Arrgh !! £450 leccy bill ,how ?

Fire_Fox

skiTTish wrote: »

Hi
Can this even be possible ?:eek:
We are with Npower and our heating /hot water are gas .
We have an electric fire which is rarely used ,maybe for an hour or two some evenings during the very cold snap.
We do have a condenser dryer ( I understand these are more expensive and less efficient to run that vented dryers ? ) and that is used maybe for an hour every 2nd or third day .

I think you are massively underestimating the cost of electric heating - three times the price of gas - what KW rating is your electric fire? How many evenings is 'some during in the very cold snap' - it was snowy/ icy for the best part of eight weeks? Do you have an electrically heated power shower? Are you still on the standard tariff with NPower? Have you run your usage figures through a price comparison site to see if NPower are competitive or expensive in your area?

skiTTish

So its possible there is nothing wrong then ?
EEk !
The fire is pretty powerful but it is thermostatically controlled and supposed to be very efficient.
Dont think we will be using it again
Total units used is nearly 3000 ,does that mean anything to you ?
The fire is Dimplex living flame thingy ,no idea od Kw's
Yep its Npower standard tarrif .
Cheers

Fire_Fox

skiTTish wrote: »

So its possible there is nothing wrong then ?
EEk !
The fire is pretty powerful but it is thermostatically controlled and supposed to be very efficient.
Dont think we will be using it again

There is no such thing as efficient electric heating: 1KW power in = 1KW heat out. If you answer my earlier questions we can tell you how likely it is your bill is correct as we can compare it to average usage/ costs in all-electric flats.

skiTTish

oops sorry ,edited last post instead of posting a new one

JennyR68

skiTTish wrote: »

Total units used is nearly 3000 ,does that mean anything to you ?

Yep I'll tell youwhat it means to me -

At around 5 months use that's 19 or 20 units a day, quite acheivable with electric heaters and tumble driers involved.

If I used 3000 units on NPower Standard Tariff it would cost me £418.40

If I used 3000 units on the best tariff I can find on switching site (EDF for me) it costs me £250.


Have you checked your on the best tariff?

newleaf

Just check round to make sure you haven't got something switched on without realising.
A cautionary tale:
When we moved into this house 10 yrs ago, there was a switch in the garage which I assumed was someting to do with the electric garage door. It wasn't, it was the blimmin backup immersion heater, and we only discovered this after receiving a ginormous leccy bill after it had been left switched on permanently for a full quarter. :eek:

macman

Immersion heater left switched on?

nifferwilko

Could the OP not call Npower, and explain that the bill was a lot higher than they were expecting, and ask for them to check the meter. As it is possible a faulty meter is involved (bit odd that noone has mentioned this). There may be a charge for this if it is found the meter isn't faulty I think (or I might be confusing this with the water meters)

mattcanary

It's best to try and test it for accuracy yourself first, I think. I wouldn't know how to do this but am sure it's possible. Otherwise the OP would be likely paying out for money that they won't ever get back (because of the charge made to test someone's meter - non-refundable if the meter is not faulty)

JennyR68

Get an Owl monitor or similar and start monitoring. When you go around swotching things on and off you can see where the power is being pulled. A plug in monitor is useful too to check how much tumble drier, fire etc is using.