Feel I'm Being Ripped Off!

singingsister

I live (we rent) in a one bedroom maisonette with my fiancee, have the heating on for 1/2 hour in the morning when we get up, and 1/2 hour when I get home, do "average" laundry for two people yet NPower want to up our monthly direct debit from £35 to £50 a month! According to money supermarket - this puts us in the high usage bracket (£500 a year!). How can this be?

The only one issue we have is there is economy seven in the property but we can't use the washing machine at night as our neighbour downstairs complained to the residents association that we were being unsociable! (apparantly it says we can't make noise between 8pm and 8am) - so we can't use the economy 7 - and we have mentioned this to the landlord but he hasn't come back to us.

What can I do to reduce my bills?! I can't afford £50 a month on electricity alone (we don't have gas)

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

bengal-stripe

Have you taken a reading recently?
Do your bills refer to actual consumption or are estimates?

Cardew

You are not in the high usage bracket for people who only have electricity and no gas. The figure you quote is for people who don't use electricity for heating.

The average household pays £1000 a year for heating and electricity and you are paying much less than that(admittedly for a small property.) and electric heating is more expensive than gas.

I don't understand what you mean by saying you put the heating on for 1/2 hours morning and night and can't use the Economy 7. What sort of heating is this? Storage heating or heaters on normal electricity? If the latter it is the most expensive form of heating you can get.

The problem of noisy washing machines coming on in the early hours of the morning(to take advantage of E7) is something lots of people don't appreciate. You cannot blame your neighbour if he complains of being woken up.

newlife_starts_now

your usage is low for electricity only. If your not using the E7 part then ask your supplier to switch your tarrif to a standard tarif. They will not need to change your meter but just charge all your usage on the same rate.
Lou.