Npower increase my monthly bill by over 40%

grannyjo

just read your last post again.Are you saying you had everything else switched off ie no lights fridge tv internet and yet you used 6kw. - jo

back_against_the_wall

Not yet resorted to switching everything off, which would be very inconvenient and a last resort. More concerned at the moment about what the immersion heater is costing rather than trying to track down where the other odd 6kwh have disappeared to. I used to leave the timer for the immersion heater on 24 hours a day. Changing this to 4 hours a day made no difference to my useage whatever but changing the timer again to 2 hours a day did make a difference, my useage went down by 4 units from 14 to 10. Next I changed the timer to only 1 hour a day but this reduced the useage by only 1 unit to 9 units per day. However, this resulted in very cold water the next day and was not a viable solution. I now have a better understanding of the way my immersion heater works and it is shockingly expensive and wasteful. I use at most 9 - 10 litres of hot water per day (unless I have a bath which uses huge amounts of hot water, increasing my water bill which is another sore point, so I avoid baths these days and just wash myself down at the basin in the bathroom at night). However, my hot water tank holds 170 litres so I have to heat up the whole tank and the whole 170 litres just to get the 10 odd litres of hot water I use each day. Heating up 170 litres requires that the 3kw element in the immersion heater is turned on full for at least 2 hours, actually somewhat longer. This costs me at least 6 units per day. However, I only use about 10 litres of the 170 litres heated up and the rest goes cold and has to be heated up again the next day. This is an appalling wastage of the cost of the energy to heat up the difference of 160 litres. Quite ridiculous and I would never have chosen an immersion heater given the choice but it was pre-installed with the flat and I am stuck with it. There is no way I can afford to replace it with a lower capacity model. I am going to experiment with the "boost" switch. As I understand it the immersion heater has two 3kw heating elements, one at the bottom of the tank controlled by a timer and another nearer the top on a separate circuit. The latter is the "boost" thingy and heats up the top element to give additional hot water as and when needed by heating the water nearer the top of the tank rather than the full tank. So you get some hot water quicker than otherwise but it probably goes cold within a short time. However, using this might be more economical than heating up the whole tank. We will see! Sadly the immersion heater does not in any way heat up the flat because it radiates no heat whatever and is not hot to the touch due to internal insulation which is not very effective because the hot water only retains its temperature for about 10 hours or so and then has to be fully heated, all 170 litres of it, again.
The small fan heater in my bedroom has not been used for months. I have been able to put up with no heating in the flat because the weather since Xmas has been quite mild. However, it is set to turn colder next week which I am dreading because I just cannot afford to turn any heating on. I suffer from poor circulation and my hands and feet get very cold. I can only warm up my hands when they go numb by soaking them in hot water which is why hot water is more of a necessity to me than anything else. Regards, David.

dogshome

Hi back_against_the_wall
On your Post 30 you say "The tank never gets warm to the touch so must be internally insulated"

Without seeing the tank it's imossible to be sure, but if when viewed this tank is just a big copper cylinder.it doesn't have any insulation, which would account for it not getting hot to the touch and not retaining heat

An uninsulated tank in a 'New Build' is a real puzzle as it would breach building regs - Is the building quite old, but has been re-furbished.? - Modern tanks are coated with very effective foam insulation during manufacture, but tailored, padded jackets are readily available for old tanks and don't cost a lot

grannyjo

We heat our hot water by gas, but to get a sinkful of hot water, we have to run the water for ages before it gets warm. Thats because the boiler is in the garage and it seems to have a very long route to the bathroom - or kitchen, heating all the pipework as it goes. We got so angry with this, wasting so much water -( that also costs on the water meter), so we started using an electric kettle. We now have an electric kettle in the bedroom thats used for early morning tea, and washing ourselves. The downstairs kettle is sometimes, not always for washing up - and tea..Why don't you try that for a few days and see what happens.
Are you sure you are not eligable for income support, to supplement your pension. I don't know how you manage with no heating. My husband uses a 500w oil filled radiater which is very small. He uses it in his study. It is quite cheap to run and he sits almost on top of it. Like has been said befor, you could wrap yourself in an electric overblanket. That would probably be the most efficient way to warm up when its cold. Lots of people go to the neareat library to read in the warm too.- perhaps good on a really cold day for you.

