Large Electric Bill

skankingpigeon

Hi,

I've been paying £120 a month direct debit on electricity. I've been living in my house for a year, and only just looked at my electric bill. I'm shocked to see that despite my payments, i still owe £1,200!!

It's not estimated, and there's only two of us living here. We don't have gas. Is this a normal bill - essentially £240 a month???

we both work all week so are out then. the only thing i can think it might be is the hot water, we leave it on constantly, because it takes hours to heat up, so if we turn it off we'd never manage to get a hot bath in the morning, or wash up in the evening. Should I not be leaving this on all that time? Other than this, we just use the normal things, TV, Laptops, oven, washing machine etc.

any help would be really appreciated!

fannyadams

hmmm. sounds like the hot water IS what's causing your bill to be high.
I am surprised that your hot water tank it isn't holding it's heat all day (especially in this weather!) does it have a jacket?

skankingpigeon

im not sure it doesnt hold the heat to be honest. i think the issue is it takes a few hours to heat up. so i wont be able to have any hot water for the morning. i think i'll ask the landlord to install a timer on the boiler

notbritishgas

Well £120 x 12 = £1440 plus £1200 debit equals £2640 for one years electric.
That is very large:eek: and I am not too sure that your water heater is to blame for all of the increase. If the thermostat is working OK then it should switch off when hot and only come back on to top up when heat is lost or used.
You have not told us how you heat your place and how hot you had it during the last very long winter!
But for for now start taking regular meter readings, at least weekly but daily if poss, that will give some idea of the water heaters usage, obviously keep the heater on just as you have been doing for the last year.
Also we get lots of threads on here about the huge first bill after moving in to a different house. This is quite often caused by an incorrect start meter reading on the first bill. Who took the reading when you moved in, are you sure it was correct.

[Deleted User]

You heat electric I presume. We have just had last winter the longest stretch of quite cold weather I have ever had . from November to mid April when it was still hovering around the 2 c level. every ones heating bills would ve been higher than normal last year. I think probably the spring revue of yearly consumption would have the suppliers raising direct debits as if every winter we are going to get a freak one like last year

Wywth

skankingpigeon wrote: »

Hi,

I've been paying £120 a month direct debit on electricity. I've been living in my house for a year, and only just looked at my electric bill. I'm shocked to see that despite my payments, i still owe £1,200!!

It's not estimated, and there's only two of us living here. We don't have gas. Is this a normal bill - essentially £240 a month???

we both work all week so are out then. the only thing i can think it might be is the hot water, we leave it on constantly, because it takes hours to heat up, so if we turn it off we'd never manage to get a hot bath in the morning, or wash up in the evening. Should I not be leaving this on all that time? Other than this, we just use the normal things, TV, Laptops, oven, washing machine etc.

any help would be really appreciated!

For a typical sized tank (up to about 4ft tall) it should take no more than 2-3 hours to heat up even from cold.

If you have a larger tank, it's probably designed to be used on E7. Even then it shouldn't take more than 7 hours to heat up from cold, and usally a lot less as as once heated up, it shouldn't go entirely colds unless you are using an abnormal amount of hot water.

Check the thermostats. Many people have them set far too high. Top one should be set about 60-65 degrees, bottom one about 55 degrees. It's not unknown for some preople to have the lower thermostat set at 80 degress, and the immersion never to cut out as the temperature at the bottom never reaches this, yet the water at the top of the tank can be heard boiling away.

dogshome

The 'Norm' for an all-electric house is for the Elec to be supplied thro' an ECO7 meter. This is denoted by the readings on your bill which list xx Kwh used at Night and xx kwh used in the Day

This gives 7 hours of cheap power overnight to feed Storage Radiators and heat the Hot water tank overnight - This tank should be highly insulated to hold the heat in - The best tanks are foam insulated, but if not they should be covered in a padded jacket which are a low cost item from DIY stores
They also have a daytime booster Switch to cook up Hot Water if the overnight fill has run out - but putting this Switch on is a real wallet killer.

If you are renting, you don't have an ECO7 meter and the hot water tank has zero insulation, the best advice is to move out a.s.a.p