Expensive electricity for 2 bed flat?

aiminghigh

It seems high to me.

I am at home all day and use tumble driers/ gas central heating etc and have a 4 bedroom detached bungalow.

My gas d/d is £50 a month and I am £160 in credit, and my electricity is £35 a month, and the meter was read 2 weeks ago and I`m behind a little - only a few pounds.
So unless the rooms are huge and the ceilings very high and no double glazing etc those bills seem high for a 2 bedroom flat.

kazbo82

I'm the fore mentioned flat mate.

We can't check the meters as the letting agents stupidly keep the key to the building that the meters are stored in and don't let us have access. We did get a reading off the last week when they gave us the electric meter reading, but the gas one doesn't coincide at all with what the reading should be.

The ceilings are high in the building because it's an old Victorian house and we don't have double glazing. But for a week over Christmas the flat was totally empty with no heating on and all we have used the heating for over that period was a maximum of an hour a day if that because the flat retains heat well and with flats on either side and above and below we seem to manage to pinch their heat.

The amount seems high to me. I was living in a very similar flat last year (the rooms were slightly bigger, but again high ceilings, single glazed, same amount of rooms, although I had a flat mate who liked it very warm, whereas we usually have the flat slightly on the cool side here) and I was paying £20 a month with British Gas, which left me owing £30 at the end of the year. As Alexis said, the estimated reading would leave us having used the same amount of gas in 2 months as has been used in the previous 2 years.

The electric also seems high since last year I payed £28 a month with Southern electric and was owed £60 back at the end of the year. There I also had electric hobs rather than gas hobs, so if anything the bills should be lower here, rather than the best part of double.

spanner82

hi - we also live in a 1/2 bed flat - have you checked that your supplier have you down as a residential property. We have had a prob with them thinking we were a shop - charged more per unit.
We live north west and currently pay about £45 a mth gas and £30 a mth elec

masonic

kazbo82 wrote:

The amount seems high to me. I was living in a very similar flat last year (the rooms were slightly bigger, but again high ceilings, single glazed, same amount of rooms, although I had a flat mate who liked it very warm, whereas we usually have the flat slightly on the cool side here) and I was paying £20 a month with British Gas, which left me owing £30 at the end of the year.

£20 pcm + £30 debit balance, would put your annual usage last year at £270. Add on the cost of ~35% in price rises (source) and you are looking at over £360. On that basis, the estimate seems high but not unreasonable for the middle of winter. You would need to get your meter read to determine whether it is way out.

kazbo82 wrote:

As Alexis said, the estimated reading would leave us having used the same amount of gas in 2 months as has been used in the previous 2 years.

Alexis is assuming that the meter was at zero two years ago. It could have been at, say, 8000. It would also be an assumption that that particular meter was installed two years ago.

kazbo82

masonic wrote:

Alexis is assuming that the meter was at zero two years ago. It could have been at, say, 8000. It would also be an assumption that that particular meter was installed two years ago.

He is, but it seems a reasonable assumption since the meter was at around the 500 mark when we moved in and the property was only split into flats 2 years ago, at which time new meters would have to have been installed for them.

Cardew

kazbo82 wrote:

He is, but it seems a reasonable assumption since the meter was at around the 500 mark when we moved in and the property was only split into flats 2 years ago, at which time new meters would have to have been installed for them.

Before you can determine if you are being wrongly charged you need to determine exactly what you are being billed for in kWh(for both gas and electricity) and how close the estimated reading is to the actual reading.


Also I don't think it a reasonable assumption that the meter was set to zero when the flats were converted. To assume that you used less than 6,000kWh gas in 2 years is just not feasible. If it were your estimated reading this time would be based on that consumption.

Almost everyone posting on here seems to think that they actually using less electricity/gas/water than normal, and give examples of previous properties or neighbours to support their view.

Let us know please what transpires.

anniecave

If you phone up your supplier and ask they will normally give you details of what past meter readings they have, even readings before you moved into the property, and this would give you an idea of how much has been used. They should also have the estimated annual consumption (EAC) figure which is calculated based on the readings. That would be useful for you too.

Don't ever assume a meter was at zero when installed. It isn't always, it can be a meter that has been removed from somewhere else, serviced, and reinstalled at where you are, and they may not have re-set it. Also if they do a conversion, the single meter that was there before sometimes becomes one of the new meters. Again without any re-set.

I hope you figure it all out!

jennifernil

£11 per month for gas CH is very low. DD has a small 3 bed flat, no high ceilings and small bedrooms. She pays £20 per month for gas.
However your electricity sounds expensive. We have a large 5 bed house, cook with electricity, and run 2 heated greenhouses. We pay £71 per month. We use a tumble drier and run 4 fridges and 4 freezers (no, don't ask!). The greenhouses account for about £200 per year, so the house really uses about £55 per month.

browolf

i use approx 885 units a quarter by myself so 1300 for 2 a quarter doesnt seem so bad. mine is prob higher cos i have my computer on approx 70 hours a week mon-fri, im away most weekends.

if you can know what appliances you have you can approximate your energy usuage costing. a random bosch 7kg condenser dryer i found on the bosch site uses 4.2kwh ~ wow!

computer use say 300w flat monitors around 40w

dryer ~ 200kwh / quarter
computers 2hrs a day each ~ 250 kwh / quarter

energy saving fridges/freezers are amazingly low power. e.g. A~rated 7p/kwh ~
1 kwh/day

Cardew

browolf wrote:

i use approx 885 units a quarter by myself so 1300 for 2 a quarter doesnt seem so bad. mine is prob higher cos i have my computer on approx 70 hours a week mon-fri, im away most weekends.

if you can know what appliances you have you can approximate your energy usuage costing. a random bosch 7kg condenser dryer i found on the bosch site uses 4.2kwh ~ wow!

computer use say 300w flat monitors around 40w

dryer ~ 200kwh / quarter
computers 2hrs a day each ~ 250 kwh / quarter

energy saving fridges/freezers are amazingly low power. e.g. A~rated 7p/kwh ~
1 kwh/day

A couple of points on consumption.

A dryer rated at 4.2kW(not 4.2kWh) is very probably an industrial dryer. It would take approx 17 amps so is not able to be used in a UK house without a special plug/socket. Most UK dryers are 2.5-3.0kW.

Whilst a PC might have power supply of 350watts or more they will almost never use that amount. There have been many threads on this forum where people have measured the consumption of their computer and 120-160watts is about the average for a modern(power hungry) PC. Mine is a modern PC with all the 'bells and whistles' and with a
19" flat screen will rarely use more than 160watts. If it was on all day it could be reduced considerably with power management.

So a PC on for 2 hours a day would use approx 30kWh per quarter(at 160 watts)