Energy BIlls 1 bedroom flat

glasgowm148

I opened an account with npower in November 2011 and made my monthly payments of £53 for 7 months (£371) before switching to co-op energy with the group buy thing at the start of June 2012. I then received a bill for £550 from npower meaning they were trying to bill me £921 for 7 months (£131/mo - almost tipple what I had been quoted when opening the account). I submitted a final meter bill (I was lazy and all others were estimated [which I assumed was accurate] and this dropped my bill down to Final bill down to £319)

So they're trying to charge me £690 for 7 months use (£98/mo - double what I was quoted)

I work 5 (7:30am - 6pm) days a week, my girlfriend is out the house for 3 days a week. I have storage heaters and usually just wrap up in blankets, etc. I've never used the heater in the bedroom, So the only thing that I run is the cooker, TV (low-energy plasma), fridge (low-energy model), washing machine, and a storage heater in the living room. Watch about 3 hours TV a night then it's switched off at the wall.

I regret not monitoring my meter readings more often and letting npower just guess. I've requested my opening and closing meter readings and they are as follows.

OPEN:
est. 15520 night & 67226 day.
CLOSE:
20132 night & day 69111

This means I've used
4612kwh Night
1885kwh Day

Does this all seem about right? I just think £98/mo is a ridiculous amount to be running a fridge, washing machine, heater and TV in a 1 bedroom flat.

HappyMJ

That sounds about right. Electric heating is quite expensive. To run a 1 bedroom property would cost almost the same as a 3 bedroom house with gas central heating. As you weren't with Npower for 1 year you will lose your annual discount which adds £10 per month to the original quote. Assuming you are in the same region as me then the night rate would be about 5p and the day rate about 15p with the first 2kWh per day charged at 25p. So....4,612kWh night rate units at 5p would be £230.60 and 1,885kWh day units at 15p would be £282.75. There's about 210 days in 7 months so add on another 20p per day...£42.00 for a total bill of £555.35 add some vat of 5% +£27.80 and it should come to £583.15. Maybe your unit rates are higher in your region...that's not too bad.

WestonDave

How do you heat water and wash - my guess is that you've got an immersion heater running for hot water and use an electric instant heat shower - both of those will eat energy for fun!

You are far from alone in this, but people really need to get a handle on the difference between what is quoted as DD amounts and the fact that if you use double the electricity they assume in those quotes, you will pay double the bill!

glasgowm148

HappyMJ wrote: »

That sounds about right. Electric heating is quite expensive. To run a 1 bedroom property would cost almost the same as a 3 bedroom house with gas central heating. As you weren't with Npower for 1 year you will lose your annual discount which adds £10 per month to the original quote. Assuming you are in the same region as me then the night rate would be about 5p and the day rate about 15p with the first 2kWh per day charged at 25p. So....4,612kWh night rate units at 5p would be £230.60 and 1,885kWh day units at 15p would be £282.75. There's about 210 days in 7 months so add on another 20p per day...£42.00 for a total bill of £555.35 add some vat of 5% +£27.80 and it should come to £583.15. Maybe your unit rates are higher in your region...that's not too bad.

What, really? Why have the landlords went to the trouble of installing storage heaters, etc when it's 3x the price? Why does anyone use electric?

amiehall

It's much cheaper to fit an electric system. As a LL, a electric system is cheaper to maintain and doesn't require annual certification. In short, your LL doesn't have to live in the property, so why should he care about the unit costs? He's clearly still able to find tenants.

If you're going to have electric heating, storage heaters are your best option.

macman

glasgowm148 wrote: »

What, really? Why have the landlords went to the trouble of installing storage heaters, etc when it's 3x the price? Why does anyone use electric?

Usually because the property has no mains gas...