Sky-high Electricity Bill - Please Advise!

guitarbloke

I posted this on the wrong are of the forums this morning so please accept my apologies if any of you have already read this post!

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Hi everyone,

I really hope someone here can give me some advice as I'm so worried at the moment...

My girlfriend and I moved into our first place together exactly 4 weeks ago - it's a rented 1 bedroom 'cottage' (imagine a very small 1 bed bungalow) - combined living room/kitchen and a separate bedroom and bathroom.

It is electricity only - no gas - the heating installed by the landlord is these funny kind of plug in radiators - they look like flat metal plates fixed to the wall. There is one in the living room and one in the bedroom but that's it. The ceilings are very high and the whole place is cold all the time. We bought 2 x 1kw oil-filled radiators from B&Q which we have in the bedroom and leave on all day and night - we turn them way down when we leave for work in the morning and have them on about 1/2 - 3/4 heat when we are home.

There is also an electric fire in the living room which is switched on the moment we get home to warm the place up - we tend to leave this on for 2 or 3 hours each evening.

We don't have any computers there and the only electrical appliances we run are the kitchen bits - oven/fridgefreezer - and TV/DVD player/Sky box.

Our landlord called and gave Eon the meter reading when we first moved in, and this morning I called Eon myself and gave an updated reading.

They say that using the new reading I gave them today, they can see that in the last 4 weeks we have used £155 electricity.

Can this be right? We are out at work for 10 hours each day during the week and watch TV for maybe 4 hours a night. We don't use the hot water apart from washing up (there is no shower installed so we are going to my girlfriend's mum's house each day for showers until the landlord fits us a mixer shower).

Problem is, we can't go on paying £155 a month in electricity; surely that's a crazy amount?

Is there anything you can point out that we are doing wrong that could run up such a bill - i.e the oil-filled radiators/fire etc? I can't believe that they would cost that much though - can they??

The landlord reckons that he stayed in the property for 6 months while his house was renovated last year and paid £50 a month in electricity.

He built the place himself, so I'm assuming it's all insulated properly etc.

Sorry if this message is a bit garbled, I'm still reeling from the news of our first bill amount, and pulling my hair out trying to work out how to get it down without turning off the heating and freezing to death!!

Thanks

Sean

Andy_WSM

For an all electric property it doesn't sound too far off the mark.

Assume 10p per kw/h of electricity:

So your bedroom heaters are each costing 10p for every hour they are on (don't forget the thermostat will cause them to go on & off, but at 1Kw they are likely to be on more than off).

The electric fire in the living room is likely to be as much as 3Kw, so 30pence per hour.

You can see that it is easy to "burn" the £s with electric heating...

Electric heating is the most expensive form of heating there is, costing nearly 3 times that of gas heating.

charis18uk

Taking into account your heating costs, it maybe more economical to consider moving long term. The heating system seems very inadequate for any sort of property and a particularly expensive way of doing things.

The landlord may well of only paid £50 per month but maybe he's an eskimo!!!

I don't have electricity for heating and have a below average usage and pay about £22 per month so £50 sounds very unrealistic (or perhaps he would tell you anything to rent the property).

You assume the house is well insulated, but I would ask/check and get the landlord to rectify this if there is any issues.

I don't lightly say 'move' but look at it as an option. I did it once and despite paying more in rent actually ended up with a better property and less to pay once ALL bils were taken into account.

PasturesNew

If you've never left home before, it may come as a surprise just how much heating does cost.

What people in your situation would tend to do is:
- have heating on for about an hour before you get up, turn it off when you get up as you'll be gone/out before it gets cold
- have heating on for about 2-3 hours max in the evening
- dress up warm, always wear socks, always have slippers/shoes on
- wear a hat at particularly cold times
- sit under a blanket on the sofa in the evenings
- block any/all draughts you can find with draught excluders

Find out how much eon's electricity is costing you per unit. It might even be 15p/unit. Every company is different, find out your rate.
Find out how powerful EACH of your heaters is. Anything rated 1kWh/1kW will be using 1 unit per hour; if it's a 2kW fire it'll be using 2 units per hour ....

Be aware of how much you actually have the heaters on and how much each is costing you.

guitarbloke

Bit of an update to our electricity situation.

Last night I asked to landlord for the key to double check the electricity meter reading and we got into a discussion about why it was so high.

He explained to us that there is a water pump on our property which is suplpying water to the other 3 nearby cottages (he estimates this as costing around £40 a month as that's what the he was being billed for the place when it was standing empty).

