£240 per month for Gas and Electric :(

dreamdreamer

It's been said a hundred times now but something isn't adding up with your leccy bill OP, the gas seems, whilst high, entirely plausible. We use an average of £70 in gas a month for a 3 bed semi, mostly because the loft has sod all insulation (really need to sort that) and we hate being cold! But we're fairly high leccy users, our bulbs our energy saving, we use the tumble drier about once a year, but we leave everything in standby, the laptop/tv/wii etc are all on for hours, the house is lit up like a christmas tree, and our bill is £34.

Others have already made the necessary suggestions, but something is definitely not right.

It's not the monthly direct debit that you should be looking at. You need to know the annual usage. Scottish Power is one of cheapest in most regions although switching to EDF would have save you money it's highly unlikely to be 32%. They are baiting you by telling you that you can reduce your direct debit by so much and then in 6 months they'll raise it up to £85 again as it's not enough.

This is spot on, we were tempted over to EDF when BG hiked their prices last November. They initially reduced our monthly DD from £85 with BG to £62 (I was sceptical but so !!!!ed off with BG by that point that we took the risk), however 9 months later we had a deficit on the account and they upped the DD to £104 to compensate. Overall we've still paid less than BG would have been with the hike (especially considering we got £180 cashback to switch) but don't be fooled by EDF's predicted direct debit.

chris1973

have dishwasher and tumble dryer they are on timer switch which kicks in early hrs of the morning if needing used

Why are they on a timer coming on a night???, unless you have an Economy 7 tariff it won't make the slightest difference what time of day you use it, as you'll be paying the same rate 24/7. If you are on an E7 tariff then I would ask why, if you don't have Electric Storage Heating or an Electric Boiler?. If you are on an E7 from some long removed storage heaters then change it ASAP, as Economy 7 tariffs are not an economical option for people no longer using Storage heating and who are using the bulk of their Electricity in the Daytime and Evenings!

Lots of talk on here about X-boxes, I imagine there are a lot of people playing them by brainwaves as in mentioning figures there is little mention of the TV set they are played on!. If you have a 40" LCD TV there is another upto 225 Watts there, if its a 40" PLASMA then anything upto 500W depending on model and features - which is 1/2 a KW - a bit different than the 135+ watts thrown into the arena for the Xbox alone.

Also, in the reality which is life, if your kids are anything like my Friends Teenagers, there will be the Xbox plugged into a super huge TV, another huge TV playing into the younger kids' bedroom, at least one PC and widescreen monitor running all evening, probably another TV in the lounge / kitchen / living area / conservatory. Dad watching the Football, Kids in their rooms playing the X-Box, Mom in her room watching Downtown Abbey - sound like a normal household? - probably!, there are 3 TV's and one PC monitor in my running example, is this 'your' household?.

In some large families I wouldn't be surprised to see 3 or 4 monster TV's running at any one time throughout the house, each using upto 400W in Electricity - so there is the potential for over 1KW just in TV sets!. Thats even before any PC Monitors are added into the equation, which are just as able to consume Electricity as a TV set - my 23" Widescreen uses 110W

In comparison phone chargers wont use a lot, I measured mine on charge from flat with an expensive calibrated multimeter and it consumed 2.3 watts, so you could charge 10 phones and only be using 23W of power consumption.

A 9.5KW Electric Shower will use nearly 10 units per hour of use, so 1 unit every 6 minutes of use, so if you have 4 people each having a 6 minute shower, then there is 4 units in the morning, and again at night - 8 unit potential consumption per day. Answer?:- Teach the kids how to shower in 1 minute or less!.

A 2KW Tumble dryer will use 2 units of Electricity on a 60 minute cycle or 4 units on a 120 hour one. Most dryers have a built in thermostat which clicks the element on / off as the heat rises and falls in the drum so it wont actually be consuming power all of the time. Usually for a modern dryer you can deduct around 15% off those running costs to allow for heating element cycles.

cocalls

You don't have any plug in air fresheners do you?

I saw on a TV programme that these use up quite a bit of leccy.
Good luck-something doesn't sound right-keep us posted.

Tebheag

Just want to wish you good luck on your journey of reducing your elec, ours has gone mad over the last couple of years and I am always nagging everyone to turn everything off DH has got far to much elec things and was never turning the Wii or playstation off always left on standby. I am home most days of the week have computer on tv on and use tumble dryer oh and a pound pump on most days etc but have never been as high as you are thankfully think was about £97 for elec at highest and only about £30 for heating 3yrs heating awas set to 19 degress everyday ago. At the mo we are paying about £70 for both although feel we will need to increase this. I now line dry as much as I can I have turned my pond pump off although kids did switch it on so need to take the fuse out (fish have seemed a lot happier since it has been off even been breeding) Everthing that can be turned off is. Hope your Owl finds where your elec is going !

HappyMJ

cocalls wrote: »

You don't have any plug in air fresheners do you?

