Help with Gas and Electric useage

SuiDreams

Please can you help my Gas and electric payments have increased massively, so I decided to read my meters once a month. I read my meters today and was shocked at how much we'd used.

Last quarter was:
Electic 1125 units
Gas 92 Units

for 1 month
Electic 408 Units
Gas 54 Units

We do not have a tumble dryer, do most of the washing on 30 all light bulbs are energy saving bulbs. We has Gas CH and a Gas hob, our electric oven broke 2 months ago and we haven't got round to replacing it yet. There are only 2 of us and one dog in the house. So can't understand what the big increase is for.

Thanks

Cardew

What help are you looking for?

Your electricity usage for the 1 month is not inconsistent with your last quarterly bill. Unless you heat by electricty, there is not normally a large variation is consumption throughout the year. Slightly more for lighting in the winter.

What period was your last quarterly bill? Was either start or end reading estimated?

Your gas consumption is very low. Even assuming you have an Imperial meter(measures in Cubic feet) your consumption in the last quarter was approx 2,850kWh which should cost no more than £110 even on the most expensive tariff(BG Standard before 12 March) That is way below average.

Even your 54 units in a month is still good.

SuiDreams

The quarterly bill was for the last quarter Dec, Jan and Feb and all based on readings. All heating is Gas and all cooking currently done on Gas Hob. Just can't understand why the useage is so different, can't think of any reasons why it should have gone up so much. I was just hoping for some ideas on what could have used the increased usage.

Cardew

Well as stated above your Electricity isn't much higher?

Was your last quarter exactly 3 months(91 days) and is the 1 month exactly one third of this?

Could the extra cooking on a gas hob because you have no oven account for some of the increased usage?

SuiDreams

The quarterly bill is 93 days and the monthly reading is 28 days. some of the gas may be related to extra coking on the hob, but we were using both oven and hob most days before the oven broke and surely I would have seen a reduction in my electric for not using oven rather than it going up. I've spent a lot of time trying to cut usage this month and for it to actually go up seems very strange to me.

dc

Your electricity consumption is not much different, from before.
One quarter is 3 months, so 3x408 is 1224, so 99 units up on last time.
Accounting for darker, colder nights, ie more lighting, more watching telly would explain the increase.

I dont think there is much to worry about other than the price.

Whoops Cardew beat me to it.

dc

SuiDreams wrote: »

I've spent a lot of time trying to cut usage this month and for it to actually go up seems very strange to me.

This happens to me, could possibly be modern living, ie Broadband, Digiboxes etc. Mine has gone up from 8 to currently 15 units a day and I too dont know why. Maybe low energy bulbs are a con?

SuiDreams

Glad its not just me then, think I'll keep a track of useage for a while and see if I can find a cause.

bigpaws23

You could join us on this thread:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=4729167#post4729167

I have been taking daily readings as I thought mine was a lot as well. This morning I have turned the immersion heater off and I'm going to put it on for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening to see what the difference it. Sometimes you just have to try things rather than listen to other's opinions and figure out for yourself what is going on.
It's an interesting learning curve for me, so I hope you'll join us and get to the bottom of your mystery

bigpaws x

SuiDreams

Well 7 units used yesterday, compared to 14 units last month and 12 units last quarter. So still looking for the cause of the increase. Oven used to be on for approx an hour per day about 5 times a week (more some weeks). So I would have expected last month read to be lower not higher.

bigpaws23

Well, I'm glad your usage went down, but it is a minefield isn't it? I turned the immersion heater off last night and there was no difference in my mightime reading - I totally do not understand that.

Ho hum; a mystery indeed.
Kinda fun figuring it all out though!

Bigpaws x