High Electricity Bills!

janiec

Help!
I have spent the last month or so trying in vain to untangle our elec bill.
In short, we moved into our house just over a year ago. It is just my husband and me as children are grown. I work 4 days a week and for 3 of those my husband is in London working. Our house is a small terraced, 2 bedroomed house with a small conservatory and downstairs loo. Shower over the bath upstairs. Gas central heating and boiler in the kitchen with tank in the loft. Also immersion tank in airing cupboard but never been switched on. We also have installed a log burner in the sitting room to cut down on heating bills.
On this evidence, I would have assumed we were low-medium users? Ofgem reckon med users use 3,300 KwH per annum but EDF are saying we are using 6046 KwH per annum - nearly double!!
Can anyone please suggest why our usage should be so high?? I have even spent 50 mins on the phone to EDF today doing their "Energy Consuption Questionnaire" and they estimate our usage to be 2370 KwH per annum??!!!
Any help at all would be much appreciated?
Janie :mad::mad::mad:

cifpower

janiec wrote: »

Help!
I have spent the last month or so trying in vain to untangle our elec bill.
In short, we moved into our house just over a year ago. It is just my husband and me as children are grown. I work 4 days a week and for 3 of those my husband is in London working. Our house is a small terraced, 2 bedroomed house with a small conservatory and downstairs loo. Shower over the bath upstairs. Gas central heating and boiler in the kitchen with tank in the loft. Also immersion tank in airing cupboard but never been switched on. We also have installed a log burner in the sitting room to cut down on heating bills.
On this evidence, I would have assumed we were low-medium users? Ofgem reckon med users use 3,300 KwH per annum but EDF are saying we are using 6046 KwH per annum - nearly double!!
Can anyone please suggest why our usage should be so high?? I have even spent 50 mins on the phone to EDF today doing their "Energy Consuption Questionnaire" and they estimate our usage to be 2370 KwH per annum??!!!
Any help at all would be much appreciated?
Janie :mad::mad::mad:

Hi

EDF is not saying you are using over 6000 kWh a year, your meter is. Have any of your bills been estimated? How often do you give EDF actual readings? Do you have a single rate meter and is your tariff normal or economy 7?

janiec

Hi and thanks for getting back to me.
Some of the bills earlier were estimated but the last three or four have been read by me, each month. Will now be giving them readings every week!
We have an ordinary digital meter ie numbers not the spinning dial and are on their Blue+ Price Promise fixed till June 16.
I have worked out that over the course of the year, we are paying on average £3.21 per day - is this usual?
Thanks
Janie

Robin9

Something not quite right with your sums - 6000 units at approx 11p plus approx 50p standing charge per day all plus VAT give £2.41 a day.

Can you post the actual readings you have taken for the last few months

notbritishgas

What were the last 3 or 4 readings you gave them and dates taken. Yes £3 ish a day is high when heated by gas.

janiec

Hi
Actual readings are:
20/10/15 - 87546
20/08/15 - 86890
24/06/15 - 86347
16/05/15 - 85963
11/05/15 - 85914
Does this make more sense to you than it does to me??!
Thanks so very much for replying.
Janie

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

Your electricity usage is entirely normal since 11th May. Meters very rarely fail. I would guess that you didn't submit a meter reading when you moved in, it was estimate, and now you're paying for some of the previous occupants consumption.

notbritishgas

Well from the first reading in May til the last I October I make it 1632 kWh used in 162 days, about 10 per day or 3650 per year. So where does the 6000 ish comes from.
10 per day could be slightly high usage, what electric items have you got.

matelodave

You really need to check your meter regularly to get a feel for your consumption and when you are using it. Do an electricity audit. Once you know when you are using it you can do something about reducing it - it's too late when the bill comes in.

Try turning everything off and see if your meter still increments. Check how much you house uses when you are out or overnight when your consumption should be at it's lowest.

How old is your fridge and freezer - some of the older ones can use a lot more than new items but if they still work OK it's probably not cost effective to spend a couple of hundred quid to save £10-£15 a year. Even clocks in microwave ovens and cooker timers all use energy.

Check what's being left on including sky boxes, TV's, video recorders, x-boxes computers etc - shut them off at the wall when not in use. Watching big plasma TVs for hours at a time also ramps it up

Lighting - do you leave it on or turn it off when not in the room. LEDs use 80-90% less energy than incandescent - spotlights in downlighters use 50 watts each whereas the equivalent LED is around 4 watts.

Washing machines, dryers & dishwashers use just as much energy when full as when they only half loaded so make sure you fill them up before running them.

What sort of shower - is it electric?. Standing under a 9kw electric power shower for 10 minutes can use 1.5kwh = 20p a go. It doesn't sound a lot but if you both do it every day = 1100kwh = £146 a year.

You seem to be averaging around 10kwh a day which is a bit on the high side especially if you aren't around for most of the time. But it still only works out at 3650kwh a year.

We are at home all day, don't have gas so everything is electric and we average around 7-8kwh/day in the summer and that includes TV, Sky box, heating hot water, cooking, washing, ironing vaccying, three computers, router, separate tall fridge & freezer, lighting etc and multiple cups of coffee all day. Less than 2kwh overnight. It does go up to silly numbers in the winter (up to 50kwh a day) because we have all electric heating but we've still only used 6500kwh since this time last year.

molerat

You are averaging just over 10 units per day, 3650 per year. The energy projections given by the suppliers are to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

Robin9

You will find your Elec usage will be higher in the winter months with additional lighting.

I suspect your issue goes back to the very first readings on the day you took occupancy.