I saw on a TV programme that these use up quite a bit of leccy.
Good luck-something doesn't sound right-keep us posted.

They use almost nothing. My energy monitor doesn't even register it.

cocalls

HappyMJ wrote: »

They use almost nothing. My energy monitor doesn't even register it.

oh well it's not that then.

louisaL

we're in a similar property (4 bed ex council semi detached house).

we have arrears on our gas and had arrears on our electric so the companies MADE us have prepayment meters.

Its only our central heating which is gas everything else in the property is electricity.

We put £30 per week in the electric before the arrears were paid off now we pay £20.
(now its paid off i've asked our supplier to swap the meter (which will cost £65!) and they have estimated our monthly payments will be £65 per month for our electric).

The gas we have to put around £40 a week in near enough hence why we dont have the central heating on and use paraffin in the living room only. I'm hoping to get the arrears for the gas paid off by xmas.

I do sympathise the cost of gas and electric kills me.

paulmapp8306

Well, I have heating oil - and Electric for everything else - inc cooker.

My Electric has just gone up to £130 per month - and I put away £120 per month for Oil which is about right. My next fill will cost around £650 and is due next month (nearly empty). I have £680 credit in my account.

Im also in a modest 4 bed end terrace. Same deal with light bulbs, TVs etc - and dryer/W Machine. We do have a dish washer as well mind.

On the heating front - it is a forces quarts - and while there is decent loft insulation (fitted only 18 months ago) theres no cavity wall ins. There are gaps under doors - and drafts through the double glazed windows (poorly fitted - the gap is between the frame and the wall !!). Theres also no room thermostat so its full on or fully off - which doesnt help.

chris1973

We currently have a Wii and Xbox and they've always been left plugged in. I've never had high bills and pay £60p combined for gas/elec

Games consoles use a large amount of current as far as non crucial, non domestic appliance equipment is concerned. Bear in mind that this is an era when people are losing sleep and obsessing over leaving their TV's on stand-by, and replacing 40W and 60W bulbs with energy saving 8w - 16w ones!. If people are worried and glued to their energy monitors looking out for a rogue TV on standby (which uses 4w - 20w) and replacing 60W conventional lightbulbs, they will give birth to several litters of kittens when their X-box registers 135w - 180w of power!

170w for one games console is in effect, almost ten 18W energy saving lightbulbs, basically enough to light every room in an average house. 170W may not seem a lot, but its still a unit of Electricity for just over every 5 hours worth of use, and when you also consider that some people are addicted to the things, that can be a significant amount of domestic, non heating use.

Its not just the Games console either, but the TV it is being played on. LCD's are more frugal, but even then some models will use anything upto 200 Watts of energy, PLASMA TV's are even worse, guzzling upto 350W for modern large models and 500W for the first generation models. Combine this with the games console and you have nearly (or above) 1/2KW of electricity burning for several hours a day - thats almost small heater (750W Oil filled radiator) territory!. So please don't say that the costs don't add up, because you haven't thought it through!


In relation to current consumption of Games consoles, you can find discussions on this all over the internet. General opinion is around 170w - 180w for an X-box, Wii's are far more economical, but a Sony PS3 can use upto 250W or a massive 380W for older generation models

http://www.xbox360-offers.co.uk/articles/xbox-360-comparison-table.asp
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100813063159AAJQZf4
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gamesgear/playstation-3-whats-with-the-watts-49284840/

Dress it up how you like, but in a mixed fuel household with heating by Gas / Oil, and without White goods running, during a typical evening an X-Box and TV Combination will probably represent the highest consuming Electrical appliances running at that time, certainly more than a couple of low energy bulbs burning in every room. If you are a family and have kids up in their rooms also with X-Box and TV combinations or even just watching TV then those costs are also multiplied, and thats even before adding how many PC's and LCD Monitors are on for the kids as well. Often you'll probably find TV's, Games Consoles, PC's etc all running constantly, all adding up. Quite probably this is why some households have huge variations in running costs, some people religiously switch things off, some may be sat there with their kids round their mates, and 5 entertainment devices all running upstairs!.

So dont write off things like TV sets, PC's, Games consoles all adding weight to your bill, because they do play a part, and in some households it may be quite a large chunk of their daytime running costs, especially over the weekends and during school holidays.

mya_may

I have been renting a house that used to be a shop, it's 3 bed end terrace, very poorly insulated. I pay just under £40 for both. When we first moved in I was getting electric bills with different amounts on, I contacted bg and have since found out that when the business ceased trading they installed a new residential meter, registered it on their system then never switched it on! So both business and domestic sides were trying to bill me. I hadn't realised there were two meters at all as one is very small and doesn't do anything, I'm not sure how they could even ask for money from it.
I don't know if its possible for something to have gone wrong when they put the prepayment meter in but you have said that you ended up paying over £3000 from paying upfront so the issue sounds like it goes further back than the meter. How are your electrics, are they up to date, could the place do with a rewire?