How to get electricity bill under control?

Lbuk

Hi,

We recently got stuck with a huge electricity debt. We used to pay £150 which then jumped to £250 but we both work from home so expect it to be over the average.

Then they dropped it to £75 and said we'd been overpaying and refunded about £700.

6 months later they say out current usage is £450 and we owe them £2500!

So I think we're now paying the assumed £450 + £150 repayment each month!

We cannot comprehend how the bill got so high so what I suppose I'm hoping for advice on is how can we get our usage assessed into understandable numbers and then how can we reduce our use? Is there someone we can pay to consult with? Gadgets to buy?

We couldn't get a smart meter because of signal.

We already switch lights off, etc. We have underfloor heating in some rooms but it's always been automatic and winter has been mild if anything. The house feels cold if anything.

Thanks

jackieblack

Are your bills based on actual meter readings or estimated usage?

Robin9

Do you read your meters and submit them every month online?

And check your bills - as above estimated / actual.

D_M_E

As above, check you are being billed actual usage, not estimated.

Also, check that you are on the agreed tariff and that that is what you are being billed.

Underfloor heating left on automatic - this will cost you a fortune to run and I don't think - many would not agree with me here - it's very effective for what it costs to run it and could well be the reason for biiiiig bills.

joeblags

and because of threads like this, and many others, its why im happy to stick £30 a month on my pre payment meter

molerat

joeblags wrote: »

and because of threads like this, and many others, its why im happy to stick £30 a month on my pre payment meter

So you are happy to pay a premium for not bothering to manage your own energy consumption and bills - each to their own I suppose

joeblags

I only top up £30 but who says I only use £30 a month

macman

OP, please give us some actual usage figures in kWh, because £££'s tell us precisely nothing about your consumption. Is u'floor heating your only source of heating? How do you heat your DHW? Do you have a gas supply? How big is the property? How often do you submit readings?
And what tariff are you on?

2mql3

If you're a little bit technical then you can make your own smart meter - I've done the same. Here's what you need :-

OWL meter (Our local B & Q were flogging these off cheap at £15 last year) and you can get them pretty cheaply off eBay.

They clip onto your mains supply cable and measure the current flowing through it. This is transmitted on 433.92MHz (unlicensed channel typically used for all sorts of gadgets) to the display.

So what you need is a computer running Linux (Raspberry PI will do nicely) and a USB software defined radio (SDR) with antenna. (around £25)

There's a nice free piece of software called rtl_433 which will pick up the transmissions every 15s from the monitor and log them to a file. You can then plot them in Excel and see what's using the power and when.

Alternatively, just wander around with the OWL display turning things on and off one by one and noting the difference in consumption.

Some big power appliances are obvious :-
Tumble dryer - make sure you set it for 30 minutes at a time and then check whether it needs to go on again rather than leaving it on for an hour from the outset.
Cooker - can't do much about that - you've got to eat,
Kettle - 2kw but usually only for 3-4 minutes so not big over all,

Others really add up
Chandeliers with 6 x 40w halogen = 240w typically left on for several hours in the winter sometimes even left on all day by mistake. Replace with LED bulbs (4w each)
PC with graphics card - this can easily be 500w when playing games and 150w when doing nothing - turn it off when not in use. Same with laser printers.

Look at the logs over night to find what the cost of everything on standby is, ours is about 112W which will include clocks, router, a couple of raspberry pi's, TV etc on standby, phone chargers. You'll notice periodic jumps of about 40w - this will be your fridge kicking in and out. When people start getting up, then you'll get big jumps probably up to around 500-600w this will be things like central heating pump, lots of lights on etc. - this is where you need to work on getting the average down.

matelodave

Instead of just waiting for a bill and then wondering how, why, what and when be a bit proactive.

Read your meter yourself, once a week and you'll get a much better idea of what you are using and when. You can then do something about it and you'll know how much it's costing you and you can decide whether you are are a decent tariff.

teddysmum

At the end of summer, my provider refunded my credit, which would have covered the higher autumn/winter bills and after a few weeks I could see that I would soon be in arrears.

A call (The person, who took it told me I would need to pay more to keep up. Er, that's why I called) soon had an appropriate DD amount in place.

You don't have to wait for the provider's admin to alter your monthly payment.