He has made us the following offer - he will transfer the electricty bill into his name and pay it every month in return for us paying £100 extra in rent each month. Since we've been faced with a bill of £155 this month I'm thinking that this seems like a good idea - I know we'd be overpaying in the summer, but I guess the other 3 cottages will use more water in the warmer months (more showers etc) and it would also put us in credit for the winter I'd guess too.

Do you think this is a good deal that we've been offered?

Andy_WSM

guitarbloke wrote: »

Bit of an update to our electricity situation.

Last night I asked to landlord for the key to double check the electricity meter reading and we got into a discussion about why it was so high.

He explained to us that there is a water pump on our property which is suplpying water to the other 3 nearby cottages (he estimates this as costing around £40 a month as that's what the he was being billed for the place when it was standing empty).

He has made us the following offer - he will transfer the electricty bill into his name and pay it every month in return for us paying £100 extra in rent each month. Since we've been faced with a bill of £155 this month I'm thinking that this seems like a good idea - I know we'd be overpaying in the summer, but I guess the other 3 cottages will use more water in the warmer months (more showers etc) and it would also put us in credit for the winter I'd guess too.

Do you think this is a good deal that we've been offered?

Good of him to tell you this AFTER you mention bigger than expected bills!

The other way of dealing with it is to have him run the pump from a plug in energy monitor to see exactly what it costs each month and he reimburses you for it. However; I suspect the pump in reality would cost much less than £40 a month to run - don't forget this £40 while the property was empty would also include standing charge or Tier 1 units, so I think you could gain by taking up his offer.

dazzer68

this is not an accepetable way of telling you. this should have been made clear when you took the property on. if he was living there for £50 amonth why is he happy to charge you £100?
did you get the property through an agent? if you did ask them for the tenants pack which will you give you the rating on the property(for insulation ,lighting thermal qualities etc).this is a legal requirement, if it was done privately he still needs to provide you with one.
otherwise i would seriously think about moving.it may be a cheaper property initially but these type of properties are expensive to run as they have been bought upto date.
we rent a one bedroom bungalow to two people and they pay about £20 a week electricity, and thats a completly electric powered house( on a key meter so the tenants know what they are spending and can budget accordingly) are you tied in for 6 months?
his offers does seem quite a good deal for you though as at least your be able to put the heating on more and warm the place up!

spiro

To be fair to both parties and if you plan to be there for some time suggest to the landlord that he buy an electricity meter and gets in installed on the supply to the pump. That way the pump usage will be accurately recorded. This wont cost much to buy http://universalmeterservices.co.uk/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=6&products_id=52&zenid=4510e44200b8f86000cabd59640037be

The bill can then be in either name and the cost of running the pump can be accurately deducted from the bill.

Legally the landllord can not make a profit from the supply of elec which is ok if you use more than the agreed £s worth per month but not if you dont.

This route will also allow you to try a save money by reducing you useage.

Eydon

Personally, I'd take him up on the offer - and then go and buy some more/bigger heaters and get a 10.5kW electric shower fitted

guitarbloke

dazzer68 wrote: »

this is not an accepetable way of telling you. this should have been made clear when you took the property on. if he was living there for £50 amonth why is he happy to charge you £100?
did you get the property through an agent? if you did ask them for the tenants pack which will you give you the rating on the property(for insulation ,lighting thermal qualities etc).this is a legal requirement, if it was done privately he still needs to provide you with one.
otherwise i would seriously think about moving.it may be a cheaper property initially but these type of properties are expensive to run as they have been bought upto date.

Well, when we first moved in, he told us he had been paying around £40-50 a month for electric when he lived there. But now that I think about it, that can't be correct as last night he mentioned that when he moved back into his own house and the cottage stood empty he was still being billed aorund £40 a month for it's electricity... He attributes this £40 a month charge to the water pump and to the outside lights which he had set on a timer (which we have now asked him to disable for us).

This wasn't via an agent - we saw his ad in the local paper and just went for it (despite our electricity bill woes, the rural location is beautiful). He had a contract drawn up by his solicitor which looks all above board (but then again, I'm no expert in these matters!).

guitarbloke

Eydon wrote: »

Personally, I'd take him up on the offer - and then go and buy some more/bigger heaters and get a 10.5kW electric shower fitted

LOL :rotfl:Unfortunately though, he made it clear last night that if we take him up on the offer, and the "take the p*ss", we'll be having a chat. He's been really good to us so far as well, so I'd feel terrible if we took the pee.