Guidance please - consumption

nPower

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

Hi Craig Grant,

Can I help you with anything at all? I have seen that you say you're on npower's standard tariff at the moment.

Have you compared our other tariffs, as there may be one that better suits and could save you money. You can compare them here http://www.npower.com/home/electricity-and-gas/compare-prices/

If you have any other questions, you can get in touch with me on [EMAIL="forumresponse@npower.com"]forumresponse@npower.com[/EMAIL]

Best wishes,

Adam

Craig_Grant

Hi Adam

Thank you but 'll be doing a full comparison of all suppliers and tarrifs tonight.

Regards

Craig

greyteam1959

Craig_Grant wrote: »

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
Personally I would turn off this heating period, why heat an empty house ???
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
Again I would turn of this heating period & get some thicker duvets !!!

I presume you have checked the loft insulation ???

HTH

Craig_Grant

Thanks Mervyn. I'll check the loft insulation because I've not done that yet.

Agree with your point about heating the house during the day when nobody is in. As for the overnight though, we have that so the temp doesn't drop too low and wake littlen up.

Wywth

Craig_Grant wrote: »

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

If you plan to insulate your property and so reduce your energy consumption, then be aware that any comparison you carry out today with existing consumption figures may not hold true for the reduced consumption figures you hope to attain in the future.

So bear this in mind if you elect to switch supplier/tariff, both in terms of any early exit penalty you might agree to and also that you will need to do a comparison again once you have a better idea of your lower consumption levels

macman

Craig_Grant wrote: »

Thanks Mervyn. I'll check the loft insulation because I've not done that yet.

Agree with your point about heating the house during the day when nobody is in. As for the overnight though, we have that so the temp doesn't drop too low and wake littlen up.

All modern boilers have a frost stat which will fire the boiler if the CH flow temp drops below a preset level-usually 5C. It would have to be very cold out for the internal room temp to drop to as low as 10c.
This does not explain your very high usage, nor does your temp setting, which is very low. Look at your insulation: loft, double glazing, cavity walls, draughtproofing.