£1000 a quarter for electricity - please help!!

elrose

I'm really hoping someone here can help me since i dont know what else to do about my sky high electricty bill. I'm seriously wondering if my house has been wired wrongly, or if i'm secretly powering the whole street !

Here's a bit about the house - it's a 2 bed and powered only by electricity. We've got 6 panel heaters throughout the house, underfloor heating and a large water tank. The panel heaters are never on (because we cant afford them) apart from in the babies room where i put it on number 4 over night. The underfloor heating is off (again we cant afford it) though my neighbour who built the house told us this is the most economical way to heat the house since it's some special energy saving flooring. The boiler i'm not sure about...it's not on any sort of timer or anything - there are 2 switches for it and we only keep one on, the other is the booster which we never need to use.

So floor is off, panel heaters are off, we're freezing yet our electricity bill is over £300 a month. It's only september and i'm serioulsy worried for the winter. Last winter we were bitterly cold and i'm dreading it again...

The £300 is, believe it or not our actual usage. You can actually hear the wee wheel spinning round clocking our usage - there's practically sparks flying off it!! and yet i have no idea whats causing all the usage.

So can anyone tell me what might be causing our horrendous bills? Is it possible that our house is somehow wired wrongly? can we be powering the whole of the street? It's a total mystery and we cannot afford to keep paying over £300 a month. I'm desperate, please help if you have any ideas. i appreciate your help

PS. i should say that we have double glazing and great insulation. all our appliances are 'a' rated and we do have energy saving bulbs.

jalexa

elrose wrote: »

The boiler i'm not sure about...it's not on any sort of timer or anything - there are 2 switches for it and we only keep one on, the other is the booster which we never need to use.

I think the above is key. Switch off the switch and check if the meter slows down or stops.

I suspect your "boiler" is a hot water cylinder. Where is it situated? Is it well insulated? How hot is your tap water? How many baths a day? Are you on Economy 7?

Get a handle on your consumption by taking daily readings for a week, then weekly readings for a month.

pinkteapot

Agree with the above - I think you're talking about a hot water cylinder.

Ideally you will be on an Economy 7 tariff. My old flat had a hot water cylinder with two switches. One was an 'off peak' switch so it was left on constantly but only actually heated the water overnight during the cheaper hours. The other switch was an anytime on/off switch for short top-ups during the day. I just left this off.

If however your switch is an anytime immersion heater, leaving it on 24/7 will cost you a fortune. If it is an all-day switch you really need to get a timer fitted to it, or manually turn it on/off and only use it for a couple of hours a day.

If turning the water heater off makes no difference to the speed your meter is going round at, then I'd suggest getting an electrician in to check the place over as that's a crazy level of usage.

YoYoY

That's cheap!

According to winelight, the supplier expects them to pay £1000 per month! :eek:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4174229

:cool:

Okydoky25

I had the same thing but realised after the 1st bill arived that I needed to put this onto a timer so it heats the water over night and is switched off during the day.

pinkteapot

The old thread below says an immersion heater will cost 30p per hour to run if left switched on. That's £7.20 a day or £223 per month.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1115827

However, in reality it won't cost that much because once the water gets up to temperature the heater will automatically switch off. It cycles on and off to keep the water at temperature.

As well as putting it on a timer OP, one thing you can check is whether the thermostat has gone (an electrician could tell you). If the thermostat goes on an immersion heater then it just keeps heating the water constantly. You'd also notice that your hot tap water gets VERY hot.

macman

Please can you post your actual annual or monthly kWh usage.Posting that your DD is £300 per month does not tell us anything about your actual usage.
To get a handle on expenditure, you must first know your usage.
Where are you in the UK that you are 'freezing' in mid-September?
I suspect that what you call a boiler is a immersion heater and that you are running this on 24/7. if so that will consume up to 3kWh per hour when the tank stat is calling for heat.
What tariff are you on, and is it E7 or single rate?

elrose

Thank you all so much for your help. It looks like from all your words of wisdom my hot water tank is the culprit... Macman i use roughly 55 units a day. My tank is currently just wired to the mains, that's probably not technical chat, but what i mean is that it's not on any timer so i guess like pinkteapot says that's going to be costing about £200 a month? I take it my plan should be to get an electrician out to fix a timer and swap to some sort of economy tarrif to heat my water at night?

Thank you so much for your help, i feel much more positive now and will get my tank sorted today.

jalexa

elrose wrote: »

I take it my plan should be to get an electrician out to fix a timer and swap to some sort of economy tarrif to heat my water at night?

Timer ideas here...http://www.horstmann.co.uk/water-heating.php

Also how well insulated is your hot water cylinder?

macman

This does not make sense. 55 units a day, assuming that's a year-round average, is about 20,000 kWh per yer. While that's a lot, it's not impossible for an all-electric house. However, that consumption on a standard tariff would costing around £2000pa, resulting in a DD of about £166pm-not £300pm. How do you account for the other £134pm-is this debt/arrears on the account?
You really need to properly work out your annual consumption, not just short term daily usage.
Even an immersion heater on 24/7 cannot begin to account for 55 units per day.

pinkteapot

elrose wrote: »

Thank you all so much for your help. It looks like from all your words of wisdom my hot water tank is the culprit... Macman i use roughly 55 units a day. My tank is currently just wired to the mains, that's probably not technical chat, but what i mean is that it's not on any timer so i guess like pinkteapot says that's going to be costing about £200 a month? I take it my plan should be to get an electrician out to fix a timer and swap to some sort of economy tarrif to heat my water at night?

It's not quite that simple - if it is indeed the setup you've got, which we can only guess at.

In a property with Economy 7, there are effectively two different mains circuits - one off-peak and one on-peak. You have two meter readings, one for each.

To take advantage of E7, your water cylinder would need to be wired into the off-peak circuit instead of the on-peak circuit, so it's a wiring and meter change, not just a case of asking for an E7 tariff. You would then be able to leave the switch turned on permanently, but the off-peak circuit only works overnight, so it doesn't draw an power during the day.

Does your meter just have one single reading? If so, you only have one circuit and you're not on E7. And you definitely shouldn't leave the immersion heater on 24/7.