High Usage/Costs All Electric Property

Whizzo66

My first post so hope I am in the right place?

We moved from a large 3 bed property that was duel fuel some8 months ago, the build year of the property was aprox. 2005. Our energysupplier was EDF with a dual fuel fixed price plan of £75 on DD a month, finalbill on leaving property £9 so all in all a good plan.

New property was built in 2011, 2 bed all electric, fittedwith an Air Source Heat Pump for hot water/heating, described as an Eco heatingsystem. The usage and cost for the property is awful, Scottish Power review ourbill every 3 months and increase it almost every time, latest increase is to£72 monthly overall forecast is for between £80-£89 monthly, considering wehave not had the heating system on for the last 4/5 months this seems ratherhigh?

Both properties above are Housing Association.

We are scratching our heads at the moment as the newproperty has half the radiators of the old property (6) and they are verysmall, we leave very little on standby, all light bulbs are energy efficient,do not use a tumble dryer etc etc.

The one comment I have received after much research fromengineers is that Solar Panels should have been fitted to offset the runningcosts of the Air Source Heat Pump?

We have approached our Housing Association but they are justnot interested.

Below is our usage to date if it helps?
Bill Period No. of Days Total (kWh) Average(kWh)

01/07/13-31/07/13 31 449 14

03/06/13-30/06/13 28 417 15

27/04/13-02/06/13 37 521 14

02/04/13-26/04/13 25 422 17

04/03/13-01/04/13 29 662 23

02/02/13-03/03/13 30 719 24

30/12/12-01/02/13 34 1002 29

27/10/12-29/12/12 64 1646 26

Questions?

1. Will our bill always be high because of the Air SourceHeat Pump?

2. How can we reduce our consumption even further?

3. Are there better suppliers/tariffs that we could be on?

4. Is the Housing Association responsible for fair Utilitycosts?

Many Thanks

JamesMason_2

You live in the place so I think you are responsible for paying the bills, are you not? Much in the same way if solely through choice, hiring an E Type will cost you more to run than a Golf.

I don't know much about air source heat pumps, but a friend has storage heaters in a three bedroom house and uses about 12000kwh per annum. You don't give a full year but if one were to interpolate, it's comparable.

It behoves you to check suppliers yourself for the best deal.

I personally would consider a smart meter where the data is represented online and I could intelligently analyse my usage. From there, you make changes be they behavioural or structural.

Nada666

1) Your bill should be much less than other electric systems but lower/comparable/higher than gas systems. Your heat pump has the advantage over storage heaters in that you can use heating on demand.

2) Assuming your heaters are panel heaters not storage heaters then turn the timers off and just switch the heating on when you get home in winter.

3) Whack your annual usage and postcode into a comparison site and find out.

4) Of course not.

29 kWh per day, about £4, for heating in the middle of winter, cooking and everything else is not high. As you are using 14 kWh in summer, the 15 kWh for heating is pretty reasonable.

£90 per month total fuel bill is well below average. It is daily electric usage year round that will be your problem - cooking and showers, not your heating system, is what you should be looking at.

Nada666

Nada666 wrote: »

2) Assuming your heaters are panel heaters not storage heaters then turn the timers off and just switch the heating on when you get home in winter.

Correction: ignore that comment. Air pump heating is designed to be on longer on a lower burn. Although that advice applies to gas and standard electricity radiators which can be whacked up high and should not be thoughtlessly and needlesly left on the twice a day timer this is not so much the case with an air pump system.

vuvuzela

JamesMason wrote: »

You live in the place so I think you are responsible for paying the bills, are you not? Much in the same way if solely through choice, hiring an E Type will cost you more to run than a Golf.

I don't know much about air source heat pumps, but a friend has storage heaters in a three bedroom house and uses about 12000kwh per annum. You don't give a full year but if one were to interpolate, it's comparable.

It behoves you to check suppliers yourself for the best deal.

I personally would consider a smart meter where the data is represented online and I could intelligently analyse my usage. From there, you make changes be they behavioural or structural.

I'd not bother with a smart meter, simply reading the meter and noting in a spreadsheet or table what happens to it is enough.

JamesMason_2

Striking at the lowest common denominator there as many do not bother. Plus smart meters give you usage over a day, not just a month.

[Deleted User]

Whizzo66 wrote: »

My first post so hope I am in the right place?

We moved from a large 3 bed property that was duel fuel some8 months ago, the build year of the property was aprox. 2005. Our energysupplier was EDF with a dual fuel fixed price plan of £75 on DD a month, finalbill on leaving property £9 so all in all a good plan.

New property was built in 2011, 2 bed all electric, fittedwith an Air Source Heat Pump for hot water/heating, described as an Eco heatingsystem. The usage and cost for the property is awful, Scottish Power review ourbill every 3 months and increase it almost every time, latest increase is to£72 monthly overall forecast is for between £80-£89 monthly, considering wehave not had the heating system on for the last 4/5 months this seems ratherhigh?

Both properties above are Housing Association.

We are scratching our heads at the moment as the newproperty has half the radiators of the old property (6) and they are verysmall, we leave very little on standby, all light bulbs are energy efficient,do not use a tumble dryer etc etc.

The one comment I have received after much research fromengineers is that Solar Panels should have been fitted to offset the runningcosts of the Air Source Heat Pump?

We have approached our Housing Association but they are justnot interested.

Below is our usage to date if it helps?
Bill Period No. of Days Total (kWh) Average(kWh)

01/07/13-31/07/13 31 449 14

03/06/13-30/06/13 28 417 15

27/04/13-02/06/13 37 521 14

02/04/13-26/04/13 25 422 17

04/03/13-01/04/13 29 662 23

02/02/13-03/03/13 30 719 24

30/12/12-01/02/13 34 1002 29

27/10/12-29/12/12 64 1646 26

Questions?

1. Will our bill always be high because of the Air SourceHeat Pump?

2. How can we reduce our consumption even further?

3. Are there better suppliers/tariffs that we could be on?

4. Is the Housing Association responsible for fair Utilitycosts?

Many Thanks

To compare...

We have an ASHP and used approx 9600 kWh [£88pm] over the last year. BUT this is a very old detched house dozens of windows and 16 outside walls!] with high ceiling and 50% bare floors NOT a new build with more insulation etc So I consider that very cheap when compared to my previous houses.

Over the entire heating season our solar PV makes a 10% dent in the ASHPs running costs so neither here nor there really.

ASHPs should have underfloor heating, fancoils or oversized rads to get the best possible COP.

Uswitch is your friend.