electricity cost

jeni26uk

My landlord has put his own electric meter in the place I live how much should I be putting on my meter? I have a bedroom and a kitchen I dont pay for hot water that's on the landlords board so is the lights. At the moment im putting £5 per day im only on jsa so cant really afford it

Nada666

If that is for heating and for more than six hours in the evening then that is what it will cost. Check what the price is per kWh and make sure the landlord is not levying an excessive standing charge. (Sometimes such meters are priced for non-heating use.)

£5 is not an unlikely sum in winter - if you can't afford to pay it then you will have to spend some time out of your home.


(A two-bar fire for six hours in the evening is going to cost £1.75. Another four hour and two hour session in the morning and a single room can easily cost £4. Add on some cooking and the fridge...) If it's costing £5 without heat then there is a problem.

Monitor your meter for actual consumption, not just cost.

macman

What kWh rate is your LL charging you at?

jeni26uk

That doesn't include heating hes put an oil filled heater near my bedroom door which is no help heat would go straight out. He changed the meter so I cant get no charges up its around 20p per unit

DragonQ

jeni26uk wrote: »

That doesn't include heating hes put an oil filled heater near my bedroom door which is no help heat would go straight out. He changed the meter so I cant get no charges up its around 20p per unit

OK well you have two issues then. Firstly, 20p/kWh is excessive, even without a standing charge. Secondly, that means you're using 25 kWh per day on electricity not including heating, which is ridiculous. Find out what is using all of that electricity!

jeni26uk

I only have a tv cooker and fridge

lstar337

jeni26uk wrote: »

I only have a tv cooker and fridge

Do you leave the cooker on all day?

25kWh is excessive for the electrical items you have.

matelodave

The landlord is not allowed to sell electricity for more than he pays for it, nor is he allowed to charge more than 5% VAT even if he has to pay 20% so 20p a unit sounds excessive.

He must tell you how he works out your electricity prices and show you that the meter has been set correctly. He is only allowed to charge you the unit rate that he pays and the standing charge (or a proportion of it if there are more than on person using the supply (ie if there are 2 or three tenant then you should only pay for your proportion of the standing charge - either based on your consumption or the number of tenant that share the supply).
If he is making an admin charge then that should be billed separately and should not be included in the metered charge. Have a look at the Ofgem site- reselling of electricity (or Google reselling of electricity) and it clearly tells you what he is allowed to do and how he must apportion & calculate his charges.

jeni26uk

Thanks I will do I use my cooker once a day

geordient

What kind of TV do you have? How large is it?

DragonQ

geordient wrote: »

What kind of TV do you have? How large is it?

I suspect something else is going on here. Even a really inefficient 500 W plasma would only use 6 kWh a day if used for 12 hours.