Why is my electric more expensive than friends with bigger homes?

jimjames

Tracy2912 wrote: »

In response to putting the immersion on a timer, what am I to do when I need hot water for washing up and showering? The cheap rate goes on about midnight, the hot water won't be hot all day. I'm not putting any storage heaters on, they cost a fortune to heat up from cold and just don't keep us warm. The convectors are doing a much better job.

We are going to start doing our own readings for a month to see if we are being overcharged.

An immersion heater is about 3kW rating so if it is on 24/7 then you'll be paying 3x24 kWh per day = 72kWh just for the immersion heater, at 12p per unit thats nearly £9 per day for water heating if it is running continuously. EDIT - just seen previous reply, I'd not taken any account of thermostat but it will still be running to keep water at constant high temperature during the day.

We have gas boiler to heat our water but its still only on for around 2 hours morning and evening which keeps the water plenty hot enough for a family of 4.

Dropping the immersion to a couple of hours per day would make a big difference and you can always adjust the times if the water isnt hot enough.

mildred1978

Tracy2912 wrote: »

. The immersion heater is on 24/7 and the tv,consoles are on standby (tv not meant to be turned off properly apparently!). .

For many items being on standby uses as much power as being on.

Immersion on all day? Are you insane? That's like boiling a kettle every 5 minutes 24/7 in case you fancy a cup of tea at some point!

Cardew

cjard wrote: »

If your immersion provides your hot water and you use a lot of it, invest in a timer..
If you have an electric shower (9.5kw) at 22p/kwh a 15 minute shower costs 50p.. Showering before 6am would see my shower cost drop to about 10p - cost of being a late riser

How many people spend 15 mins in a shower?

In any case you are using the Tier 1 price for electricity. You need to use Tier 2 prices which even on E 7 should be no more than 14p/kWh. - so 33p

At 6p/kWh for off peak a 15 min shower costs just over 14p.

if you leave your immersion on 24/7 it will have a thermostat to knock it off when its heated the whole tank, but you lose control of when it runs, which means that it probably does most of its hard work in the 9am - 11 pm after everyone's caned the hot water for showers, and 8pm - 9pm when again theyve caned it for washing up, evening activities etc - expensive times
If mine ran all day (at my prices) it'd be 7 hours * 2.7 * 6p plus 17 hours * 2.7 * 22p (the average of my day rates) it'd cost me £11.23 a day! 3 hours of expensive rate use (3*2.7*0.22) is about £1.80 a day, or £54 a month!

This must be close to being the most outrageous and silly over-estimate I have seen on MSE.

1. Having mentioned the thermostat you have virtually ignored it's effect.

2. You have ignored insulation effects on a tank.

3. you have used a completely unrealistic price of 22p/kWh for electricity costs.


Modern insulated HW tanks are tested to a British Standard and on average the heat loss over 24 hours with water kept at 65C is 2kWh.

So the difference between keeping your tank immersion heater on 24/7 and on timed is no more than 2kWh - say 28p if you are on Economy 7 and use a lot of water. 20p if you have normal single rate electricity and if you heat your tank with gas CH about 8p.

Cardew

mildred1978 wrote: »

For many items being on standby uses as much power as being on.

Immersion on all day? Are you insane? That's like boiling a kettle every 5 minutes 24/7 in case you fancy a cup of tea at some point!

Just not so about standby. Might have been so 40 years ago when TVs had valves.

Virtually all TV's for example have a standby consumption of less than 1 watt. - many much lower. I have 3 TV's - an old Sony CRT 32", and newish 37" Panasonic and 32" Sony. If I left all 3 of them on standby 24/7 the total cost for all 3 would be just over £1 a year.

There really is a lot of 'old wives tales about standby consumption.

Leaving the immersion on 24/7 is not insane - and whilst cheaper to be timed it isn't that much more expensive. See post above.

Tracy2912

Many thanks for your post, I think what we will do for this winter is to keep the storage heaters off and keep with the convector heaters til march, when we receive our bill in march, if it's cheaper than last year then I'll stick with the convector heaters, if it turns out more expensive then we will turn the storage heaters back on oct/nov this year and have the convectors as back up.

We had the storage heaters set at the right settings but we couldn't feel any warmth from them in the evenings, they were just barely warm and the vents were shut all day. We have done everything we can to prevent draughts but I don't think this building has wall insulation, the loft was insulated the other year.

macman

Tracy2912 wrote: »

Many thanks for your post, I think what we will do for this winter is to keep the storage heaters off and keep with the convector heaters til march, when we receive our bill in march, if it's cheaper than last year then I'll stick with the convector heaters, if it turns out more expensive then we will turn the storage heaters back on oct/nov this year and have the convectors as back up.

We had the storage heaters set at the right settings but we couldn't feel any warmth from them in the evenings, they were just barely warm and the vents were shut all day. We have done everything we can to prevent draughts but I don't think this building has wall insulation, the loft was insulated the other year.

Which if you remain on E7 will cost you a fortune, as you'll be paying peak rate tariff for all your heating.

Sootzer

Seriously...you have got to...make sure your hot water tank is lagged/well insulated and only have the immersion on for about 2 hours a day. You will definitely see a drop in your bills.