Sky High bills! Help please!

rosierocks

Hi everyone, I've not posted before.

We're struggling, like everyone else no doubt, with the rising cost of living, everything costing more etc etc, but it's not being at all helped by our gas/elec bills. We're a family of 5, 4 bed victorian semi, and I'm paying £221 per month and am apparently still £357 in debit to them:(

The figures on my online account seem to indicate that we are using
35 kwh of electricity per day, and 112 kwh gas per day, over the last 3 months is this a lot?

My husband worked out that it meant we were using around £30 worth of electricity every week. Is that normal? Most people I know
say their bills are less than half mine. Any thoughts folks? I know I live in an old house, and winter was cold, but even so! Can't afford to carry on spending this amount on these bills. Many thanks:)

jalexa

rosierocks wrote: »

The figures on my online account seem to indicate that we are using
35 kwh of electricity per day, and 112 kwh gas per day, over the last 3 months is this a lot?

Welcome to the forum:).

We're supposed to be nice to newbies, but I think you need a harsh lesson. Energy (especially electricity) is not cheap but your bills are sky high not because energy is not cheap but because of your profligate use of electricity.

Your gas is not especially excessive for the winter quarter, assuming it starts to come down. Your electricity use is nearly 4x average:( (for energy which is already between x3 and x4 the cost of gas):(:(. Can you think of any reasons your electricity use is so excessive? Have you been topping up much cheaper gas heating with electric heating?

Focus initially on saving electricity as the returns are much greater.

Meanwhile start getting a handle on your consumption by taking daily reads for a week, then regular weekly or monthly reads.

diddydiner

For a while Monitor what your using, take readings and get a monitor that attatches to your electricty in line .Cut back on hot washes (cut down to 30 degree or fast wash you be suprised how much that will save. How many showers a day, my average use is 1.5kw-2.5kw kw per shower. Dish washer can use about 2kw. These are the eaters of electric as well as tumble dryers, i tend to hang up over night and then just air off the next day. Have you electric heaters along side your gas ?? You seem to be using a lot of kw per day . i have a 4 bed semi and 3 adults although i always have people staying over as well etc. I use at the moment 14-18kw a day , summer approx 12kw day. So approx 13kw a day all year round.
I tell you this as i had suspitions for 10 years that my consumtion wasnt right . i queried it many times with the electric companys but no one would listen. it turnt out my meter was not registering right and was doubling up. 24-36 kw per day It drove me mad trying to get someone to listen, i got it tested in the end and have now been settled with overpayment £3500 so far and i still need to go back to one more company for another 3 years worth. im yet to put my full story on here some time. Get a owl monitor..

HappyMJ

A friend of mine used to own a dryer...2 years ago it died. It was not replaced. Her annual electric usage has since dropped from 5,200kWh per year to 3,900kWh per year. She said she hardly ever used the dryer maybe barely once a week in summer and twice a week in winter. 25% of her annual usage was the dryer at a cost of £156 per year or a cost of £2 per alleged use. I think she meant 2 days a week in winter for a few washes in a row rather than one wash. Each load was 3kg so she would have needed a few loads to get all the washing done and dry.

rosierocks

Thanks for the replies. We don't use electric heaters at all. My son has his pc on all the time as he runs it as a server, but we have the monitors off when he's not on it and he assures me it uses very little power... we did have a tumble dryer but it went caput so maybe that will start to show a difference. We do also have a hot tub, which dh says equates to an extra £90 per 3 months. Even so, seems crazy amounts. Showers, well, say 3 out of 5 of us have a shower every day, baths for the kids. I will do as you all suggest and take weekly readings. Thanks again for the advice

Rosie x

Yolina

rosierocks wrote: »

We do also have a hot tub, which dh says equates to an extra £90 per 3 months

:eek::eek::eek: instant savings to be made there I think as for the rest, it's usually all the little things that don't use much individually but added together end up using loads! If you have many of those halogen spotlight thingies all over the place, they will also eat electricity like there's no tomorrow.

HappyMJ

Yolina wrote: »

:eek::eek::eek: instant savings to be made there I think as for the rest, it's usually all the little things that don't use much individually but added together end up using loads! If you have many of those halogen spotlight thingies all over the place, they will also eat electricity like there's no tomorrow.

I don't think £1 a day for a hot tub is too bad. The cost for the benefit is worth it.

Yolina

The OP said they couldn't afford carrying on spending what they did on utility bills so the hot tub would probably be the best way to have a pretty much instant effect on said bills

gadgeteer_2

rosierocks wrote: »

My son has his pc on all the time as he runs it as a server, but we have the monitors off when he's not on it and he assures me it uses very little power...

Technically he is correct in that your average PC will be drawing around 90-100watts when idle and not doing very much. Which probably equates to an old lightbulb. The problem is if he leaves it on 24x7 and assuming you are paying 10.5p per unit then it's around £7.50 per month or £90 a year. Just to run his PC.

It's all the little things that add up and there's no point in going "Ah well, that's only little" then at the end moaning your bills are high.

Just between that and your hot tub, you are looking at a saving of £450 a year.

victor2

The cheapest way to check your electricity usage (which as everyone says, seems to be the issue here) is to read your meter regularly, such as at the same time every day for a few weeks. Note your daily usage and any changes that have taken place. Take a reading before using your hot tub and a reading after it has been on for an hour or two. Do the same without the hot tub being used and compare the amount of electricity used. The difference will give you an idea what the hot tub is using. Note you'll need to read fractions of units on your meter over short periods of time.
For individual appliances (with a 13 amp plug on them) consider getting a cheap monitor, something like this one. I'm not specifically recommending that one, but it gives you an idea of the price.
Your electricity supplier may be offering free monitors, which report the usage for the whole house. They're not all that accurate, but do give you an idea how much electricity is being used at any point in time.

patchwork_cat

Your library may rent out OWL monitors. They monitor how much electricity you are using now, you can go around and switch things off and on and see the cost.