Guidance please - consumption

Craig_Grant

Hi All,

I'm just after some guidance with regards to my Gas & Electricity useage....basically want to understand if, in theory, the charges I'm getting seem reasonable.

I live my wife and 2 year old son in an average sized 3 bedoroom detatched house. We bought the house a couple years ago, it was a repsossesion (not sure if that will make any difference here but throwing that bit of info in can't hurt).

Gas - We have the heating on for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening. We shower daily, 2 people x approx 7 mins each. Little one has a bath every other night. Gas hob is used roughly every other night for cooking.

Electricity - we have energy saving lightbulbs in most rooms. However, kitchen and bathroom don't have them. We have a TV in the living room and our bedroom and Sky boxes in both too. The sky boxes both stay on standby through the day and night when not being used. The TVs are both switched off during the day properly, however, the tv in our room stays on stand by over night.

Nobody is in the house from 8am till 5.30pm.

Ok, that might all be over kill on the info and I apologise if it is.

Now for the charges.

We're on NPower standard tariff for both Gas & Electricity. We pay quarterly by cheque.

Last quarter our bill was £750 and this quarter our bill was £450. Both on actual readings.

I don't have last quarters bill in front of me but this months bill shows us using (from 15th Feb to 13th May);

Electricty - Last reading 2767 this reading 3507
Gas - Last reading 1941 this reading 2458

Our Gas bill was originally wrong so I can't put down how they have worked out the KWH as the figures I have on the bill are wrong and I can't work back their original calculations to be able to make new ones.

Hopefully someone can shed some light on whether the useage seems reasonable or whether we should get the meters checked.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Craig

macman

What you need are your annual kWh usage figures-£££'s per quarter are fairly meaningless, especially as you only quote a winter quarter-the seasonal variation on gas is huge.
One call to your supplier will get you these figures if you don't have your old bills.
You need to say if your gas meter is metric or imperial (it's marked on the front), as gas meters read volume, not kWh's, so the conversion is different.
If you're worried by your bills, then get off Standard tariff, because it's alway the most expensive.
Heating and hot water are the energy guzzlers, not the odd TV on standby.

Wywth

Craig_Grant wrote: »

Hi All,

I'm just after some guidance with regards to my Gas & Electricity useage....basically want to understand if, in theory, the charges I'm getting seem reasonable.

I live my wife and 2 year old son in an average sized 3 bedoroom detatched house. We bought the house a couple years ago, it was a repsossesion (not sure if that will make any difference here but throwing that bit of info in can't hurt).

Gas - We have the heating on for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening. We shower daily, 2 people x approx 7 mins each. Little one has a bath every other night. Gas hob is used roughly every other night for cooking.

Electricity - we have energy saving lightbulbs in most rooms. However, kitchen and bathroom don't have them. We have a TV in the living room and our bedroom and Sky boxes in both too. The sky boxes both stay on standby through the day and night when not being used. The TVs are both switched off during the day properly, however, the tv in our room stays on stand by over night.

Nobody is in the house from 8am till 5.30pm.

Ok, that might all be over kill on the info and I apologise if it is.

Now for the charges.

We're on NPower standard tariff for both Gas & Electricity. We pay quarterly by cheque.

Last quarter our bill was £750 and this quarter our bill was £450. Both on actual readings.

I don't have last quarters bill in front of me but this months bill shows us using (from 15th Feb to 13th May);

Electricty - Last reading 2767 this reading 3507
Gas - Last reading 1941 this reading 2458

Our Gas bill was originally wrong so I can't put down how they have worked out the KWH as the figures I have on the bill are wrong and I can't work back their original calculations to be able to make new ones.

Hopefully someone can shed some light on whether the useage seems reasonable or whether we should get the meters checked.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Craig

See the response I gave to the OP in this recent thread

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4624813

As for your consumption over the last month,

Electricity - just over 8kWh per day is normal; the average is 3300 kwh per year (about 9kWh per day)

Gas - 5.6 metered units per day would mean about 63kWh (or 3x that if an imperial meter :eek:)
This is also normal - average is 16500kWh per year (or 45kWh per day, but gas usage is often seasonable, so even less at this time of year, but higher for the period you include)

Try this advice to cut costs:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/you-switch-gas-electricity

Craig_Grant

Thank you for the quick reply. I'll try and pull all the figures together tonight. It's strange. Since we got the pre-payment meters removed and went to billing this way our bills have been;

Mar - May 2012 - £144.56
Jun - Aug 2012 - £210.13
Sep - Nov 2012 - £128.68
Dec - Feb 2013 - £762.40
Mar - Jun 2013 - £443.14

The jump is huge. The low seem too low and the high seem too high.

As far as I know we have a metric meter. According to the bills our kWhs is about 11 times the units.

Just looking on the back of the bill I have in front of me NPower say they calculate we use 2927 kWh of Electricity and 29420 kWh of gas over 12 months.
They predict for the next 12 months we'll spend £483.90 on Electricity and £1285.95 on Gas. £1769.85 combined for the year.

Craig_Grant

Thanks for that Wywth, it's put me at ease now.

macman

The figures aren't strange at all. Your annual gas usage is almost twice the national average, and of course most of that will be winter usage. So your winter quarter bills are very much higher than the others (not just much higher, which is normal).
I wouldn't be 'at ease' with that gas consumption. You need to look at the efficiency and usage of your heating/hot water and insulation.
OTOH, your electricity usage is about 10% less than average.

Craig_Grant

Based on the figures i've shown, Macman, and the fact we have a new boiler and don't have excessive useage. Should I have the meters looked at?

MillicentBystander

It really is the old adage (OK, it may be just my old adage lol), if everyone in the UK was converted to PPMs the total UK consumption figures would plummet overnight!

PS That gas consumption is ludicrously high given the living circs you state. Ours is way less than half that in a 4 bed extended semi with 4/5 occupiers and invariably accupied by one of us 24/7. Plus you really do need to look at getting off that awfully expensive tariff and that awfully expensive way of paying (quarterly).

PPS Is the house properly insulated?

Craig_Grant

Thanks Millicent. I'll compare and switch tonight. As for the insulation, that's something we need to look at.

macman

Craig_Grant wrote: »

Based on the figures i've shown, Macman, and the fact we have a new boiler and don't have excessive useage. Should I have the meters looked at?

No, there's nothing in what you have posted to indicate a metering issue with your gas. You can't have a meter 'looked at'. It's simply changed, and if found to be accurate then you'll be billed for a meter change.
You need to address your usage pattern, temp settings and your insulation. But first get onto a sensible tariff. Which probably means a monthly DD online discount tariff.
What controls do you have on your new boiler?

Craig_Grant

The new boiler is a combi boiler.

My wife sets the heating (i'd probably have it off all the time if it was down to me so she stays in charge). Anyway, she just sent me the details of what she has set up;

Heating is on at 17.5 degrees from 5.30-7.30am
From 7.30am to 5.30pm it only comes on if the temp in the house drops below 10 degrees
From 5.30pm it comes on to warm the house to 17.5 degrees and is on until 10pm but more often than not it goes off by about 7pm as the house is warm enough
Overnight 10pm until 5.30pm it only comes on if the house gets colder than 15.5 degrees