Just wanted your opinion on my electric usage

mat2317

Hi Guys,

I am currently renting a 1 bed flat, me and my partner are the only ones living here. The flat is roughly a 2 year old building so its pretty modern.

I am not too sure whether to be concerned about my electricity readings, here are my two readings:

01701 - 28/03/2014
02348 - 02/07/2014

Which is a difference of 647 on the meter over = 96 days (3 months, 3 days)

To me this seems a bit much but i'm not sure if its significant?

We don't have much running, just the normal stuff, TV only gets used of the evenings and weekends, No computer on all the time or anything.

Also with British Gas.

What do you guys think? Any help would be appreciated

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

If you were to pro rata that across the year that would be 2460 KWh a year, which is slightly on the high side for the circumstances you mention, but not outrageous. Is the property heated by electricity?

Anything that needs real heat drains the power - central heating being the obvious one followed by the shower. When it comes to winter, see if you can live with it a degree or too lower, and if you're taking long showers see if you can cut them in half.

Find out what you actually use in a year, you should have an annual statement somewhere. This will give a truer figure than my guesstimate. Then enter those figures into a price comp to ensure you're getting the cheapest deal.

mat2317

The property is heated via Gas, but we really don't use the heating at all as we are on the middle floor, so it would just be for hot water. We also have a combi boiler.

Thanks for your help

JJ_Egan

My standard electric usage is 2800 per year .

Nada666

[STRIKE]If you have a gas combi-boiler why are you using electricity for hot water?[/STRIKE]Never mind. Misread your gas usage.

6.7 kWh per day - so double a basic background-only usage. Hardly alarming.

Do you have an electric shower? Two five-minute showers each could alone account for the extra 1400 kWh. Any 100 W bulbs or neon lights?

mat2317

Nope no electric shower, not too sure on the light bulbs. I'm just glad to know my usage is pretty normal. I'm only paying £41 p/m for both gas & electric which is why I am in debit and owe a bit. I will bump that up.

martin2345uk

Our yearly electric usage is about 1815kWH, with gas central heating in a 3 bed semi, so yours isn't massively outrageous I wouldn't say

Yolina

There's just me in a 2-bed, I work from home. My annual electricity usage is about 1500kWh without trying too hard so you could shave a bit off yours but it's not ridiculously high as it is I have gas for heating/ hot water/ hob (which is what I mostly use for cooking)


Edit: all my light bulbs are energy efficient ones of one type or another; *everything* is switched off at the socket when not in use; my fridge, freezer and washing machine are about 15 years old so certainly not the most efficient there is :rotfl:

whodathunkit

Do you cook with electricity and use a tumble dryer?

Alikay

If you have an electric shower it's worth watching how long you spend in there: A few years ago when me moved to this house our electricity bills rocketed. After monitoring it using an OWL http://www.theowl.com we realised the likely cause was our 3 teens who were taking 15 minute hot showers once or twice a day :eek:. Once they knew we were onto them, the habit, and electricity bills decreased!

[Deleted User]

Your usage isn't that outrageous, if you're heating by gas then the size of the property will have less effect than if you were all electric. I use about 2500kWh PA in my 3 bed semi.

It's a common mistake to look for high power appliances like showers and kettles, and then assume that they are the ones using all the energy, but power is not the same as energy. Energy is what you're paying for, and that's power multiplied by time (kWh, not kW), so you need to consider how long the appliances spend switched on too.

Fridge and freezer are often big guzzlers of electricity, are yours old inefficient ones?