advice - electric only rented propery - money saving?

relinquiae

Hi,
I have been looking at all the tips etc for homes that have no gas supply, but I am managing to get myself in a muddle.

My partner and myself have just moved in together and are renting a ground floor 1970's flat. There is no gas, everything is powered by electricity. It has single glazed windows, fairly thick walls, 2 small bedrooms and a fairly large living room, with an archway to a small kitchen. Both bedrooms, the hallway and the lounge all have storage heaters. We are on Economy 7 with Npower.
We are not 100% sure how things work yet, as once we moved in we discovered the landlord lives in New Zealand, so it is difficult to convey things in sparse emails.

My question is:
How can we make the most out of our electricity and keep the bills down? The flat has been feeling quite cold already, and I'm paranoid that our bills will go through the roof.

We are both IT professionals and fairly frequent gamers / technoheads and I sometimes work from home on my high powered graphics PC, hence my expectation of a high electricity bill - now we have moved in together, we collectively own and use (brace yourselves):

1 massive, 42" plasma TV with 5.1 surround sound and DVD player
1 Xbox 360
1 wii
2 playstation3s (one is in the bedroom)
1 19" flatscreen TV
1 full size upright fridge-freezer
Washing machine
High-pressure water pump above the water tanks
Halogen lights in the living rooms (TWO sets of 4 bulbs!!!)
The usual kitchen bits - electric oven/hobs, microwave, kettle etc
A 480w powered home built PC
And a Laptop

We are both at work all day (He works shift but the flat is typically empty from about 6:30am - 4pm,) and we are not big socialisers so are often home all weekend.

The big TV is usually on for about 1 hour during the weekday mornings so I can get my daily fix of the news.
In the evenings from about 4pm - 11pm the big TV is unfortunately usually on for most of the time. Either keeping me company or running alongside one of the consoles.
At the weekend the TV is on practically all day.

Unfortunately as we are renting we cannot install new heating systems, put up thick curtains or change the single glazed windows

- But are there any tips for keeping the house warm, ourselves entertained (I'm severely dyslexic so books are out of the question, and I have arthritis so walks are out too.. the TV is most definitely my friend), but keeping our bill to as little as is possible (considering our high consumption)?

Are there any multi-point extension cables that save energy/allow us to turn on individual consoles? (There are too many to plug into individual sockets)

Would a portable heater being transferred between bedroom and living room be potentially cheaper and more effective than the storage heaters (which I am yet to figure out how to use!)? We are usually in the same room as each other, but we do have pet rats in the living room to consider.

I have read about hot water costing lots of money to heat - is it usually possible to turn it off during the day?
I have had a look around the cupboard where the water tanks and big boxy pump thing is, but I can't see any type of timer thermostat like there has been in previous properties.

I am sorry for all the questions, but this is the first home where I have not had the buffer of someone older and wiser to help me out, and I really can't afford to be wasting more electricity than I need to.

Thank you in advance )

Premier_2

relinquiae wrote: »

...We are not 100% sure how things work yet, as once we moved in we discovered the landlord lives in New Zealand, so it is difficult to convey things in sparse emails.

If the LL resides overseas, he must have a contact address in the UK. That would typically be a letting agent authorised by the LL to act on his behalf who should be able to give you any help and advice on how to operate things. If the agent need to contact the LL, that's the agent's p[roblem, not yours.

In regards to your other questions, everything that is turned on will use electricity and will cost you money.

In regards to keeping warm, you have essentially two options.
You can either warm the property. That will involve burning electricity and so cost you money.
Or you can keep yourself warm. A year or two ago, a suggestion was made by a boss of a large energy supplier to wear a second jumper

tomhann187_2

Hi

I'll be watching this with interest as I'm about to move into an all-electric Eco 7 property with n-power. We too are big gamers and have a 850w PC and laptop on most of the day. I'm planning on:

- ONLY using the heaters on the night-rate electricity and NEVER using them in the day-time rates (between 7am and 12pm). We have a real fire so that will have to top our heat up in the evenings. Invest in a good dressing gown and thick duvet!

- Getting a timer for the washing machine and having it come on overnight on the cheap rate electricity. We also leave the PC downloading overnight and we will be setting it to switch off at 7am when the day rate clicks in.

- Using all energy-saving bulbs - I think you can get halogen ones too

- Using draft excluders on doors and the letterbox

- Using thick curtains and drawing them at night - not really sure why you can't change the curtains in your place?? Just keep the existing ones to put back up when you leave

- Shutting all doors in the house. We spend our evenings in the lounge so we'll be shutting ourselves in there to keep the heat in

Hope this helps )

lightisfading

We rent a cold, drafty, expensive to heat house too. Big thick curtains are your friend - renting shouldn't change this, just don't damage them swapping them over. Check out charity shops etc for these.

We only turn on the heating and hot water when we have to, and it certainly never runs constantly. Generally if we run the hot water in the evening it's still plenty hot enough for washing in the morning.

From experience, be careful about the rats. I'm assuming they're fairly similar to hamsters, and one of mine got ill from being cold (our house gets down to about 10*c at night when it's really cold) - I got a reptile heat mat to put under their tank to keep them warm - cheap to run, just make sure it's only under PART of the tank so they can escape the heat if they need to (and please research it first, i have hamsters not rats and they might react differently!) I think rats love lots of old cotton rags to snuggle in and rip apart too

For the consoles: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=220695&C=SO&U=strat15 .

And for general power saving... i understand having a tv on for company (i get creeped out alone in the house at night) ... maybe get a radio for when you're not actually watching it, to provide noise without draining the electricity? It is about changing habits, I know - I'm terrible for leaving my computer on all the time.

Our local libraries loan out those little gadgets you plug into sockets to see how much electricity each appliance is using. Maybe you could get one of them, do the sums, and scare yourself into not leaving the 42" on all the time

I do use an electric blanket too, i get cold really easily and it's my bit of comfort!

McKneff

What is to stop you putting thick curtains up.

Failing that, on a night, put a blanket or two over your existing curtains, that will keep a lot of cold air out on a night.

You could put a heavy curtain ove the space between the living room and kitchen and pull it over on a night, this could be just on a curtain wire. So easily taken down if and when you move.