Does this sound about right?

scottishgirl87

Firstly, apologies for my ignorance as I'm completely new to this. My boyfriend and I bought our first flat (average 2 bed flat) at the end of January and moved in mid-March. In February I called Scottish Power to setup an account for gas and electricity as they were the supplier to the previous occupants of the flat. They set me up on a £65 per month Direct Debit with their Platinum Fixed Energy April 2015 Online.

At the weekend I inputted my meter readings online for the first time as previously, since March, someone has always been at the door to take the readings but SP had sent me an email telling me to do it. Now, I don't think the meter readings are wrong, however, today SP have emailed me saying our Direct Debit is going up to £116 per month - that's nearly 50% more! I should point out that this is due to the electricity and not the gas (which has went down due to heating being off).

I expected our usage to increase based on the fact we weren't actually living in the flat for the first 6 weeks (we were decorating and there alot using tools, lights on, etc.) but I didn't expect such a large jump.

Is £116 a month for gas/electricity for an average 2 bedroom flat with 2 adult occupants about right? We both work full-time and usually in the evenings we are both in the living room with no lights on at all, the TV on, boyfriend usually has his laptop plugged in but only when it is running low and I'm usually on my iPad which is only charged when it's out of juice also.

Wywth

scottishgirl87 wrote: »

Firstly, apologies for my ignorance as I'm completely new to this. My boyfriend and I bought our first flat (average 2 bed flat) at the end of January and moved in mid-March. In February I called Scottish Power to setup an account for gas and electricity as they were the supplier to the previous occupants of the flat. They set me up on a £65 per month Direct Debit with their Platinum Fixed Energy April 2015 Online.

At the weekend I inputted my meter readings online for the first time as previously, since March, someone has always been at the door to take the readings but SP had sent me an email telling me to do it. Now, I don't think the meter readings are wrong, however, today SP have emailed me saying our Direct Debit is going up to £116 per month - that's nearly 50% more! I should point out that this is due to the electricity and not the gas (which has went down due to heating being off).

I expected our usage to increase based on the fact we weren't actually living in the flat for the first 6 weeks (we were decorating and there alot using tools, lights on, etc.) but I didn't expect such a large jump.

Is £116 a month for gas/electricity for an average 2 bedroom flat with 2 adult occupants about right? We both work full-time and usually in the evenings we are both in the living room with no lights on at all, the TV on, boyfriend usually has his laptop plugged in but only when it is running low and I'm usually on my iPad which is only charged when it's out of juice also.

There's not much high usage electrical items used in decorating, and forget about charging ipads.

What uses large amounts of electricity are things that heat up, whether they be space heaters, hot water immersion heaters, washing machines, tumble driers, cookers etc.

The only think that I can think of in decoration that tends to consume quite abit of electricity tend to be the old floodlamps that can be 500w a piece - but you'd have felt the heat from them too!

(Some other tools may also be high usage, but they don't usually get used for long)

I suggest you get yourself a couple of energy monitors and try to identify what is consuming all your electricity.

StuC75

Wallpaper strippers (steamers) can use quite a bit..

what kind of lighting do you have? halogen type spot lights can use quite a lot - know when usedenergy monitor was surprised at what they run to?

How have the readings panned out by month? what was the opening Actual reading?

Is the meter in your flat or is it in a communal area (not unheard of for these to get mixed up)..

macman

Tell us your actual kWh consumption. DD amounts do not tell us anything about actual consumption.

scottishgirl87

Thanks for the replies. Our bill states that we have used 507KWh between April and June, charged at 11.837p (secondary charge) and 194KWh between June and July, charged at 30.936p (primary charge). Not sure what the difference is between being charged primary and secondary rates.

We have a fridge/freezer, electric oven (but with gas hob), the TV and Sky+ box plugged in at all times and just standard 60 watt bulbs in most of the rooms. Like I said previously there are alot of nights when we don't even turn the lights on.

macman

Presumably your heating and hot water is by gas?
Your total electricity consumption over ?90 days is 701kWh. That's quite low, given the national average of 3,300 kWh pa. Yours is about 2,804kWh, if pro-rata'd.
Bear in mind that although the heating is off now, you need to build some credit for the autumn/winter starting now.

ValHaller

scottishgirl87 wrote: »

Our bill states that we have used 507KWh between April and June, charged at 11.837p (secondary charge) and 194KWh between June and July, charged at 30.936p (primary charge).

Are any of the readings estimated?

StuC75

Thats not a lot for electricity (120 for 3+ bit months..)..

Most likely they are looking for you to overpay a bit now (above what you are currently using per month), so that winter usage doesnt build a deficit.

Energy companies prefer you to have a credit to cover in advance the winter coming up, rather than consumer which may prefer to build up a debt over the winter months which they then bring back to zero by over paying in summer..

Wywth

scottishgirl87 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. Our bill states that we have used 507KWh between April and June, charged at 11.837p (secondary charge) and 194KWh between June and July, charged at 30.936p (primary charge). Not sure what the difference is between being charged primary and secondary rates.

We have a fridge/freezer, electric oven (but with gas hob), the TV and Sky+ box plugged in at all times and just standard 60 watt bulbs in most of the rooms. Like I said previously there are alot of nights when we don't even turn the lights on.

So that's about £120 over 3-4 months, or say less than £40 per month.

As you have gas, presumably you have gas heating?

If so, the electricity usage won't change by much over the year. Of course you also need to allow for gas, which will increase significantly if used for heating over the winter time.


This should help you further:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/lower-energy-direct-debits#fight