Halogen lights, tumble driers & electric heaters

oppro

My tight, disgusting & soon to be ex husband has been paying very few & very limited house bills when he's felt like it around his busy social life, gifts & holidays with his mistress. We've been without oil for about 4 months with him refusing to pay it so the house was running on electricity.

Without heating we've been using plug in electric heaters, with the weather being poor & no radiators we've been having to use the tumble drier more or the clothes are like cardboard when they finally come off the clothes horse 3 days later & my ex had some obsession with halogen spotlights instead of a central big light. In a house with 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, hitchen, stairwell & lounge we have 39 halogen spot lights. We also have 4 side lamps (2 in the lounge, 1 in each bedroom), 2 of which are on energy saving bulbs. We have 2 TV's, one which is rarely on, the other on most the day & 2 laptops, 1 which is on most the day.

The electric heater is up in the hall to warm up the bathroom & bedrooms & is on the lowest setting from evening to morning. We had to wash using water boiled in pans & kettles for a few weeks, it's taken about 20 pans to get enough in a bath to be worth sitting in which we've done maybe 2 or 3 times when my daughter's really needed it, using a camping oven in the hallway! We've finally managed to get the immersion heater on which provides limited hot water, enough to get by but not enough to warm the house properly or run baths & showers every day.

My ex is saying he's getting £127 electricity bills each month. I reckon it's his lights & the electric heater & pans in the absence of oil.

Can you help me work this out?

Cardew

Without knowing the wattage - and how long you have the lights and heaters on for each day - it just can't be done.

Halogen spot lights are normally 35 watts or 50 watts - so roughly (taking electricity at 10p/kWh) EACH light will cost 1p(one penny) for every 3 hours or 2 hours use. Doesn't sound much but adds up.

All you can say is if you are using £127 a month in a very mild Autumn(so far) it will double in winter.

oppro

I think they're all 40W so 40 x 39 = 1560w so if all the lights were on for 1 hour that's 15p, right? (This is making my head hurt!)

So thinking that probably 15 lights are on for up to 9 hours a day, that would be 40w x 15 lights = 600W x 9hrs = 5400W = 55p a day. So for a month that would be about £15.40. That can't be right. That's nothing.

The heater at a guess is about 2kW so if it's on for 13 hours on low (6pm for my daughter's bed time & bath to 7am) that's 26kw = £2.60 a night? So £72.80 a month??? :eek: The house is a 17th century draughty old wreck & without heating it's COLD, the type where you wake up in the morning & your clothes are damp. We had underfloor heating but with no oil or pressure on the boiler (or something) it's not been working for 3 months.

Is that right???? Grrrr why the !!!! didn't he just pay the oil?!?! Complaining about the electricity bill, well HE created it! GOD I hate him!

oppro

OK job 1 - switch energy provider, done!
Job 2 - turn off lights & heater, done!

But unless we move to somewhere with double glazing, central heating & walls without holes in them (literally!) we're still stuck with the same problem.

Cardew

Your arithmetic on lights is correct!

A 2kW heater would have a thermostat. On low it would be cutting in and out all day so 26kWh is far too high.

If your cloths are damp, it isn't a heating problem but a ventillation problem.

macman

oppro wrote: »

I think they're all 40W so 40 x 39 = 1560w so if all the lights were on for 1 hour that's 15p, right? (This is making my head hurt!)

So thinking that probably 15 lights are on for up to 9 hours a day, that would be 40w x 15 lights = 600W x 9hrs = 5400W = 55p a day. So for a month that would be about £15.40. That can't be right. That's nothing.

The heater at a guess is about 2kW so if it's on for 13 hours on low (6pm for my daughter's bed time & bath to 7am) that's 26kw = £2.60 a night? So £72.80 a month??? :eek: The house is a 17th century draughty old wreck & without heating it's COLD, the type where you wake up in the morning & your clothes are damp. We had underfloor heating but with no oil or pressure on the boiler (or something) it's not been working for 3 months.

Is that right???? Grrrr why the !!!! didn't he just pay the oil?!?! Complaining about the electricity bill, well HE created it! GOD I hate him!

Not nothing. Try thinking of it as £184.80 pa instead-that may give you a diferent perspective on it. What is your annual kWh consumption?-that is really the only figure that matters.
Heating a house like yours in winter just by electrcity is going to be extremely expensive and ineffective. Oil is not a cheap option either (compared to gas) but it's still much less than electricity per kWh.