Keeping the house warm is costing a fortune

BorgleBoo

We live in a 3 bedroom mid-terraced housing association property in North East Scotland.

Our electricity supplier is Scottish Hydro and we have a key meter on the Economy 10 tariff.

Once the recent cold spell hit, it is costing us an absolute fortune to keep the house warm. There are 6 storage heaters dotted around our house, but we cannot afford to run them all. Once I was so sick of the cold I put all of them on and we burned something like £13 of electricity in a 24 hour period. We cannot afford that. There are also panel heaters, but they are just wall ornaments. I would not even consider using them due to the cost.

Lately I've been running 4 of the storage heaters overnight (switching them off during the daytime boost) and we are still running around £6.25 a day in electricity. We don't have a shower so we need to use the immersion heater a lot, but even when we avoid using boost the bill is still huge. It is possible that the water heater timer is not correctly synched to the off peak, but most of the costs seems to be coming from running the storage heaters. In the summer (when our hot water consumption is the same) our bills tend to be around £1-£1.50 a day.

We have a newborn in the house and the size of our bills is really starting to concern me. In the mornings our inside thermometer often reads 13 degrees Celsius.

Our neighbour is in the same boat and only heats one room in her house.

I'm working so I'm better off than many. With all our benefits our take-home income is around £2000 a month. Even so I cannot afford electricity bills that are running £190 a month.

I hate to think of what these sorts of prices must be doing to those on really low incomes.

Trying to save money I recently enquired about what our off peak times are. The reply I got from Scottish Hydro said:

03.30 - 06.30
11.00 - 13.00
19.45 - 21.45


Now maths isn't my strong suit, but that doesn't add up to 10 hours a day!


Is there something amiss here, or is this just what running storage heaters costs? We can't switch to DD in the middle of winter or we'll end up in debt to the company.

jalexa

BorgleBoo wrote: »

Our electricity supplier is Scottish Hydro and we have a key meter on the Economy 10 tariff.

There are quite a few points to consider, some of which can probably be improved at no overall cost but before that I have a couple of questions.

Is it the housing association's choice that you are on Economy 10 rather than Economy 7? Also double check whether or not you are on "Total Heating with Total Control".

Was it your choice to have pre-payment?

It was a good starting point to recognise the importance of the hours. If you are not satisfied with the response on hours, ask the question again and again until you get the same answer two calls running.

BorgleBoo

jalexa wrote: »

There are quite a few points to consider, some of which can probably be improved at no overall cost but before that I have a couple of questions.

Is it the housing association's choice that you are on Economy 10 rather than Economy 7?

The meter and payment plan is as it is when we moved in. We just called Scottish Hydro and notified them that we were the new tennants.

Also double check whether or not you are on "Total Heating with Total Control".

I don't know what this means.

Was it your choice to have pre-payment?

As above. We were told there was a 5% DD discount, but we thought we would save more than that by being aware of our running costs, so we opted not to ask for a DD meter.

It was a good starting point to recognise the importance of the hours. If you are not satisfied with the response on hours, ask the question again and again until you get the same answer two calls running.

