Huge electricity bill

xdoty

All,
I am sorry if this normal. But if its not can someone please direct me as to what I should be doing next.

I am have just moved to the UK, from Australia in Feb. I moved into a 1 br room flat. The flat has no gas only electricity. A few days after I moved in EDF sends me a note to say they need to replace my meter. So the meter has been replace.
I get my first bill its 5 days for 12 GBP. I paid it without too much thought.
I get my second bill today its 482 GBP. My reading according to the bill is an actual reading Day 2149 kWh night 2069 kWh. I am gob smack, and average daily use of 58KwH.

I have the following in my flat
Fridge/Frezzer, Oven, Microwave, Washing Machine, Water Heater, Night Storage heater X2 (living room and bedroom),TV and one laptop.

I am one person I leave for work at 8am and home by 6pm.

I anticipate 100 GBP per month (am I naive ??) for energy consumption. And I expected bill be high because its been as we say in Australia bloody cold...

I leave the thermostats on 3 and the input to 3 for afternoon release of the storage heat.

apart from the router for my internet its the only thing drawing power that i think of that is not on standby.

I have sent an email of to EDF to ask them to look into this. Hope someone can direct me.

Many Thanks
Xodty

sk240

Unfortunately with electric heating, its never going to be cheap.Do your storage heaters also have a convector heater too?
As you are out most of the day, you may find that not using the storage heaters at all may be your best option because by the time your back home they are probably well down on heat.
If the meter proves to be correct then your culprit will be heating of the room or water tank

spiro

Question - are you on an Economy 7/E7 tariff? From the figures posted you are using more during the day than night which is not good for E7 because whilst the night rate (7hrs) is cheaper you pay a premium during the day (14hrs).

xdoty

Hi SK240 & Spiro,
Thanks for the reply. SK240 I assume a convector heater is one where if I had not put any input in the night before it would draw from the main power ? if yes then yes I do. So what I should be doing is turning the thermostats to the lowest setting ? Can I turn the heater off at the switch will it still retain the storage heat ( might be a very stupid question).
Spiro I am on E7 .. that is what got me baffle I am not home during the day how can my usage be so high.
SK240 what can I do to minimise the hot water unit power consumption there is a power switch and a switch with the word "booster" it appears that it is wired into the main so I can not put a timer switch on it... ahhh I feel so lost I've never seen thing so complicated with regards to heating (what a learning curve ).
I've check the meter the reading, they are in the ball park of what is being reported on the bill are there any possibility that these brand spanking new fancy digital meter could be wrong ?
Many thanks again
xdoty

societys_child

Never had E7 but as far as I know, if the "booster" switch is on, you'll be heating your water using the premium/ day rate.

... and welcome, to the forum and the cold UK :cool:

Terrylw1

The first thing to check is the final readings for the old meter and the opening reads on the new meter. These must show in your bill.

It could be that your meter even started on reading higher than all zeroes.

Is there a tag on there with the readings on?

xdoty

Terrylw1, I had a new meter put in a few days after I moved in. They've stuffed up the set up of the account so everything started on 0 on the new meter..
But I have the original reading when I went through the property with the inventory clerk.
Do you think amount is high ? especially for the day time, looks like people are thinking its the heater and the hot water unit. I read from OFGEM electricity usage is ~3,300 kWh if this is the annual figure in 72 days I've nearly used up the average amount. I assume OFGEM figure might attribute heating to gas rather then electricity. Thanks for replying

ammonite

Electric heaters unfortunately run away with your money. They are very expensive to run compared to gas central heating. I really suggest trying to sort an alternative (is it possible to move?!) before the winter when it gets "even bloody colder" :rotfl:

I posted yesterday about my gas bill being high as I'm worried about it for the forthcoming winter.

Really hope you have some luck with it (and welcome to the UK)

macman

Typical electricity usage of 3,300kWH pa is for a property with gas CH and DHW-not with storage heaters!

Terrylw1

When you say they stuffed them up and put them on zero, do you mean the new meter was installed on zero and due to problems, they just started your account from the installation reading?