npower £170pm in a 2bed flat

natz338

Anybody else had probs with npower? That's what they're charging us for a 2bed flat - I won't go in to the detail, it's a loooong story and I've contacted the Ombudsman, but essentially, *how* can you prove or disprove whether or not usage is *actually* correct?

HalloweenJack

read the meters weekly

macman

No nearly enough detail...post your annual kWh consumption figs and proper advice can be given.
Presumably your DD is that high because you have been receiving estimated bills, and not supplying meter readings, now you have been hit with a big catch up bill and your DD has been increased to recover the arrears?

davidgmmafan

Well you could read the meter regularly as has been suggested, or do a quick inventory of the appliances and check online what they use (energy savings trust or most suppliers have an energy efficiency team), or you could buy one of those home energy monitors which will give near accurate consumption figures for electricity.

So there's plenty of options. You could of course ignore all this and insist on a meter accuracy test but I think they can make a charge for this if there is nothing wrong with the meter; which is why its best to check basic stuff first. Are the start readings estimates (and therefore wildly inaccurate)? Are any other readings estimated (and therefore wildly inaccurate)?

Can you think of anything that would use a lot? Is it an all electric property with the storage heaters on needlessly?

Lets us know answers to as many of the above as you can and we'll have a much better idea.

natz338

OK all:

We checked the supply - we're not picking up anyone elses.
We turned everything on one by one to check speed.
We spoke with the energy efficiency teams and implemented everything they said.

Because of this, we set the immersion to only come on for half an hour.
We don't use the towel heater or small fan heater in the bathroom (never really did).
We put energy saving bulbs in and use lamps.
We had timers fitted to our heating system.

The culprits are the oil filled radiators - we only have three, but boy do they use a whack of electricity. However, they are the cheapest as we don't have gas, and we can't change them anyway as we rent.
We also have 19 downlighters throughout the flat, which also use a stack - so we use a lamp instead and barely use the main lights.
The immersion was the biggest culprit so we barely use that now either.

The readings are now actual not estimated and now we've shifted to EDF we do a reading every week. We haven't been with them long enough to see how it really compares yet.

We don't have dishwashers, tumble dryers, or lots of consoles. We barely watch the TV and laptops are charged only.
We have double glazing throughout, but we do have one big bay window that undoubtedly is a BIG problem.

The £170 is ongoing, not a catch up - for that pleasure we were hit with a £700 bill. We've only lived there since September.

My point is, the readings seem to be accurate. Yes, we have an uneconomical flat it seems, but really - it's a two bed flat with two people living in it. How can we *possibly* be using £170 pm in electricity. That's twice as much as your average 3 bed house with a family in it!

Just can't fathom it!

macman

What rating are the oil filled rads, and how many hours do you have them on for? 3 of those running will burn a lot of power, could be 7.5kWh or more per hour-that's 75p per hour, depending on the 'stat setting.

daveyjp

Fag packet calcuation suggests about 1.5kwh per hour every hour (£170 at 15p per unit).

If you have those rads on that's where the power is being used - they are usually 2.5-3kwh each.

natz338

Thanks both.

They *do* cost a stupid amount, that's already confirmed. But, my point is that they're not run on gold dust and we don't live in a mansion!

How is £170 justifiable? If we had the place lit up like a football stadium and heated it like a greenhouse 24/7 then I could understand it, but we don't. I don't know ANYONE who pays that much for their electricity, regardless of where they live or what system they have...

We've done all the workings out and yes, the place isn't the most economical, but how can this possibly be right?!

Is anybody seeing what I'm saying here?!

Our only conclusion actually is to move, but the next tenants will just have the same problem

macman

Unless you post your actual kWh usage figures as requested, no-one can help any further.
Posting your monthly DD amount is simply not relevant.
Are you saying that your monthly usage is in the region of 1,700kWh's? that's absurdly high (20,000 kWh pa is 5 times the national average)
Are you taking weekly meter readings, and do they support that figure?

HappyMJ

Is anybody seeing what I'm saying here?!

No...

kWh consumed is needed. I think you got a £700 bill after 9 months of living there and the electricity company is recovering that at a rate of £170 per month. Fairly normal. You need to pay in advance.

Macman guessed above at 1700kWh per month. I used my calculator with Npower's Standard Tariff - Midlands and figured out you would use 1250kWh-it's an expensive tariff at 13.4p/kWh after the first 728pa @ 17.115p/kWh. That figure varies by so much that's why we need the annual kWh usage. Just post the meter readings since you moved in and whenever you took them since.

moonrakerz

The bottom line is that you have no gas. Everything is powered by electricity - it will cost an awful lot !
You say you don't know ANYONE who uses that much electricity - do they have gas for their central heating and water ? Is their dwelling and style of living the exact same as yours ?

You say the immersion was the "biggest culprit" - unless you were drawing off huge amounts of hot water every day - it wasn't. Your oil heaters are your problem.................