High Electricity bills

Bear_Saxo

Hi all,

I live in a 1 bed all electric flat, rented accommodation, in swindon (wiltshire) with my girlfriend.

Been here 3 years now but never really questioned electric bills ect,

We were paying £108 a month but it has now gone upto £117 a month direct debit which is too high, work colleagues in same situation (couple) only pay around £40-£50 a month.

I have given meter readings today after getting off the phone to them which still hasnt helped.

So a few question im looking for answers to.

1. The lady i spoke to at SSE said we dont have an economy 7 meter although on our bill we have 2 supply numbers, of which one is a S 02 which ive found online is a econo 7 supply, therefore can i just switch supplier and tell them i have economy 7 meter?

2. Why would my bills be so high, we are both out of the flat 10 hours a day at least, use a tumble dryer for a few hours a week and use tv ect an average amount?

3. Water boiler has 2 switches on, 1 going to the top half and one to bottom half, bottom one is always on and top one we never have on, do i need the bottom one constantly on??

Thanks guys for any help.

Carrot007

Bear_Saxo wrote: »

Hi all,

I live in a 1 bed all electric flat, rented accommodation, in swindon (wiltshire) with my girlfriend.

Been here 3 years now but never really questioned electric bills ect,

We were paying £108 a month but it has now gone upto £117 a month direct debit which is too high, work colleagues in same situation (couple) only pay around £40-£50 a month.

I have given meter readings today after getting off the phone to them which still hasnt helped.

So a few question im looking for answers to.

1. The lady i spoke to at SSE said we dont have an economy 7 meter although on our bill we have 2 supply numbers, of which one is a S 02 which ive found online is a econo 7 supply, therefore can i just switch supplier and tell them i have economy 7 meter?

2. Why would my bills be so high, we are both out of the flat 10 hours a day at least, use a tumble dryer for a few hours a week and use tv ect an average amount?

3. Water boiler has 2 switches on, 1 going to the top half and one to bottom half, bottom one is always on and top one we never have on, do i need the bottom one constantly on??

Thanks guys for any help.

Profile class 2 would indeed be 2/more rate.


As for the water boiler ,the bottom one is usually the off peak heating a lot of water and the top the boost with a small tank for if you run out. Well as far as I know, never really seen them!


Heating is probably all that would use a lot (water/heating not oven/tumble dryer (as they are not used much like the others are). Have youi any arrears on the account (even predicted arrears for over winter) so you are paying more than you are currently using. If you pay my DD you never pay what you use, wither more or less (so it averages thoughout the year (that the company chooses, not specifically related to when you joined them)).



Is the other mpan an S 01 one? If you want to PM me you mpans (the core 13 digits on the bottom line of both are all I would need) I can take a look unofficially and tell you what you have if I can see it (I would see you address).



Otherwise you will probably need to go back to SSE. Or feel free to ask more questions!

Bear_Saxo

Pmed you carrot.

Thanks

Carrot007

OK,


So 02 mpan SSC is 353, 01 SSC is 302.


This is Superdeal, which is certainly not E7. Nor is it simple! Did the Advisor give any info?


DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CHANGE SUPPLIER! No one else has to support this and you will end up with problems!I can see the property has never changed supplier so yo uare OK (they do not have to support it is you mess up by moving and move back (though they usually will)). I have not much experience with this one but many areas offer similar legacy tarrifs. I am most familer with supertraffif in the NE which is similar.


Your meter, the same one on both mpans which is becuase years ago there was the possibility to use two meters on such tarrifs is a 3 rate meter. It is teleswitched so operates changes by radio signal (which was meant to be phased out years ago, but has not been!).


The 302/01 part operates much like E7. Usually 07-24 being peak and 00-07 being off peak.


The 02/353 part is for the heating (no idea if this includes the water butt it may (usually the bigger lower cylinder). Apparently usual running times for this are reather complex! But appear to be 00:30-03:00, 03:30-05:30, 06:00-07:30 and 13:30-15:30.


Note no standardised times are specified for teleswitched meters and the document I am looking at is from 2005ish. but they should not have been changed. (Especially for these legacy setups).


So the questions now are:



Are you being billed on 3 readings. I believe it is allowed for complex tarrifs that you can be billed as a single rate meter (there may be a 4th total read on your meter, or they could be added up).



Have you a read history/Can you take daily reads to see if they are reasonable (and maybe indicate where it is being used if you have 3 reads).


Hope that explains a bit and is not too technical for you!

macman

By far the largest part of your usage will be heating, but you haven't told us how the flat is heated? Tell us your annual kWh usage: £££'s DD monthly tells us nothing.
If you are on a dual rate tariff, then you should have NSH's. You already have a dual element immersion heater (it's not a boiler).
What tariff are you on? The problem in many instances is that owners change the heating, but often don't change the metering to suit.

jk0

Is it possible your rent is slightly lower to make up for the higher heating cost?


