Changing utility usage when moving to bigger house

Jo_R_2

Hi all

Me and the family (me, OH, kids aged 5, 3 and 6 months) moved two months ago to here:D 3 bed semi-detached, living room/dining room/small kitchen/conservatory/upstairs bathroom with shower and bath/downstairs shower room and toilet.

I've been through the process of sorting out gas and leccy and am with Eon for both. Now it's sorted I have a DD for £73 for both gas and elec, which has gone up from £66 for both at my last house (an end terrace two-up two down.) I have a debit on my account of approx £130 - which I expected with it being winter) and want to keep on top of it.

I'm completely paranoid about using too much electricity and gas. This house has storage heaters (last had GFCH) and I happened to bump into the mum of the chap who lived here before us, and she said they had an astronomical electricity bill from using the storage heaters which is mainly why they moved:eek: So said heaters are firmly switched off (I eye them with wariness anyway.)

I'm also finding myself doing two loads of washing a day - I should really be doing this at night shouldn't I - but that would mean getting up in the middle of the night to put the washing on!

Oh's mum bought us a tumble dryer as a present which is sat in the conservatory next to the fridge freezer so worried about a) rise in elec as I have been using the tumble dryer with glee (up til now:o) rather than having airers sat about everywhere when the weather's rubbish, and b) having fridge freezer firstly in conservatory where it gets red hot and also next to dryer.

We also have fans on in two bedrooms at night all night (I'm silly but I can't sleep without the noise of it and the rooms get quite warm.)

The water is heated twice a day for an hour each time, once in the afternoon and once from 3-4am. These are the set times from the landlord programming it in when he lived here but I have no idea how to figure out what we *should* be using and if we can reduce it Me and OH have a shower every day, baby has a small bath most nights and older kiddies have a bath prob twice a week. I wash up at least three times a day.

I'm a bit clueless tbh, I kind of want to have my things (ie to use the tumble dryer here, there and everywhere, it's great, never had one before!) but not the bill for it:o Not going to happen I know but how can I scour our usage and cut down?

KimYeovil

I'm not sure I understand your post. You have summarised the problems. You know the expenses. You know the solutions. It is up to you to act and resolve the situation. We can't control your household's behaviour remotely.

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Hi Jo_R

Kim is correct, you do seem to know exactly what uses alot of electricity, therefore, the only way to keep the bills lower is to cut down on these things.

Electric heating can be very expensive, especially to heat a larger house.

I would make sure you are on the best possible tariff for you, ask E.ON if you would be better with E7 or not, this can be calculated for you, if it works out better on E7 try and get things on timers, so you don't have to get up in the night.

Make sure your payments are covering your usage, the best thing to do is to go in to the winter with a credit on your account, as this will help go towards the larger bills.

Speak to the energy efficiency department, get the tips on how to save energy and money.

Hope this helps

Helena