Scottish Power

PricklyPear

Old draughty house that doesn't hold it's heat. No immersion heater. Family of four with one disabled young adult who although is at college during the day, lives on PC etc when at home and until the early hours. Two working full time and myself working nights. The house is basically occupied during the day.

Nada666

If that is your consumption why are you choosing to pay 20 to 25% extra by staying on the standard tariff? Why not switch?

PricklyPear

I want to switch. Just asking for some advice as to how to. Been looking today and it asks what I pay separately for gas and electric. I don't know. My Account with Scottish Power just shows a total sum for both.

Nada666

Do you not have any bills? What are your meter readings? What are your readings from a year ago? How can you be spending that amount but not be bothering to read your meters or know how much you are using?

If you do not have that to hand then you can contact Scottish Power and ask them to tell you your annual usage.

Pineapple88

Is the direct debit based on accurate meter readings or estimates? If estimates then provide a meter reading asap.

How do you heat your house? What is the split between gas and electricity, how much goes to each?

Do you have an aga or any underfloor heating (both will use a lot of power which is why I ask)?

To get an accurate figure to enter into a price comparison site you will need to speak to Scottish Power and get your annual conumption in kwh. As stated above do not enter the amount you spend as this is not an accurate reflection of usage because there are too many variables.

There is definately a better tariff for you to be on which will save you money but just switching tariff will not drastically reduce your bills. To do that you need to find out why you are currently paying so much and if that figure is accurate. The best place to start is by giving scottish power an up to date meter reading and ask them to recalculate your annual consumption.

macman

PricklyPear wrote: »

I want to switch. Just asking for some advice as to how to. Been looking today and it asks what I pay separately for gas and electric. I don't know. My Account with Scottish Power just shows a total sum for both.

That's not the right way to use a comp site. Ignore monthly DD spend. Get your annual kWh usage figures for each fuel from your annual statement, bills, or your supplier. Enter them into any comp site with your postcode-that's all there is to it,
if you have no debt but your monthly DD is still £235, then your consumption must be massive-that amount is over twice the UK average for a dual fuel account with gas CH and DHW. How do you heat and hot water the property? Post your actual kWh annual figures for proper advice.

macman

PricklyPear wrote: »

Old draughty house that doesn't hold it's heat. No immersion heater. Family of four with one disabled young adult who although is at college during the day, lives on PC etc when at home and until the early hours. Two working full time and myself working nights. The house is basically occupied during the day.

Then worth spending some money of draughtproofing and insulation (loft, cavity wall, etc) rather than shelling out £2,400pa on fuel anually?
The hours your son or daughter spends on the PC are irrelevant-it's space heating and hot water that burn the majority of your fuel.
Assuming that you heat your hot water from the gas boiler, an immersionm heater is not needed, it's much cheaper to heat by gas. An immersion in such properties is just a back-up.

JulieM

Any chance you could borrow an energy monitor to check how much power various appliances use? I had a nasty shock when I realised how much the electric shower used! And by using a monitor, my neighbour discovered there was a fault on his old freezer in the garage which was running up an excessive bill.

DragonQ

NittyGritty wrote: »

my advice is to turn ALL things you leave on standby off, turn lights off when not needed and any other things you tend to leave on for no reason, it will all add up, however small.

Except the Humax box. That needs to be on standby or it won't record.

macman

JulieM wrote: »

Any chance you could borrow an energy monitor to check how much power various appliances use? I had a nasty shock when I realised how much the electric shower used! And by using a monitor, my neighbour discovered there was a fault on his old freezer in the garage which was running up an excessive bill.

But, despite drawing a large current, an electric shower only runs for a few minutes a day. You already know what it uses-a 9kW shower will for example use 9kWh's per hour, so a 5 min shower will use 0.75kWh. All electrical items carry rating plates on them, so you don't need an energy monitor to work out the usage and cost.