Some info and help please re electricity tariffs

TotalDespair

Due to a recent relationship breakdown I now find myself in rented property.
I have a one bedroomed ground floor flat. It has one storage heater in the living room and bedroom and these are the only form of heating in the place.
I have an electric shower and both the bathroom and the kitchen sink water is heated by small electric heaters.
NPower are the electric company the previous tenants had so I have stayed with them for ease of getting in to the flat quickly.

Im new to this form of heating so NPower have told me the following

Night Rate is 4.5 p per unit

Day Rate is 23.1p for the first two units then 16.11 p per unit after that.

The Night Rate runs from 11pm to 7am.

All I will be running is an electric cooker and a fridge..
I know I have to live here a while to guage what it will really cost longterm but as its an old house, no insulation, large sash windows single glazed painted shut with no ventilation other than opening the back door and there is evidence of bad mould even though the Landlord has refurbished the place its likley to be a cold draughty place I reckon but it was the only place that would take a DSS tenant
at short notice within my means

Is Npower the most cost effective company to be with?

L:(

notbritishgas

TotalDespair wrote: »

Due to a recent relationship breakdown I now find myself in rented property.
I have a one bedroomed ground floor flat. It has one storage heater in the living room and bedroom and these are the only form of heating in the place.
I have an electric shower and both the bathroom and the kitchen sink water is heated by small electric heaters.
NPower are the electric company the previous tenants had so I have stayed with them for ease of getting in to the flat quickly.

Im new to this form of heating so NPower have told me the following

Night Rate is 4.5 p per unit

Day Rate is 23.1p for the first two units then 16.11 p per unit after that.

The Night Rate runs from 11pm to 7am.

All I will be running is an electric cooker and a fridge..
I know I have to live here a while to guage what it will really cost longterm but as its an old house, no insulation, large sash windows single glazed painted shut with no ventilation other than opening the back door and there is evidence of bad mould even though the Landlord has refurbished the place its likley to be a cold draughty place I reckon but it was the only place that would take a DSS tenant
at short notice within my means

Is Npower the most cost effective company to be with?

L:(

Just a couple of points to make you aware of.
The higher rate units will be 2 per day (728 per year).
The night rate times will be 7 hours between the times quoted, although in my area the times were 1am to 8am.
Now to your question, to check if npower are cheapest you will need your prospective yearly kwh figure, now I know you will not have that as you have not moved in yet.
Could you ask the outgoing tenant or the letting agency if they could help. Then enter into a comparison site to see which supplier is most cost effective.
Npower will almost certainly put you on their most expensive tariff so when you ring them to register and give the opening readings make sure you ask for a cheaper tariff.
If you cannot find the usage figure you may have to guess, if you use a figure of say 20000kwh then that should indicate which suppiers/tariffs come out top, although it may not give you any idea of your future costs.

dogshome

Hi TotalDespair - This flat seems to be very badly equiped
Usually with ECO 7 heating, as well as Storage radiators you have a well insulated hot water cylinder that cooks up hot water overnight on the cheap rate, but from your post it appears you do not one and the bathroom & kitchen hot water is supplied by on-demand "Sadia" type water heaters

This is bad news as each time you draw hot water in the kitchen or bathroom, each of these heaters is burning power at the very expensive day rate, likewise your electric shower.

If you can post your consumption figures/period you have been in the flat, some one on the site will give you a rough idea of your annual consumption to enter into the Switch sites,
but the bottom line is that the power bills for this flat are always going to be very BIG and your best bet is to move when your lease expires

Premier_2

A bit off topic, but no matter what you pay for rent, the LL is expected to provide some basics such as windows that open to provide ventilation as required ... especially if the lack of such is the cause of mould you describe.

If the LL is not prepared to bring the property up to a decent level of repair, contact Shelter for more information or contact your local council and ask to speak to their private rentals officer who will investigate and may demand improvements from the LL.

jordylass

I don't want to hijack your thread but I'm in a similar position although my house does have the tank, but no shower.
I'd been thinking to have a shower installed, but could be thinking incorrectly that one shower a day heated on day rates would work out cheaper than a tank of water at night rates? Does anyone know how I can find this out?
Also what would be the most cost effective supplemental heater to put into the living room. It's just to warm the place up for a couple of hours in the evening. I don't really want to put the storage heaters on, as it's warm enough through the day and they've pretty much gone cold by night.

TotalDespair

hi

hi Jordylass

no needto worry about hijacking my thread the more the merrier, Id be interestred in some answers to supplemental heating too, I dont think I can afford to have the storage heaters on, unless I have a root round to find a different elec supplier cheaper than Npower.

my flat is nice n that they have refurbished the kitchen and bathroom, immaculaley decorated but evidence of bad mould in bathroom and theres only one small fan in there and one in the kitchen.

Im also trying to work out how the meter clicks on to cheap rate at night as there isnt any timers on the storage heaters and the thought of a horrendous large ele bill fills me with horror as Im on a extremely limited budget so am going to look at the other suppliers prices.

there was an excellent thread on here that I read earlier last year about things you can do to make your flat warmer and cut your leccie bill, thing s liked lined curtains and doorstops and heavy curtains over the doors, must go and do a search for that again, start now and start saving up for a newer more modern place thats easier to heat
Its a shame as this has lovley large rooms has been beautifully decorated, all the original cornices and ceiling rosesand original wooden doors and windows that are ill fitted and draughty lol ah well we cant have ebverything can we and the moment any roof over my head is preferable to my past place with an ex that didnt know when to stop spending lol

Lx:p

must delete my siggy thing at the botom lol due to changed circumstances

jordylass

Seems like our situations are very similar.. My flat has also been completely refurbed new bathroom and kitchen, although the furniture they put in is extremely cheap. I'm trying to find stuff via freecylce/gumtree/ebay. I could cry for all the beautiful things I've built up over the years and now left with ex, BUT it's worth it.
There is a gas meter here, and LL is saying that come winter they may change the heating. At least it gives me breathing space to look for something more convenient.
I think they are going to put an electric shower in, if that's the case I'm almost certain I'd be better off on regular (cheapest I can find) electric, at least through the summer.

Premier_2

jordylass wrote: »

I don't want to hijack your thread but I'm in a similar position although my house does have the tank, but no shower.
I'd been thinking to have a shower installed, but could be thinking incorrectly that one shower a day heated on day rates would work out cheaper than a tank of water at night rates? Does anyone know how I can find this out?
Also what would be the most cost effective supplemental heater to put into the living room. It's just to warm the place up for a couple of hours in the evening. I don't really want to put the storage heaters on, as it's warm enough through the day and they've pretty much gone cold by night.

Probably no significant saving.

A 5 minute shower uses about 1/3 the amount of water a typical bath does ... but day rates are typically 2-3 times the cheap night rate.

A shower is often nicer or at least more convienient than taking a bath.

But then again, you'll still need to heat up the hot water otherwise you'll have no running hot water for other daily activities e.g. washing hands, dishes, etc.

Regarding the storage heating, are you using it correctly? A modern stoarge heater should still give out plenty of heat in the eveing if correctly adjusted (and would probably still have lots of heat for the next day too even if not heated up that night)
Make sure the output dial on the storage heater is set to minimum before warming up overnight and leave it that way for as long as possible ... you may not ever need to touch it. If it is feeling cold in the evening, that is when to turn up the output dial ... but remember to turn it down again before the next heating cycle, and perhaps turn up the input dial a little more so as to prevent having to do the same next evening.

(Extremely old storage heaters may not have an output dial or retain heat sufficiently, in which case consider changing them for a newer model)