back_against_the_wall

According to the rather short manual for the immersion heater it "has a stainless steel inner vessel" to prevent corrosion and an "outer casing...of resilient thermoplastic mouldings..." and is "insulated with CFC free polyurethane foam to meet the latest European heat loss requirements..."
The manufacturer is Santon, whoever they are, and the model is of the direct unvented mains pressure type, model no 170E, again whatever all that means. This thing was never chosen by either me or my mother but came pre-installed at the flat, which is certainly "new build" and in no way refurbished. In fact, my mother and myself used to watch the flats being built just down the road from where we used to live before our home was the subject of a compulsory purchase order and we had to move, which so upset my poor mother that it led to her early death just over a year after we moved.
I rather thought that the immersion heater hot water tank not getting warm to the touch was caused by the internal insulation rather than being a result of the tank having no insulation.
I have to correct something I said in my last posting where I said that, once heated up, the water in the tank retained it's temperature for 10 hours. This is not correct. In fact, the water starts to go cold quite quickly and is not at all useable the next day. I would say that the hot water when fully heated up only lasts at that temperature for 2 - 3 hours and then goes cold within a few hours needing heating up again the next day.
I was always puzzled by not having instant hot water through the tap when the immersion heater was fully heated through. I now realise that this is because of the distance between the immersion heater and the hot water taps in my bathroom and kitchen. The water in the pipes between the immersion heater and the taps obviously goes cold after a short while and has to be drained off before any hot water comes through. This is a great waste of water while waiting for the hot water to come through.
I am unemployed and my only income is a small pension from the Civil Service. I am also 58 with various health problems and no chance of ever getting work again. I used to receive incapacity benefit but as a result of a medical assessment a couple of years ago I was declared fit for work and my benefit was stopped. This was a total joke. I applied for loads of jobs but never got so much as a reply. Nobody wants to know when you are 58 and, like me, have not worked for over 10 years. As I understand, income support only applies to people in work and is not available for the unemployed. I do not qualify for any benefits at all now because of my small Civil Service pension which is taken into account in assessing if you qualify for job seeker's allowance etc.
I tried using the "boost" switch on the immersion heater today. I left it on for about half an hour and the water heated up a bit but not very much and then went cold within half an hour.
I am sick and tired of wresting with all this. I need hot water if nothing else and so have switched the timer on again for a full 24 hours and will monitor the effects of this on my useage over the next few days. Hopefully, the thermostat in the hot water tank should regulate the electricity consumption. We will see!
It was absolutely freezing in this flat today and I really do not know how I am going to survive through the rest of the winter and there is snow forecast for next week.
Regards, David.

grannyjo

every time you use the hot water, the immersian fills up with cold, and the pipes fill up as you say with water that soon cool down.
Have you got a hot water bottle. There is one selling on ebay for 1p - with postage £1 finishing in 4 hours. That is more efficient than bowls of hot water to warm up.- and stay warmer for longer
Have you got a kettle? Use that-is there a reason you don't
Have you got a thermos flask? Fill it with hot water for your next need.
Do you wear warm clothes, sit with a rug, do you sit a lot or go out and move around a lot. Have hot drinks, use a hot water bottle
If you google freecycle, you can join free. Then I think you have to offer something you give away for free. After that you can ask for things and people in your area will give you all sorts of things. Ask for a kettle, a hot water bottle and an electric blanket. I appreciate your difficulties and they are many. Don't get too discouraged.
As the post above says, you still need to check your meter as she says
Where do you live? jo

