Is our electricity bill too high?

martin2345uk

That may sound like a stupid question, but I genuinely do not know...

We are with Eon, we live in a small 2 bedroom flat (only one bedroom is used). It has no gas, so everything is electric.

I am at work 9-5 in the week, my partner works fairly random shifts.

We are in most evenings watching TV etc

We are on Economy 7 with the meter that gives night and day reading.

The boiler goes on overnight and we only turn it on once every 3-4 days.

The heaters are electric but we haven't used them since the winter.

Eon have just increased our monthly payments to £97/month.

Does that sound like a lot, or reasonable? If it's a lot, does anyone know what we should do in the first instance?

Thank you! :beer:

shortchanged_2

Just to clarify, what fuel source is your boiler?

Mrs_Arcanum

martin2345uk wrote: »

That may sound like a stupid question, but I genuinely do not know...

We are with Eon, we live in a small 2 bedroom flat (only one bedroom is used). It has no gas, so everything is electric.

I am at work 9-5 in the week, my partner works fairly random shifts.

We are in most evenings watching TV etc

We are on Economy 7 with the meter that gives night and day reading.

The boiler goes on overnight and we only turn it on once every 3-4 days.

The heaters are electric but we haven't used them since the winter.

Eon have just increased our monthly payments to £97/month.

Does that sound like a lot, or reasonable? If it's a lot, does anyone know what we should do in the first instance?

Thank you! :beer:

If you can give actual usage figures rather then the cost people will be able to advise. Other than that without knowing what you were paying and whether there is a surplus or deficit after the bills it is difficult to compare.

jalexa

martin2345uk wrote: »

Eon have just increased our monthly payments to £97/month.

Does that sound like a lot, or reasonable?

Well, as a "number" it is not untypical for a small electrically heated house. However perhaps you are asking whether it is "accurate"?

Start taking meter readings and checking that any "estimated" readings on bills are accurate. What was your "account balance" on the occasion of your last bill or statement? What is you annual electricity consumption? What % is "night rate"? Can you identify on your meter which reading is "day" and which is "night"? What is the *exact* name of your tariff? When was either an "actual" or a "customer" reading last taken?

Answers are required to provide a meaningful response to your question.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi martin

As others have said, make sure the billing is accurate.

Did we open the account to correct actual meter readings? Is your most recent bill based on actual readings?

Were previous bills estimated and your last bill a catch up now we've an accurate reading? If this is the case, we may have increased your monthly payments in the light of increased usage.

Is there any debt on the account? If so, this will have been included in your new payment arrangement.

Check we're billing the day and night usage the right way round.

Make sure you're on the best tariff for your circumstances, either with us or one of the other suppliers. As Jalexa says, check out your usage.

Once you know the usage, pop these figures on to one of the comparison sites. This will list out all the options open to you, both with us and the other suppliers.

Sorry for all the questions martin but trying to build up a picture of your circumstances. Give me a shout if you need any advice as happy to help.

Malc

martin2345uk

Hey many thanks guys, and didn't realise company representatives patrol these boards! Great stuff!

OK here is our usage according to the meter ...

996 day units and 188 night units in 100 days exactly, so an average of:

10 day units and 2 night units per day

Does that sound a lot or normal for our circumstances?

This also makes me think maybe we should not be on Economy 7, as we only seem to use 19% of our electricity at night!

Can you change from Economy 7 if you have a day-and-night type meter?

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi martin

On the face of it, it looks as though you're not using enough electricity over night to benefit from Economy 7. However, as your property is all electric, do you have storage heaters?

Storage heaters usually heat up over night during the cheaper off peak period and then gradually release the heat throughout the day.

I'm assuming the 100 days you refer to are taken from your last bill which covered the summer period. If you do have storage heaters, you'll see a significant increase in night time usage over the coming winter months.

How long have you been at the property? If you've been there for 12 months or longer, the best thing to do is to see what your usage was like over the full year.

If, over a year, the nighttime usage is still relatively low, then it certainly may be worth considering swapping to a single rate tariff.

This is simple to do as we don't need to change the meter. All we do, is add the day and night readings together and charge as a single rate. Just give us a call if this will benefit you; the switch can be done straight away whilst you're on the phone.

Hope this helps martin. Give me a shout if you need any more info as will be happy to help.

Malc

martin2345uk

Many thanks Malc!

We don't have storage heaters, we just have ones that are on timers and come on when they are set to.

We haven't lived here a full year yet.. it certainly doesn't seem like Economy 7 is the right tariff for us!

Actually I have just done a comparison on Energyhelpline.com...

apparently we could save £395 per year by changing to NPower's Sign Online 23 tariff??

HalloweenJack

give eon a ring , im sure they can offer you a none E7 tariff , change of the meter and an online tariff quicker than changing to npower

Rikki

HalloweenJack wrote: »

give eon a ring , im sure they can offer you a none E7 tariff , change of the meter and an online tariff quicker than changing to npower

Just to say you don't get the meter changed you just add the two readings together for the bill.

Mrs_Arcanum

martin2345uk wrote: »

Many thanks Malc!

We don't have storage heaters, we just have ones that are on timers and come on when they are set to.

We haven't lived here a full year yet.. it certainly doesn't seem like Economy 7 is the right tariff for us!

Actually I have just done a comparison on Energyhelpline.com...

apparently we could save £395 per year by changing to NPower's Sign Online 23 tariff??

If you have a washing machine, dryer or dishwasher only have them running at night when the cheaper leccy is being charged until you change tariffs.