I charge my tenants with electric heating about £50 pcm less than those with gas heating.


Some of mine have Superdeal. Price sounds about right to me. Put your washing on at 7am to get the water heating done on the night rate.


BTW, Here's a little trick to make the heating cheaper:


Every night when you will be out at the crack of dawn, turn your storage heater inputs down, but remember to turn them up the next morning. Your flat will stay cooler while you are out, but be nice & warm when you get home.


Keep output closed until evening, and close it again at bedtime.

Bear_Saxo

Macman-

The flat is heated with storage heaters in hallway and living room, bedroom has a radiator with timed settings on. Currently these have all been majority of this year.

From my last bill 30 nov 2017- 7 jun 2018 their projected estimate usage annually is 7,620 kwh made up of :
3,288 kwh day energy usage
803 kwh night time energy
3,528 kwh stored energy

Not really sure how i would be usage the same stored energy as i am day energy.
Obviously ive never really looked into energy usage ect so i dont know if these are high/average for a 1 bed flat with 2 people.

Jko-
Our rent is average for a 1 bed flat in the area and we a friend lives local to me whos paying less than half our bill a month.

clochi

Bear_Saxo wrote: »

Hi all,

I live in a 1 bed all electric flat, rented accommodation, in swindon (wiltshire) with my girlfriend.

Been here 3 years now but never really questioned electric bills ect,

We were paying £108 a month but it has now gone upto £117 a month direct debit which is too high, work colleagues in same situation (couple) only pay around £40-£50 a month.

I have given meter readings today after getting off the phone to them which still hasnt helped.

So a few question im looking for answers to.

1. The lady i spoke to at SSE said we dont have an economy 7 meter although on our bill we have 2 supply numbers, of which one is a S 02 which ive found online is a econo 7 supply, therefore can i just switch supplier and tell them i have economy 7 meter?

2. Why would my bills be so high, we are both out of the flat 10 hours a day at least, use a tumble dryer for a few hours a week and use tv ect an average amount?

3. Water boiler has 2 switches on, 1 going to the top half and one to bottom half, bottom one is always on and top one we never have on, do i need the bottom one constantly on??

Thanks guys for any help.

In answer to your numbered questions:

1. Yes.
Hopefully the new supplier will see that you have lied to them and reject your application.
God help you if they don't spot the lie.

SSE have told you what sort of meter you don't have. That list could be almost infinite. Why not ask them what sort of meter you do have? :cool:

2. Either:
You are not being billed accurately according to your meter e.g. on estimated readings.
Or
You are using lots of electricity

3. No
What do you think will happen if you turn it off? :huh:

Carrot007

Bear_Saxo wrote: »

Macman-

The flat is heated with storage heaters in hallway and living room, bedroom has a radiator with timed settings on. Currently these have all been majority of this year.

From my last bill 30 nov 2017- 7 jun 2018 their projected estimate usage annually is 7,620 kwh made up of :
3,288 kwh day energy usage
803 kwh night time energy
3,528 kwh stored energy

Not really sure how i would be usage the same stored energy as i am day energy.
Obviously ive never really looked into energy usage ect so i dont know if these are high/average for a 1 bed flat with 2 people.

Jko-
Our rent is average for a 1 bed flat in the area and we a friend lives local to me whos paying less than half our bill a month.

Looks fairly reasonable figures to me for a flat to me.



Electric heating costs around 3 times that of gas.



Assuming you meant "Currently these have all been [off the] majority of this year." (Yeah I type faster than I think and skip words too!). Then you are currently paying in advnace for when you turn the heating on rather than paying £50 a month now and £250 a month in the cold months.


Though if the DD has been creeping up you are probably behind where you would have been so are playing catchup on getting some in reserve for winter.


Does SSE have a decent web site? One, where you can try to adjust the DD. If you bring it down as far as It can go and it should want you to pay of this "debt"(unbuilt credit for winter), so you can see how much you have been underpaying previously and what a "debt"(like I say not technically) free monthly payment would average out at. (I have never seen SSE's site, I am with SP and I can do this on there).

Bear_Saxo

We were behind at the very start of our tenancy, (3 years ago) but ofc we caught up a long time ago, last bill dated 07 jun 2018, when i rang up yesterday we were currently in credit of £269 and a bill dated up until yesterday was £165 therefore we have a credit of around £95 but ofc this is summer months therefore we will be behind again by winter.

SSe doesnt have a site where we can adjust the DD, we can just make payments, give readings, view previous bills and readings ect.

Maybe i just need to learn to not waste energy then, when i was looking online at comparing energy costs, i put in figures from my estimated usage on a non eco7 tariff and it was coming out with quotes of around £80 a month, which of course is a £37 a month saving. also we currently dont have a ending contract fee so would be free to switch.

Thanks for responses from everyone.