Electricity Costs / hour

samrt99

Does anyone know if £1.30 / hour is an excessive cost to run an electric wet central heating system?
I set up an electric monitor gadget yesterday (courtesy of British Gas - it was a freebie when i moved to them as my supplier) and can see that this morning when i have my central heating on / tv / laptop all running the cost is near on £1.30 / hour.
My electricity bills in winter are horrendous. Last winter with just me and my other half living in a 3 bed modern flat i was paying circa £180 / month on electric. I have no gas supply in the flat.
Curious to know if anyone knows if this could be a faulty heating system or if this really how much we should be paying to heat our home?
Thermostat is set to 20c. When the heating is not on the cost per hour = £0.08 / hour. (i just switched it momentarily to hot water being on only and straight away it dropped to £0.08).
Is electric central heating really supposed to cost so much?!
Appreciate your thoughts.....

daveyjp

There should be a plate on the boiler which states its power consumption.

£1.30 an hour suggests the boiler is rated at about 10kW - not excessive for what is in effect a large kettle.

KimYeovil

How much does it 'cost' after it has been on for an hour or three? - that is the more important figure. Are you using the tier 2 price in your monitor?

You should also read your real meter before and after an evening's session of heating - that consumption in kWhs is a far more useful figure.

samrt99

Thanks for your posts folks. I had a look at the boiler and it states that it's a;
12 inch immersion heater rated at 3 kilowatts , 240v 1 phase, Capacity 300 litres.

Consumption in kW is circa 10.47 when the boiler is 'on'. Had another look tonight and actually regardless of whether the boiler is powering hot water only OR hot water AND central heating the price / hour shoots way up to about the £1.50 mark and the 10.47 kW. Just seems incredibly expensive :-(
The monitor is set to tariff 1. So for today for rougly an hour of heating and hot water and this evenings electric consumption it has cost £2.57 (no usage through the day as house was empty).

When the boiler isn't on at all and the electric is only being used to power tv / lights etc the monitor shows very little usage.

I am dreading winter and paying £10 / day in electric......:eek:
Does anyone else have similar costs?

Thanks again everyone...:beer:

Andy_WSM

samrt99 wrote: »

< snip >shoots way up to about the £1.50 mark and the 10.47 kW. Just seems incredibly expensive :-(

As Kim has already alluded to, it sounds likely you have the wrong price set on your monitor. 10.4Kw/h is more like £1 an hour than £1.50. Big difference.

However; that aside. Your wet electric central heating is just about the most expensive form of heating there is. Sorry.