I am pressing the matter via email as we speak. A part of our costs will have been that we assumed that after 11pm was cheap as it was in a previous house. This was often when we would hoover and put the water on boost. However, the storage heaters do indeed seem to account for the lions share of the costs.

~~~~~~~~~~

jalexa

BorgleBoo wrote: »

The meter and payment plan is as it is when we moved in. We just called Scottish Hydro and notified them that we were the new tennants.

Also double check whether or not you are on "Total Heating with Total Control".

I don't know what this means.

I think you need to discuss the Economy 10 (or Economy 7) issue with the housing association. Normally Economy 7 is more appropriate for storage heating and has a number of advantages over E10, probably a cheaper tariff, can be compared and switched online and all household night consumption is at the cheap rate.

Unless the afternoon and evening top-up is of value to you and unless you are actually saving, Economy 10 may not be working for you. To switch to E7 there may be a meter change charge and possibly minor wiring mods, hence the need to speak with the housing association.

Ask the HA whether the property is wired for THTC and Hydro whether the supply is THTC.

Proper Economy 7 water heating has the main element connected only to cheap rate with full price top-up. I'm guessing if you are worried about the water heating timer you don't have a E7 cylinder. Again something for the HA to explain.

Sorry there are no easy answers and electric heating can be both expensive and complicated. Start reading the meter regularly so that you know many kWhrs you are using at each rate. More relevant than ££s.

rising_from_the_ashes

Just wondering how long you've got the immersion on for each day? (as you say you're having to use it "a lot").

You really shouldn't need it on that much to heat enough water - I had mine on for 1/2 an hour in the morning and an hour at night and it didn't cost that much to run. If you need water for dishes etc, it's cheaper to part boil a kettle full than put the immersion on.

Neither of my immersions were automatically timed to off-peak so I don't know how you would check that - one had an switch on the wall like a plug and the other had a plug I put into a socket, so it was easy to fit a timer on it to ensure it only heated during off peak times.


You can switch to DD at any time - yes you would show a deficit for the 1st few months but it's set to roughly balance out over the year so you'll catch up again in the summer.

You have my sympathies - having lived in 2 all electric houses, it does cost a substantial amount in the winter unfortunately.

BorgleBoo

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

Just wondering how long you've got the immersion on for each day? (as you say you're having to use it "a lot").

You really shouldn't need it on that much to heat enough water

By a lot what I mean is we usually need to put it on an additional 2 hour boost at bed time, added to the few hours? (don't know, never stayed up to watch it) it goes on by itself overnight.

The reason for this is we needed to run a full bath every day since there is no shower. Even so we'd economise by reusing bath water, especially to wash the kids. It's like living in the 1950's round here . I must admit I like my baths deep and hot so that perhaps required more heating than would otherwise be the case.

Left on its timer the hot water only gets to lukewarm at best without using boost.

We just bought one of those dribbly little showerheads for the tap so that we can have a rinse-off wash instead of a full bath during the week. That may save us somewhat on water heating.

rising_from_the_ashes

BorgleBoo wrote: »

By a lot what I mean is we usually need to put it on an additional 2 hour boost at bed time, added to the few hours? (don't know, never stayed up to watch it) it goes on by itself overnight.

That's an awful lot - honestly, I used to have mine on for an hour if I was having a bath (no shower either) and 1/2 an hour in the mornings.

I'd ask the HA to check that it's working OK - the heater things inside (sorry don't know what they're called) can go wrong. I had one replaced in mine as the water was only getting luke warm and it cost a bit (which you wouldn't have to pay) but was worth it to have proper hot water again & saved on the costs of heating it. HTH

chanz4

What settings have you got the storage heaters on, call hydro electric and ask to speak to energy efficency they will advice you best

BorgleBoo

Well on further investigation my off peak hours are actually 0430-0730, 1300-1600 and 2030-0030.

I'm also on "Total heat with total control" and Economy 10. Apparently this means they remotely control the times the heaters come on via radio telemetry, based on the weather forecasts. I asked the man on the phone if they would switch my heaters on during on-peak, as this was something I was keen to avoid. He assured me they would only ever do this during "extreme weather", and I'd want them on then anyway.

Today they switched the heaters on twice during the on-peak period. Once they did it it was a mere half hour till the start of an off-peak period. The weather was not what I would call "extreme" either.

Frankly I think Scottish Hydro are abusing their control of my heaters to make a quick buck off of me.

I think I'll take to deliberately switching them off at the wall during daytime on-peak hours.

Now that I know when they are that should make a big difference. I checked my digital meter and it informs me I am paying 17p per kwh on-peak and 8p per kwh off peak.

snowcat53

Another obvious question is if you have adequate insulatlon, particulary roof/loft?

jalexa

BorgleBoo wrote: »

Frankly I think Scottish Hydro are abusing their control of my heaters to make a quick buck off of me.

Not necessarily. You may not be understanding how THTC works. If it is properly wired THTC (the HA's responsibility) the system should work as follows.

The storage heaters are switched to a guaranteeed minimum schedule and boosted according to the weather. ALL storage heater consumption is at the low rate.

All permanently wired panel heaters and a permanently wired living room focal point fire use low rate electricity 24 hours a day

The water heating main element heats off peak at low rate only and timed boost under your control at day rate.

All your other consumption is day rate 24 hours a day.

THTC is unique to Hydro-Electric. It should only be installed in homes which meet a minimum insulation requirement and to a strict wiring specification. If the heating system (including water heating), wiring and insulation standards do not comply with the THTC specification, Hydro-Electric should not supply THTC. It's really up to the HA to confirm that the specification is achieved and explain to you how to best use it.

It can be used to your advantage if you understand how.

HTH