Parents' £80 Elec. bill p.m, surely too much?Emersion heater?

buel

Hello,
my parents live in a 2up 2 down country cottage, they are both retired and therefore spend most of their time there. They have one tv, a microwave, use gas to boil their kettle (i believe using a kettle is a big electric user) and have two computers (one desktop and one laptop) on most of the time.
They have oil fired central heating to heat their water and heat their radiators BUT...my mother gets up at 6.30 am and my Dad at 7.30 am, my Dad has several spinal problems so needs a warm/hot bath every morning but if my mum puts the oil fired (kerosene) water heating on when she gets up, their bedroom where my Dad is, gets very hot indeed as the pipes leading to the water tank are not 'lagged' that well so my mum had, up until i nearly had a heart attack when she told me yesterday, been putting their emersion heater on for an hour a day at 6.30am so my Dad could have a hot bath.
They are on a pre-payment meter from Scottish Power and spend around £80 per month just on electric. I consider this a huge amount, especially as they use gas to boil their kettle and oil (kerosene) to heat their home and to heat their water (other than that early morning burst).
I suggested that my mum try the emersion heater for just 30 minutes, instead of an hour, yesterday to see if that heats the water up enough and thankfully it did but my question today to anyone who can help is am i correct in thinking that the emersion heater is a huge user of electric and is probably the main reason for their £80 per month electricity bill?

Andy_WSM

buel wrote: »

my question today to anyone who can help is am i correct in thinking that the emersion heater is a huge user of electric and is probably the main reason for their £80 per month electricity bill?

Yes & No. Big user yes (not huge - that would be something like an electric shower), main reason for £80 bill, no.

An immersion heater uses ~33p/hr if the tank is cold - i.e. less once the tank has warmed up as it switches itself off.

Reasoning for answer:

A Kw/h of electricity is approx 11p depending on Tariff.
An immersion heater is rated at 3Kw/h
3 * 11p = 33p per hour maximum running cost.
- Or ~£10 a month if used for 1 hour a day, 30 days a month.

If the tank reaches temperature then the running cost will reduce as the immersions thermostat will switch it off.

KimYeovil

It will not be the immersion heater. An immersion heater is typically only 3 kW. So an hour a day for 30 days is only 90 kWh. 90 units would only cost £12 (including tier 1) on a basic tariff. Adding 50% for a prepayment, say, is only £18. Plus, of course, the thermostat should kick in long before then - I imagine you can easily halve that amount (ie, on full blast for 20 minutes then just bubbling now and then for the other 40 minutes.) It should not cost more than a tenner per month.

The problem must lie in the cost of the tariff and other uses elsewhere.

Edit: [snap!]

buel

Thank you for the brilliant answers!
I was under the impression that pre-payment meters were not 'allowed' to more expensive than 'normal' non-pre-payment meters?
Would it be advantageous for me to find out what tarrif my parents are on and post it here?

buel

Update:
My mother has just told me that she has discovered that the tumble dryer, which she can use four times every 2 days, uses 90p per load!
This works out to £54 a month!! There lies the problem i guess!!

moonrakerz

buel wrote: »

Update:
My mother has just told me that she has discovered that the tumble dryer uses 90p per load!

I don't know how she "discovered" this, because it isn't correct.

A tumbler usually is rated at 2 to 3kW. It isn't "on" all the time as the thermostat will cut in and out and as the washing gets dryer this is "sensed" and the machine will use even less electricity. Obviously a load of thin shirts and underwear will dry a lot quicker than load of bath towels - so to ascribe a cost of 90p to a load is completely "over the top".

Even assuming the thing is "on" all the time the useage would be around 3kWh to dry a load.

At 10 to 12p per kWh - NOT 90P !

But it is cheaper to hang them on the line.................

buel

Hmmmm....interesting stuff!! I shall inform her and report back.....(thanks for the help/advice)...

savemoney

Yes 90p is a lot for a tumble, I say no more than 20p

PasturesNew

Check how long she has the tumble drier on for. Is she continually checking until things are JUST dry, or does she turn it on and leave it for 2-3 hours (or more), "to make sure they're dry"?

buel

Hmmmm....interesting stuff!! I shall inform her and report back.....(thanks for the help/advice)...

buel

Ok, the answer i got is: Checked smaller load today and it was 60p. Mind you, the washing mashine is useless at spinning so it is quite wet'!
Any help?