npower £170pm in a 2bed flat

davidgmmafan

"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"

with respect you are not comparing like for like. Electricity is more expensive than gas, even with an economy 7 kind of set up.

It sounds to me as though the property IS hideously inefficient and as you rightly say as a tenant there is little you can do about it. It might be worth mentioning this to the landlord, they may have a high turnover of tenants and have no idea why.

Finally you can't just use an absolute figure and say that's absurd. I once spoke to a lady who had underfloor heating throughout her house who never turned it off. If she got too warm she just opened the windows. That's an extreme example granted, but most people looking at her bills would've had a heart attack.

davidgmmafan

BTW isn't the landlord supposed to give some sort of energy performance certificate now???

chris1973

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!

Quite easily!. I've rented both GCH and Storage Heated properties and the ones heated by Electricity were often 3 times more expensive than Gas. Add any debt repayments over the winter where you've been underpaying, and yes, it could easily add up to that figure, if the debt was big enough or the period backdated significantly.

Unfortunately, Storage Heaters remain the first choice for a lot of landlords as they are essentially 'fit and forget', and once purchased require virtually zero ongoing service costs and don't require expensive safety checks and services between tenants. Its a choice of convenience (for them) and cost saving, the LL is extremely unlikely to change this on a whim (unless they had to live there). If you find it expensive, then when your rental period is up, move to a GCH property, I wouldn't be worrying about the landlord or other tenants.

Depending on your tenancy agreement the following may be worth a thought.

Consider using one of the new breed of modern fan assisted Paraffin invertor heaters. Sure paraffin is more expensive than the days when the local garage sold it from the pump for 25p a litre, but i've never seen it increase in cost by the 12 - 20% annual increases that the utility companies levy on Gas and Electricity!.

I have a 2.4kw model and a 3kw model, both very powerful at heating a room from cold but once heated they drop back to an ambient background level and their lowest output setting which is surprisingly effective at keeping the room at the set temperature whilst only consuming a small amount of paraffin. I get several nights worth of use at a comfortable 20 - 21c on a fill (4 litres) of Paraffin which I buy from a local allotment community for 66p a litre - based on their bulk buy collective.

For me, each heater evens out at a fuel buying cost of around 9p per kw/h of output, which works out 4p - 5p cheaper than the pre increase KW/H rate of Electricity. Whilst it doesn't compete with gas (yet) anybody in a small to medium sized electric only property is likely to benefit from the savings.

They use Electricity for the ignitor and fan, but consumption is only around 20W, making consumption around the same as a larger energy saving lightbulb or 50 hours of use for 1 unit (1 KW/H) of electricity.

The outlay for the heaters is pretty expensive, although you can see them second hand for around £40 - £50 on Gumtree, Ebay and local classifieds. I bought both of mine from a couple who had bought them in an emergency when their CH failed during the winter, and now a new system had been fitted they had no further use. As such I recouped the outlay very quickly compared to 2x brand new units.

Also forget stories from people living in the dark ages telling you that Paraffin heaters are smelly, fume producing and dangerous. These heaters get very good reviews and are probably just as safe, if not safer than the portable calor gas heaters, and other than 2 or 3 seconds when the unit switches on, there is no smell, but if this limited smell at switch on is a problem then you can also buy Paraffin fragrances which deodorise the small amount of fume output at ignition, to something which smells like a glade plug-in!.

Personally, I can see a time arriving soon when utility costs outweigh costs of the more traditional methods used by our great Grandparents to heat their homes and we all will eventually switch back to Kerosene lamps and Paraffin!, forced by the greed of the utility companies. In a lot of cases this is already partly true, as many people are already switching over to wood and mixed fuel burners and if you source and buy your fuel wisely and shop around, its already cheaper than Electricity in some areas, to heat a room by Paraffin.

BTW:- as you rent your home, you may need to seek permission from the landlord / letting agent as using calor / paraffin heaters are often routinely against most tenancy agreements.

Also consider an Electric Blanket. They use around 80W instead of the 1500W - 2500W which an oil filled radiator consumes. On all but the coldest nights, it should be possible to warm the bed with the Blanket and not use the Rad to heat the room at all. I dont' see the point in heating a bedroom to 21c all evening just for the 30 seconds it takes to walk from the bathroom to bed, but thats just me. To prevent damp etc, you can just run the radiator on its lowest (750W / 800w) setting for an hour or so to keep a background heat and take the chill off the room. Unless you are sat in the bedroom all night, I don't see why this wouldn't be a considered option.

natz338

Thanks everyone. I feel quite reassured now. I began to think there was something drastically wrong and we were being ripped off (well, we all are!), but I think all in all, it's just a hideously bad mix where we live. I've moved a lot and I've never experienced these kinds of prices. We'll definitely be moving before the winter

Thanks chris1973 for your great response and the tips on invertor heaters - my family had those at home where I grew up and they were brilliant. I was just saying last night that I'd like to get back to something less infuriating than the major suppliers - it's just getting worse and worse; even gas is going right up.

