Electric Meters V Electric Bill/DD

MissCuriosity

I live in a four bedroom house with five working adults, a number of appliances running as you can imagine.

I am starting a plight to get the energy consumption reduced as it is ridiculous.

May main question is, what are more economic Electricity Meters or setting up a Direct Debit?

I am also trying to put together a stats sheet to show just what gets wasted on the electricity front...does anyone know of a website that I can easily extract this informtaion from?

Via Meter our household spends approx £150 a month, is this excessive?

Thank you for your time in advance

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

How do you heat the house?

MissCuriosity

The heating is Gas

penrhyn

How many Kilowatt hours are you consuming per month.
PS £150 is very high, not running a horticultural business are you?

Go through you high use items,
Electric Cooker
Electric heaters
Tumble Dryer/ washing machine
Electric Kettle
Immersion Heater
Electric Shower
Swimming Pool
Hot Tub.

PS I assume you mean prepay or credit meters, credit meters/DD would be cheaper, but you would have to pay for them to be installed.

MissCuriosity

All the above except:

Electric Heaters, Pool and Hot Tub.

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

A couple of things. Firstly you need to check that the meter isn't recovering any debt. Was the meter at the property when you moved in? If so, did you register your own account? If not you may be paying the previous occupant's debt.

PPM's are set to the same tariff as paying quarterly on receipt of bill. However you do miss out on DD discount, which is 6%. So they aren't ripping you off per se, although you can get it cheaper with a credit meter.

BG and edf will change a PPM to a credit meter for free, although you will have to pass a credit check.

Assuming that there is no debt being recovered, you are clearly using a lot of electricity. Average UK consumption would pay £40-50 a month. That said you are 5 adults in a large property, you're going to be above average.

Electric showers are usually a big culprit, 5 adults taking a 10 minute shower every day (assuming a 10KW output) consumes 3000KWh a year, a huge amount. Most energy saving opportunities are quite obvious I'm afraid, turn gadgets off instead of standby, energy saving lightbulbs etc.

Have you had an annual statement that says how much energy you're using in KWh?

MissCuriosity

Electric Cooker/Oven probably used for two hours a day. It is about 15 years old too!
Washing Machine on average 1.5 hours a day
Tumble Dryer on average probably 1.5 hours a day
Electric kettle 15 mins a day (two of the five work at home)
Immersion Heater is not on
Electric Shower on average 1 hour a day

I am not up to speed on what kind of cost this involves, some are saying the ave cost of 1kwh is 14.29p others say 10p, I dont know which is right

MissCuriosity

No annual statement but this will be a project over Christmas, I shall see what they quote for a DD scheme.

Then ring various other companies to compare, any recommendations as to the best companies to use?

I really want to put together a usage chart as I think this will impact on the other residents, showing them the consumption of a computer, monitor, 42" tv, mobile phone chargers being left plugged in etc...anywhere I can get this information easiley?

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

MissCuriosity wrote: »

No annual statement but this will be a project over Christmas, I shall see what they quote for a DD scheme.

Then ring various other companies to compare, any recommendations as to the best companies to use?

I really want to put together a usage chart as I think this will impact on the other residents, showing them the consumption of a computer, monitor, 42" tv, mobile phone chargers being left plugged in etc...anywhere I can get this information easiley?

It's not a "quote", it's just a calculated spend based on your consumption. Apologies if you already know that, but a significant number of people come on here with huge debt thinking what they were "quoted" entitled them to use as much energy as you want.

You can see what all your devices put out from the internet. The shower will be by far the worst offender, 1 hour a day will use a huge amount. Get people to have 4-5 minute showers.

If you don't have a statement, call your energy supplier and ask what you've used, in KWh, for the last 12 months. They can do this in seconds. Then put this into a price comparison site, and see what's cheapest. Ignore any sales patter from whoever you speak to at your supplier - even customer services are targeted on sales.

Are you sure there is no debt on the meter? And are you confident you can pass a credit check?

missprice

MissCuriosity wrote: »

No annual statement but this will be a project over Christmas, I shall see what they quote for a DD scheme.

Then ring various other companies to compare, any recommendations as to the best companies to use?

I really want to put together a usage chart as I think this will impact on the other residents, showing them the consumption of a computer, monitor, 42" tv, mobile phone chargers being left plugged in etc...anywhere I can get this information easiley?

There should be an info 'plate,/sticker on nearly everything that tells you what each item uses power wise. Granted pulling the cooker out to look is too far, but monitor and computer/laptop all have this info somewhere.
TV too. Or if you have the leaflet things that came with the items, that will have the info too.

MissCuriosity

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays wrote: »

It's not a "quote", it's just a calculated spend based on your consumption. Apologies if you already know that, but a significant number of people come on here with huge debt thinking what they were "quoted" entitled them to use as much energy as you want.

You can see what all your devices put out from the internet. The shower will be by far the worst offender, 1 hour a day will use a huge amount. Get people to have 4-5 minute showers.

If you don't have a statement, call your energy supplier and ask what you've used, in KWh, for the last 12 months. They can do this in seconds. Then put this into a price comparison site, and see what's cheapest. Ignore any sales patter from whoever you speak to at your supplier - even customer services are targeted on sales.

Are you sure there is no debt on the meter? And are you confident you can pass a credit check?

The meter was put in by us, it is the family home, so no debt on it and yes the credit check should be fine.

I have moved back in and realised that the wastage of utlities and money is extremely high. It needs to change...NOW.