Are we being charged too much??

CambridgeSaver

Hello All

Help please! I live with my mum in a normal 2 bed house and have a dual fuel account (but have disconnected the Gas a while ago). We have just finished paying of a large balance and hoping the monthly payments will go down. Eon have said that our monthly payments will go down to £209, but surely this is still stupidly high!

We are with Eon on the Economy 7 package, both of us work full time so we don't use stupid amounts of electric and always fill out the meter reading cards when come through the door.

The last bill received the figures were:
5/11/09 - 12/2/10
Primary - 244 kWh
Secondary - 3717 kWh
Night - 1640 kWh
Price - £658.88

12/2/10 - 22/5/10
Primary - 244 kWh
Secondary - 5524 kWh
Night - 1100 kWh
Price - £885.12 !!!!!

I'm worried now there maybe an problem with our meter or we had a new fuse box installed a while ago could that be an issue? If anyone can provide any advice before I ring Eon about this we would be very gratefull.

michael50

Im no expert but over £50 per week electricity for a two bedroom house seems extortionate to me.

I hope you never disconnected your own gas :mad:

CambridgeSaver

Thanks for reply. We had qualified gas fitters disconnect the supply but never got around to changing the plan. However Gas on the statement is £0.00 and the reading is set as 99998 and doesn't change. Does anyone know if electric is charged more on dual fuel plans? The prices are

1st - 29.14p per kWh
2nd - 13.85 per kWh
night - 4.45 per kWh

penrhyn

In 6 months you have used 12,469 Kilowatt hours of electricity.
Roughly 68 Kilowatt hours per day or 3 Kw per hour.
You could conceivably use this amount with an immersion heater on 24/7 and using an awful lot of hot water from an uninsulated tank, plus electric heating and cooking.
Have you looked at the meter?

You are using way too much the national average is around 10,000 Kwh per year.

BTW It cost roughly 4 times as much to heat with electricity than it does with gas.

Premier_2

penrhyn wrote: »

In 6 months you have used 12,469 Kilowatt hours of electricity.
Roughly 68 Kilowatt hours per day or 3 Kw per hour.
...

What's worse is that in the latter 3 months, when one would hope consumption reduced from the typical heavier winter quarter, the OP's consumption increased to over 76kWh per day on average; over 3kWh per hour :eek:

In reality, even more as the night time usage suggests about 12 kWh per hour for the 7 hours it applies. (approx 1.7kWh per hour); so about 3.75kWh per hour for every daytime hour on average.

I would suggest the OP first goes around the house and turns off every electrical item they have .. and checks to see the meter stops. Then turns on only those items absolutely necessary, and only for the duration they are required.

There seems to be ample opportunity to make significant savings here.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi CambridgeSaver

That really is a lot of electricity for the type of property you describe.

There is already some good advice on here; thought I would just add a few points.

Firstly, our electricity unit rates are the same on dual fuel plans and electric only tariffs. However, the discounts available will be different and these may or may not be of benefit.

I would check out the full range of options open to you, both with us and other suppliers.

For instance, there are extra discounts for paying with a Direct Debit and managing your account online.

Pop your usage in kWh on to one of the comparison sites. This will list out all the tariffs available from all the suppliers. Choose the one best suited for your particular circumstances.

Another thing to be aware of is the amount of electricity you are using at night.

Economy 7 day prices are higher than single rate tariffs. Therefore, to benefit from Economy 7, a certain percentage of usage needs to be on the lower rate. This percentage differs depending on the region.

From the figures posted, I suspect you are not fully benefiting from Economy 7.

It is very easy to switch to a single rate product. A meter change is not necessary as we simply add the day and night usage together and charge on one rate.

However, this may not be the better option given you no longer have gas and, presumably, heat the property entirely by electric. As penrhyn says, electric heating is more expensive than gas.

What type of heaters do you have? Generally, Economy 7 benefits people with storage heaters. These are charged up during the cheaper off peak night period. The heat is stored up and released throughout the day.

Other types of heater use electricity during the more expensive day period.

I would contact our Energy Efficiency team and tell them about your water/heating set up. Also, give them a list of all the other appliances at the property. They will advise the best way to proceed.

Hope this helps a little CambridgeSaver. Give me a shout if you need any more info as will be happy to help.

Malc