Help please! Electricity Bill.

adamsfriendjoe

Hi, not sure whether this is meant to go in here (sorry if not!), but just received an electricity bill for the past three months that came to £680!

I live with four other people and our bill in our previous place was nothing like this, and the only difference is there's a lot more lights in this new house.

Would lights really affect it that much?

Also, more importantly, just wondering if anyone has any advice about how to deal with this, perhaps ways to double check it and so on?

Thanks in advance

victor2

Lights wouldn't do that - unless you're cultivating something in the loft.
Do you have electric heating? The recent cold spell could account for such a cost if you do.

Assuming you've used that electricity, you'll have to pay for it. The easiest way to check your usage is to take a meter reading (assuming you can get at the meter) regularly until you get an idea what typical usage you have.

rabbitmumu

Obviously the meter could you wrong, using electric heating, electric cooking or anything else you are not aware of.....

But if seriously nothing is different, then your lights could make some difference. If there are lots of lights, i presume they are spot lights?

a 50w light for 6 hours a day everyday for 3 months @ 15p a unit = around £3.75. If you have say 5 of them in the lounge, and 5 of them in the kitchen, then 3 months may cost you something like £40 extra.

if you have more than 10 lights, and use a higher voltage light bulb, or switch them on for longer hours then you can work out how much extra...

And can I assume you are renting? if so, is your fridge/ washing machine/ dish washer the same? Whether an electrical appliance is energy efficient or not and size makes quite a lot of difference.

Premier_2

adamsfriendjoe wrote: »

...Also, more importantly, just wondering if anyone has any advice about how to deal with this, perhaps ways to double check it and so on?

Thanks in advance

Check the meter redaings are actuals. Also check the latest meter reading is approximately correct by comparing to that what's displayed on the meter.

(you can then check the unit rates with the suppliers website and even check the calculation, but neither of these are usually incorrect)

My guess is that you've either got electric heating and/or one/both of the meter readings is estimated.