Is our Electricity Bills too high

moyhim

Hello All

I would like you assistance to wether our bills are high, as it seems really high to me.
My brother suggests its right because of all the gadgets in the house, any how Ill give you the lowdown, and any feedback or suggestions are very welcome.

We are in the Manchester Area, in a 6 Bedroom Semi Detached house, with roughly around 8 persons living here.
Our Gadgets which I feel will consume alot of power consists of :
50" Plasma, 2x32" LCD TV's, A projector, PS3, 2x360 & 3 Computers.
Now that may seem alot, although bear in mind these are not all being used constantly and at the same time, although the Plasma does get watched a fair bit.

Ill find out who we are with later, but we are paying roughly around £700-£800 per quarter for electricty alone, our Gas bill comes to roughly around £200 per quarter which sounds fine to be honest, it is just the Electricity which I am unsure on.

Cardew

£700-£800 is staggeringly high if that is every quarter. When you don't heat with electricity.

That equates to around 25,000 to 30,000kWh per year. That is 8 to 10 times the UK average of 3,300.

So your daily consumption is 80 to 90kWh.

The Plasma TV can use up to 500 watts - depends how old and model; so on 12 hours it could use 6kWh a day.

2 x LCD on 12 hours say 4kWh

3 x desktop PC say 500w used 8 hours say 4kW(laptops use much less)

So a lot of use of those appliances could use 20kWh but that is really on the high side; and of course a very rough estimate.

The 'missing' 60 to 70kWh a day will normally be for appliances that heat.

A dryer used a lot for 8 people can use a lot.

Do you heat water with an immersion heater?

Electric heaters in Bedrooms?

It really is very hard to see how that amount of electricity can be used in a residential home - unless the street lights or the next door property is wired through your meter!!!!

KimYeovil

It doesn't sound that unreasonable or hard to see. It does not seem to be a residential home - it sounds like a flatshare. So there are six households. £33 per person per month.

Eight people having a five minute shower twice a day - that's one a third hours of a 12 kWh appliance. So you can easily be using 20 kWh on showers per day. (There's a quarter of your consumption in one device.) (At least. 5 minutes is short for a shower.)

Microwave cookers, kettles for 8 people (and visitors), probably more than one fridge/freezer, hair driers, irons. Toasted sandwich makers.

Projectors - every one I've seen could double up as an electric heater.

A washing machine is cheap - but eight times cheap starts to be noticeable.

dannymccann

Sounds like a student situation?

If it is, check people arent leaving things on unnecessarily as students new to this sort of thing just dont realise the cost of it!