Electric bills out of control - advice needed

silfe

Thanks for tips mbmonty, I think all of our utilities are rated A or A++

Here is some overnight readings (last readings taken 12 hours, 25 min before these

Domestic: 27078.1, Used: 12.76kW
Heating: 31428.85, Used: 33.75kW
Cost: £5.77

Robin9

These are well short of your initial post of £15 a day

matelodave

The heating is understanderble, it's cold and it's charging the storage heaters for the rest of the day.

12+ kwh overnight isn't. You really need to find out whats switched on and using it all.

ajbell

You have something burning a constant 1kw even during the night, find out what it is.

Robin9

My money is on an old freezer

mbmonty

Overnight is tricky because it is when the storage heaters SHOULD be on, now turn them all off with the switch beside them or on fuse box, then keep measuring on the hour.

Fo not believe these A+ ratings, first off they were changed, second they are based on volume of fridge freezer so a big fridge can be deceptive, third because some brands did a Volkswagon with the figures by coded circuits detecting when they were being tested. Look at the actual label and how many KWh it says it will use a year, then look at how high it is set, a fridge freezer can form a block of ice that makes it very inefficient and if you have a dodgy thermostat then you have the perfect storm.

Get one a few of those monitors from ebay, they will not be wasted and you will be surprised at how much things use, Fridges need to be monitored 5 to 6 times a day for a month, just have a bit of paper by the device and write down date, time, cost, watts and comment. You put in your KWh rate BTW so it tells you in pence (or pounds in your case).

Just to rule it out, is there any debt on the meter? If so you can have the amount taken reduced if it causes hardship. If you had debt that caused the prepayment meter to be put it will take money as a percentage of money put in and I imagine if it sees a lot of money being put in it takes a lot towards the debt.

For right now I would just start turning things off, even a fridge can survive 16 hours before food is at risk, mine at least is rated at 16h.

Ban the use of the tumble dryer, an A+ tumble dryer has to be an oxymoron.

Create a log of all use, put things back on one at a time, and monitor.

That tank has to go, do not delay, do it now, give the contents away on Freecycle if you have to.

It does seem to have to be something that is on all the time along with some horrible things like the Dryer

You need to get the storage heaters replace, try and get one of those grants or loans, the ROI is there before you.

I have a combi boiler it has taken me a while to figure out the most efficient way to use it, but it is great, no hot water tank to heat and not use or have to reheat when kids have used it all, I have complete control of the water temperature and the heating.

Robin9

silfe wrote: »

Also worth noting I've not long had the marine tank, the energy bills have been ongoing for a long time now.

Is this a new hobby or just a new tank replacing old ones ?

silfe

Robin9 wrote: »

My money is on an old freezer

We do have an old freezer which we haven't been using much lately so will clear out the last few things and turn it off.

silfe

Robin9 wrote: »

Is this a new hobby or just a new tank replacing old ones ?

I have had a marine tank for about 1 year during the 3 years we lived here. Only just started up again. The bills have always been high, tank or not. Everything on it is very low wattage (ie pumps are 4-10w, led lights 80w, just the heaters that are big but they are controlled by thermostat so not on that often).

silfe

Okay, so 24hr readings:

Total 24hr Domestic 23.21kW
Total 24hr Heating 50.14kW
Total Combined 73.35kW

Total off the meter: £9.17

So less than the £15 a day we've averaged over October, but we didn't do much washing or anything.

I want to get that down to half that a day at least.. but the storage heaters are using 50kW and we cannot control them, that's just the hydro switching them on. We could manually turn them off I guess but the house sits at about 15-16C even with them on from the hydro, if we turn them off the house would be even colder as they'd not charge til the hydro randomly puts them back on.

Complained to the council that they aren't efficient and don't heat the house but they don't care as technically they work. I have 3 young kids and apparently 15-16c is perfectly fine.

Oh also on top of the £450 electric for October we also had about £100 in coal bills as it's the only way to have any sort of real heat in the living room.