back_against_the_wall

The meter reading today was horrendous. It had shot up to 23 units from 15 the previous day and 12 the day before that. This is the highest daily figure since I started taking daily readings (as opposed to my previous practice of taking readings every month or so) last November. I can only put the increase down to my switching the immersion heater timer back on for the full 24 hours. The water was lovely and hot today but if this is going to result in regular daily useage in excess of 20 units this is totally unaffordable. It might settle down to a lower figure tomorrow but if not I am going to have to think of something else. I am not sure how to interpret the heat loss figures in the link to the Santon website kindly provided by jalexa. I can only speak from my own experience and I get nothing like a heat retention of up to 24 hours. Unless the timer is on continuously, as it is at the moment, it takes approximately 2 and a half hours to heat up from cold to something useable and then goes lukewarm within about 3 hours and cold again after about 5 hours. There is nothing obviously faulty looking about the cylinder. The thermostats are not readily accessible but hidden under a cover somewhere. I don't really want to mess with them. I have never had any water, hot or cold, flowing from the cylinder overflow. The external hot water pipes get very slightly warm to the touch but certainly not noticeably hot. I will have to quiz some of my neighbours when I get the chance about their experiences with their immersion heaters and what hot water settings they use.
I have a kettle and a thermos flask. When I make my evening meal I boil water in the kettle then transfer this to the thermos. I can then use the hot water in the thermos to make several hot drinks and also top up the soup I make without having to boil any more water.
I have not entirely ruled out the meter being faulty and overstating my useage but I will no doubt have to pay to get it tested. Npower have refused to test the meter, even though they installed it back in April 2010, because I have now changed my supplier to British Gas. BG in fact sent me a free electricity monitor yesterday as a "thankyou" for signing up with them. Unfortunately, I cannot get the thing to work. There is a sensor device that you have to clip around one of the 4 mains wires going into the meter. This is then supposed to wirelessly transmit the current passing through the mains wire to a separate digital readout device which converts the current into kwh letting you know your daily useage. The sensor must use magnetic induction or something to measure the current. I only have 2 wires going into my meter and not 4 as claimed in the brief booklet which came with the monitor. Only one of these is flexible enough to fit the sensor around. Having done this I cannot get the readout device to register any signal from the sensor. It just shows a zero reading. I have placed the readout device, which when fully charged is portable and you can take it anywhere in the premises, within a few inches of the sensor in the meter cupboard but still nothing. Don't know if this might indicate something dodgy about the meter. Probably not.
I live in Salford, just over a mile from Manchester City Centre, where I can go and get warm in the Arndale shopping centre. David.

tco03

Npower are very shady and it would'nt surprise me if they're just trying it on to see if you pay.

grannyjo

what a great suggestion- so simple. Perhaps do it several times different times of day, to check that neighbours who are not using any electricity at that time- could be using it another time.

back_against_the_wall

Thankyou jalexa. I think it unlikely that the meter is not connected to my flat and has been sabotaged by one of my neighbours but I will follow your advice just to rule out the possibility. I don't think any of my neighbours are clever or devious enough to do anything like this. More likely the wiring of the meters, if this is in fact a possible cause of my high meter readings, was never correct in the first place from before we ever moved in over 4 years ago. I do recall that when we moved in, and at that time we were the first residents to move in and remained on our own for at least 6 months before anyone else moved in, there was already quite a high reading on the meter for which British Gas tried to bill us until I explained to them that this reading related to the period before we took up occupation. This may or may not be significant.
I managed to quiz one of my neighbours today about her hot water settings and this has left me more mystified than ever. My neighbour told me that she leaves her hot water timer on 24 hours a day and has never changed any timer settings. She let me have a look at her immersion heater cylinder and it is exactly the same as mine with no additional lagging around the side. Her cylinder and external hot water pipes like mine just got very slightly warm to the touch. So you would expect my useage to be broadly similar to that of my neighbour, other things being roughly equal. And yet my meter reading yesterday was 18 units , somewhat down on the previous day's figure of 23 units, but still totally unaffordable, and her reading was just 6 units (and also 6 the day before and 6 the day before that; all the meters for the 9 flats in my block are in a cupboard on the ground floor and I take daily readings of all my neighbours as well as my own and input the readings on a spread sheet which now has readings going back for all the flats in my block to last November; by this means I can compare my useage to that of my neighbours). OK, obviously our useage is not going to be exactly the same but a difference of 18 units for me - 6 units for her = 12 units, 12 kwh, when I have very little else switched on, no heating whatever (and she also has her central heating switched on, although she told me she switches off the individual radiators because "it gets too warm"; the luxury of actually being too warm when I am nearly freezing to death in my flat) rather flags up a discrepancy requiring explanation. The only thing that occurs to me is that the thermostat in my immersion heater might be set too high but this is really grasping at straws as I think that all the thermostats in all the immersion heaters in all the flats in my block were factory set at 60 degrees. Nevertheless, to rule this out I did what I said yesterday I would not want to mess with, namely remove the cover from the thermostat on the side of my immersion heater and reduce the setting from 60 to about 50 degrees. I will have to give this new setting a few days to make any noticeable difference but I will be very surprised if it significantly reduces my useage. Following which I am totally out of ideas. Regards. David.