Help! Paying a fortune/Mystery Energy Usage - 2 Bed Flat & Economy 7

twotonealex

Evening all,

I need some help as I think I'm going mad!

Me and my partner moved bought our flat 2 years ago, I've consistently searched out the best tariffs with Scottish Power to keep on top of our bills.

This is our first proper place together so besides paying for general rent at home, I've never paid attention to the average units (KWh) that a normal home uses.

We've live in a relatively modern building in Bristol, well insulated, 2 of 4 floors up, decent double glazing etc etc.

It's economy 7 metered, with electric storage heaters - we bought new modern ones when we moved in that are lots more efficient than the old ones. In the winter we use the storage heaters, but only turn on when we go to bed and I turn them off at 6AM when I'm up for work.

Our usage, seems to just keep going up and up each year! We were paying £35 a month when we moved in, now today after entering our most recent readings it's gone up to £121 per month!

Our usage for this year is a total of 7017KWh, I feel like this is way to high! Annual consumption for day is 3692 kWh and night is 3325 kWh. (45.8% Economy)

To put our usage into context:
- We have a new washer dryer that is used probably for a total of 5 hours a week.
- We DON'T use our electric water heater as neither of us use the bath, instead we have an electric shower which we use daily. When we wash the dishes I'll boil the kettle, this is probably once every 2 days if I'm being honest!:rotfl:
- We are both out of our flat every day at 7AM, I am home around 5PM, my partner slightly later.
I turn off everything bar the wifi when we go out/not using it.

I was paranoid about our meter being wrong, so I turned off every single switch in our flat and the meter didn't go up for the 5 minutes I watched.

I've joined the energy club tonight, and it's found energy available at a cost of £79 per month, from a supplier I've not heard of, but it's fixed for 12 months.

I'm currently £253 in debit, which is why my bills have now gone from £91 to £121 per month today (I only gave my readings 1 month ago). So without paying this off first I can't go anywhere

What i'm trying to ask, is am I missing something?
Is this usage normal?
How do I reduce costs?

Any help/advice is appreciated.

Thanks!
Alex

molerat

7017 kWh in an electric heated property is quite low consumption. Why do you turn storage heaters on and off, they are designed to be left on and control themselves. 3692 day is high for an E7property, the electric shower used on peak probably accounts for a fair amount of that.

System

Your usage is well below average for an all electric flat. Electric showers are rated 7.5 to 10.5kWs, and can be expensive to run.

If you bought new heaters on the basis that they were more efficient than the old ones, then I fear that you have either misunderstood electrical efficiency or you are the victim of mis-selling.

Unless your supplier is treating the £253 as a debt, then you are free to switch. The amount due becomes payable immediately via your Final Bill.

twotonealex

Thanks both.

To clarify:

Our storage heaters are manual input/output controlled. In the winter when we use them, we turn on input to the appropriate setting dependent on how cold, output on lowest.

I was referring to turning off all appliances at the plug when not in use (not referring to the heaters as I understand their principles).

The shower is used by us both between 6AM-6:20AM, so should fall in the remit of the economy tariff.

Thanks!

jk0

Your day use is double what I use in a 3 bed detached house.

Please tell me you did not buy 'Fischer' storage heaters?

twotonealex

Nope! These are them, size slightly different: https://www.electricradiatorsdirect.co.uk/elnur-sh18a-automatic-storage-heater-2-5kw/

jk0

twotonealex wrote: »

Nope! These are them, size slightly different: https://www.electricradiatorsdirect.co.uk/elnur-sh18a-automatic-storage-heater-2-5kw/

Well those aren't meant to have the input messed about with. You are meant to find a comfortable setting, and leave it alone all year.

Do you have an enormous telly? I believe they use a lot of juice.

By the sounds of it, you might be well advised to actually use your hot water tank on the cheap times, at least in winter. That will augment the heating to your place, and require less day rate.

twotonealex

Our TV isn't big sadly! The need is not there for the heaters all year round so they are turned off during the months of no use. Thanks

jk0

twotonealex wrote: »

The need is not there for the heaters all year round so they are turned off during the months of no use. Thanks

There is no need to turn them off, or to adjust them at all, once you have them set correctly. They are automatic. They automatically come on for the required time according to the temperature overnight.

Thus if you have a cold night in spring/autumn, they will come on for a bit to save you using expensive day rate.

matelodave

The best way to find out whats using it all and when is by reading and recording you energy meters a bit more frequently than once a month or even just waiting for the quarterly bill to come in. If you don't monitor it you cant control it

Do you check your bills to make sure that they correspond with your meter readings and do you get estimated ones corrected.

I'd suggest that 3600+kwh for daily use is quite high if you aren't there for most of it as that's about what we use for our general domestic use and we are at home all day. (cooking, lighting, hot water, fridge, freezer, washing, drying and dishwasher etc). My wife does not stint on the use of the washing machine or tumble dryer, even in the summer and the dishwasher gets used round 3-4 times a week. We've got a couple of computers on during the day plus TV, SKY and other stuff in the evenings

Heating is also electric but uses an air source heat pump so not easy to compare with storage heaters but we use around 3500kwh to heat a 140sq.m three bedroom detached bungalow so our energy consumption is roughly the same as yours at 7000kwh/year.

Robin9

"Our usage, seems to just keep going up and up each year! We were paying £35 a month when we moved in, now today after entering our most recent readings it's gone up to £121 per month!"

When you say "our usage" you are talking about £'s - it's more correect to talk about kWh or units.

I don't know the details of the tariff you are on but assuming day 17p/kWh and 3700 units is £630; night at 10p and 3300 units is £330 both plus a standing charge of 30p day £100 all plus VAT at 5% is about £1100. About £100 a month

The £35 a month could never have been right and you have been underpaying from the beginning and I suspect SP have eventually been able to take a meter reading and you have a catch-up bill.

Over the last 2 years have you been reading your meters at least monthly, do your bills have lots of E's against them?