

Why not phone the Electricity supplier about this bill?

Magentasue

This sounds quite normal. Your mum's experience of storage heaters sounds like mine - we moved into a house one October. There were two storage heaters and a couple of panel heaters that we hardly used. The house was cold (nice and warm where the heaters were overnight and while we were at work though) and we were buying coal to keep to keep the house warm. Cost us a fortune. Would never live in an all electric house again.

Although they are expensive to run, they use cheap rate electricity which often makes them a better bet than panel heaters.

What do mean 'you have set the heaters on timers'? Night storage heaters are wired into a 'timer' (not sure how or what) and automatically come on in the off-peak hours, store using cheaper electricity, and then release it during the day. You set the input for how much they store (mid to max) and output to control the release (zero to mid).

They are definitely storage heaters, aren't they? And she is on Econ 7, if they are?

Premier_2

Magentasue wrote: »

...They are definitely storage heaters, aren't they? And she is on Econ 7, if they are?

I'm not so sure. The OP says they have now set timers on the heaters to work only between midnight & 7am. Strange. Most storage heaters are put on an off peak only circuit that only becomes live during the hours of off peak electricity (which may or may not be midnight-7am).
The OP doesn't even mention that the mother has an E7 tariff so she may be on a single rate tariff.

hmf - if you look at your mums last bill (presumably before you put the timers on the heaters) and see how may day units and how many night units were used. More importantly, the cost of the day units in total vs the cost of the night units.
Unless the total cost of the night units used is way in excess of the day units uded, I think you've made a number of false assumptions.

hmf_2

In answer to your questions-
I assume that they are storage heaters (bricks inside). I wasn't aware that they have inbuilt timers to use the cheap electricity at night only. Is this correct? The previous owner had the heaters plugged into timers. The heaters will be around 15years old.

We now know that the meter has a day and night readings(need to press a button for second reading).

This is my mums first bill from 13/11 to 23/01 with approximately readings of-

day 3000kwh charged at 13.20p
night 920kwh charged at 5.25p

The account is set up as economy 7 rate.

I have a 3 bedroom house and my family annoyingly give no thought to leaving every light on etc yet our gas and electric bills put together are nothing like my mums electric bill.

Thanks again for anymore thoughts/advice.

My Mum is now watching how many units are used in the last 24hours.

Magentasue

Your mum is averaging 13kwh off peak and 42kwh day.

The heaters are obviously using day time electricity. Just to clarify - do they have input and output dials?

Obukit

Our storage heaters also have a "boost" function that you can switch on during the day - this is a switch and an additional dial at the front of the heater. This should be switched OFF so the heater is only using night electricity.

To put it into context, in our one-bed flat (we only have one storage heater) we've used 159 day kwh and 407 night kwh over the same time as your Mum - so much less. Our bill is £9.75 per month.

hmf_2

Magentasue wrote: »

Your mum is averaging 13kwh off peak and 42kwh day.

The heaters are obviously using day time electricity. Just to clarify - do they have input and output dials?

Yes they do have input and output dials.

I don't think there is a switch anywhere else on the heaters for boost/daytime usage as posted by another member of this site.

Thanks again

Magentasue

Does your mum know that for maximum heat she needs to set input to max and output to minimum? The heaters should be wired so that the 'storage' uses off peak electricity. Your mum is using so much electricity during the day, it suggests that they're not coming on when they should. Have things improved since you set the timers?

hmf_2

My Mum has now got the heaters set at maximum input and minimum output and they do stay reasonably warm now throughout the day.
My mum is taking daily readings of her meter at the moment for me to monitor how much electric she is using with them set on timers.
I will report back when I have the readings.

I'm hoping that the electricity usage will now be normal!

Thanks

Premier_2

hmf wrote: »

... I wasn't aware that they have inbuilt timers to use the cheap electricity at night only. Is this correct?

No, I've never seen a storage heater with an inbuilt timer.
However, the storage heaters are usually installed on a separate circuit that only becomes live when the cheap rate is on.

hmf wrote: »

The previous owner had the heaters plugged into timers. The heaters will be around 15years old.

When you say 'plugged into', are the storage heaters fitted with normal 13A plugs?
They certainly shouldn't be.
They should be hard wired into the electricity supply and ideally controlled by a double pole switch (i.e. one that custs both the live and neutral wires)


The electrical boost function as described by Obukit is not available on all storage heaters. It is essentially a convector heater fitted to the storage heater. This convector heater part only may be plugged in via a 13A plug.