At least we've learnt a big lesson in what to look for in a property - all we saved on rent for a beautiful flat has been eaten up by electricity bills and we may as well have gone for a GCH house. Such a shame.

Re the landlords, I couldn't fault them - lovely company, great set up. Unfortunately they went very quiet on us when the electricity bill came to light. They did fit the timers for us, but since then they've not wanted to get involved. I did hear that this year it became a must for landlords to make their homes energy efficient, so just checked it out more having been reminded by David (btw we're pretty Green, unlike that old lady!): check out hpass co uk (I can't post links) - you need a certificate, so at least tenants can see what they're likely to be paying. I'll get on to the company and if I can would like to make sure the new tenants are shown a certificate before they move in, so they don't get the same shock we did.

Bring on the paraffin!

Cheers all, happy wood burning! Anyone got a fleece I can borrow?

natz338

Quick addition - if you haven't been given an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) from your landlords, contact your local trading standards office and they will obtain it for you. Always ask to see one before you rent, it's compulsory for your landlords to provide one.

malcolmffc

[QUOTE=natz338;

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.

Just can't fathom it![/QUOTE]

Still not seeing why you think this bill is so unreasonable. You've been there for 10 months and used £700 of electricity, I.e. £70 per month. Not cheap, but hardly ripoff of the century given you are not paying for gas. What is/was your monthly DD payment? And why won't you post your usage since September?

macman

Unless the OP will post their actual consumption figs as requested, it's pointless to try and give any further advice. Just repeating 'it's £170 per month ongoing' does not tell us anything at all.

HappyMJ

chris1973 wrote: »

I've rented both GCH and Storage Heated properties and the ones heated by Electricity were often 3 times more expensive than Gas.

How? I have a property it has gas central heating and has since broken so have been using electric heating for a few years. The gas and electric bills at todays rates 3,300kWh electric and 16,500kWh gas would come to £1,024 per year. 3 times that would be £3,072. If I put that figure into the calculator with E7 electric heating I would need to use 31,000kWh per year to get a bill 3 times that of gas/electric. As electric is 100% efficient I would not need to use twice as much electric for the same heat in fact it would be a lot less not more. For the same heat I would only need to use 11,000kWh of extra electric energy (assuming the boiler is 75% efficient) and that would mostly be at the night rate but I have put some down at the day rate for cooking and spot heating late in the evening on a cold winters night. The bill would come to £1,425 (for 14,300kWh) which is only 40% more expensive than a gas centrally heated house. As I still have the gas meter I would get dual fuel discounts reducing my bill further to £1,337 per year. As you can see I am trying to justify fixing the boiler and spending a further £192 a year for a service contract and annual service. For a landlord that would probably be more expensive than that and it will be included in the rent charged to the tenant. All that to save £121 per year based on average usage. The new boiler that I get better be very cheap and very efficient and last longer than the 12 years average lifespan quoted by the energysavingtrust.

Could you provide to me the figures you have used to come to this conclusion that electrially heated house energy bills are 3 times that of gas?

davidgmmafan

"In a lot of cases this is already partly true, as many people are already switching over to wood and mixed fuel burners and if you source and buy your fuel wisely and shop around, its already cheaper than Electricity in some areas, to heat a room by Paraffin."

Along similar lines I read a story in the paper yesterday suggesting sales of tumble dryers were down 30% and only 3/10 people with them now use them (how do they know???). Its not all good news though as apparently 400 people per year visit hospital with clothes peg related injuries...

Finally I think there should probably be a law against rented properties being described as 'benefitting from' storage heaters. I wouldn't even look at a rented property with them. The silence you mention sounds like its happened before...

loiseve

I have the same problem. My useage is £265 a month according to yep...N Power. Currently also with the ombudsmun as they sent us a normal bill which we felt was affordable followed by a 'corrected' bill of £2600.

3 bed flat - electric heating - absolutely GOBSMACKED at what Npower say we use. We dont have a dishwasher, dryer, shower or much else that would eat electric, just the heaters. Although I accept this IS the problem.

We are looking at storage heaters. Pm me we could probably help each other, and you might find help in the new thread I started https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3420017

We have now left N Power and are with Sainsburys energy. We are taking loads of steps to try and save as much energy as possible. Please feel free to PM me especially as we have both taken this to the ombidsmun, although my complaint was more about the handling of the issue.