£59 per month electricity, tiny flat, help?!

red678

Hi

I live in a tiny 1 bed electricity only middle floor flat. I have a white meter. I only have one heater on in the flat (a storage heater) and am out during the day. I live on my own so only really use electricity in the morning to get ready and evening to cook and am aware of what I'm using, don't leave lights or appliances on etc.

I'm paying £59 per month direct debit but am £70 in debt. I've only been in the flat a few months and have never paid bills on my own before.

To me, it seems a lot of electricity is being used, especially for someone who is out all day. Could anyone offer a comparison? Does it seem high to you too?

Thanks

[Deleted User]

Hi,

did you take readings when you moved in, and notify supplier?

Is your account based on actual readings?

Is you immersion heater on a timer to use the cheap rate?

zaax

Does the serial number on the meter match your bills?
Read your meter once a day for a few weeks and then once a week. So you know what you are using it on.

scaredofdebt

red678 wrote: »

I'm paying £59 per month direct debit but am £70 in debt. I've only been in the flat a few months and have never paid bills on my own before.

Thanks

How many months have you been there and how many payments have been made?

If you've been there for say 6 months, it can take a while for the Direct Debit to get set up and claimed, so you may have only made for example 3 payments. Plus it's the end (hopefully!) of Winter, so maybe not too bad?

Are you on Economy 7? Probably worth it if you use the storage heater but not much else. Your bills will tell you if you are.

Nada666

No, £59 is not high and it is not unreasonable that your account is a little behind.

Your base background cost (standing charge, fridge, lights, laptop, radio) is going to be £15 or £20 per month. On top of that, being electricity only, you have hot water, heating and cooking to pay for.

£10 a month gives you about 4 kWh night prices per day. Even for a single room you want 12 to 20 kWh an evening so using up £59 plus an extra £70 is not really excessive.

As has been suggested, you should start monitoring your meter for daily and weekly readings to see how much you are using. Make sure your storage heater and hot water is only on overnight (if you are on a white meter (E7) tariff.)

Take a look at the weather forecast each evening and sometimes take a gamble on switching your storage heater off. Depending on size of flat and insulation chances are you will not need the heat.

red678

Well...just got an email saying my direct debit payments will be going up but nothing to tell me what the new payment will be...helpful!

My water heats overnight on the night rate and only uses 2 units so that's good. I've just switched my heater off.

I've given them meter readings every month (for my benefit too, to know how much things are costing), my landlady gave them the first reading before I moved in. The original readings were transposed so my cheap night rate was switched to my date rate. Luckily I noticed and after telling them several times and sending photos it was fixed.

Does anyone know what I can do to appeal against the decision to up my direct debit? This seems unfair given that summer is coming up.

Thanks again for your help.

good_advice

Good morning
How are you today? I think it was a bad mistake to rent a flat without the cheaper gas for heating. We all make mistakes.
A middle floor flat is good as you will benifit from the other flats keeping yours cosy.

The meter is your own and you pay the bill so you are free to chose whicch suplier you have.
My good advice is to go on the comparisent sites and look for the cheapest.

Anything that heats up eats electric. Cut down on oven, HW.
Learn to air dry your hair and washing.
Get savvy and cook food for 2 days at once. We often eat a variation of the same dinner for 2 days.
Heating off. Ours has been off for a few weeks. We have climatised to life in a cool home like many other people.

Take time before leaving the house to go round and unplug.

Lastly buy a energy monitor.. We have an OWL monitor and it has been very money saving.

Have a penny pinching day.Take care.

Nada666

red678 wrote: »

Does anyone know what I can do to appeal against the decision to up my direct debit? This seems unfair given that summer is coming up.

Are you sure the new payment is not hidden away somewhere? It is unusual for you to be told about it without it being stated.

If you start a contract during autumn/start of winter it is up to you to pay an extra amount to accommodate the first winter's usage. It may be too late but you can certainly offer to pay £100 or £70 to bring things back - ideally this should be done before you receive the statement, not after.

Or you can check that the new amount is reasonable and you are only paying back the £70.

scaredofdebt

You can tell your supplier how much to set the Direct Debit to, it's your money! However, bear in mind if you are behind the payments they can ask you to pay for what you've used. It's a good idea to try to make overpayments in summer so you've got a credit to help with the bigger bills over winter.

Your supplier won't let you put the DD down to a level that won't cover your consumption though, they don't want you getting into debt.

matelodave

There are only two ways to reduce your bills - either get a lower tariff or to use less - do both and you can save even more.

You need to monitor your consumption over several weeks, ideally reading the meter every day and trying to correlate it with what you are using (Washer, dryer, TV, heater, hot water, heating etc).
Once you've got an idea of what is using it you can try to reduce your consumption.
Make sure your immersion heater & heating only come on during the low tariff time - check when the meter switches).

Try using less hot water by having shallower baths, shorter showers or fewer of them. Don't waste hot water by letting it run down the sink whilst washing or rinsing. You might find that you can reduce the amount of time the immersion is switched on overnight if you don't need lots of hot water (do you need a whole tankful heated every day).

Run the washing machine, dryer, dishwasher etc during the low tariff time to reduce your cost and make sure they are full - it costs as much to run a half empty machine as it does a full one.
Turn stuff off at the wall when it's not being used - everything that has a standby button uses power even when it's not actually on - including microwaves, cookers, TVs. computers etc.
Low energy lights can save if you have a lot of lights or have them on for a long time - halogen spots can use up quite a lot of power and a kitchen full could be using 500w an hour = 7-9p an hour on the high rate.

Most of all, do your own meter reading to check your bills, don't accept any estimated bills, get them corrected by phoning in your own readings. Once you know how much you are using you can work out yourself how much you should be paying. It may sound a bit of a faff but unless you take control, you'll end up with big bills.
We live in a fairly large 3-bedroom detached bungalow and we are at home all day, every day. We are all electric (including heating & hotwater) and my annual cost is about £900. We pay £85 a month just to ensure that we don't run into any arrears if we get a cold snap

red678

Hi everyone

Many thanks for all your help and suggestions. I called the EDF complaints department as they were going to reduce my direct debit payments to £16 a month! Even though I owe them money, and my standing charge alone is £6 a month. The agreed £16 seemed too little so I'm sticking with £59 and will hopefully build up a credit over the summer.

I've been reading my meter at the same time every day and tried to work out where the energy was going. Well, I worked out the one storage heater in the living room is costing 80p a day to use! Even though it charges on the much cheaper night rate. So that's off!

I agree that gas would have been better, but this flat was recently refurbished and I saw some really awful (gas supplied) places for around the same price per month so there really was no choice!

Thanks again for your help.