£600 Electricity Bill for Two Months Electricity!!!

Fire_Fox

It is great that you have been keeping a record of all contact with each party. If you upload photos to a hosting site you can then link to them here.

I am owner-occupier of an all-electric flat in Yorkshire (city centre one bed, no heating, no tumble dryer, E7 meter), as are my parents (dual aspect duplex, storage heaters/ tumble dryer on E7 meter).

There appear to be multiple issues at play here. My comments, in no particular order ....

1. Your energy guzzlers are heating, hot water (inc. shower), tumble dryer (if you have one) and washing machine (if you hot wash). Lighting, TV, small electricals and kitchen appliances will contribute little to your usage.

2. How much you are home is far less relevant than what energy guzzlers you are actually using. Small/ single aspect flats benefit from neighbouring properties so it is not always necessary to heat during the day. Two people taking daily power showers can get through a serious amount of water, and hence electricity.

3. Properties with an electric immersion heater are expensive to run, compared to properties with a gas boiler. £50 a month in winter is way too low.

4. My parents' energy bills are massively higher than mine. This is due to very different lifestyles/ consumption and the very pricey green energy company they are with. I am with NPower, I cannot remember their energy provider but it *may* be Ecotricity. Use a price comparison site ASAP and switch if possible.

5. My old immersion heater had two elements/ two thermostats and two rocker switches on the wall to turn them on or off, so does my new immersion heater. AFAIK it has never been wired up to the E7 meter as Robin9 describes. I have an old (analogue) timer clock on the wall next to the consumer unit/ circuit breakers, not on the immersion heater/ cylinder itself. IIRC my parents' set-up is much the same.

6. Tenants have a legal right to access their meter. Landlords have a legal responsibility to rectify faults with heating/ hot water etc. but not "solve any issues". You may have more success accessing meters via the managing agents of the building rather than the landlord themselves.

7. What type of space heaters do you have? Are you sure they are set up correctly, and do not come on at peak rate/ whilst you are at work? Does your shower feed from the immersion heater cylinder, or heat the water itself?

HTH.

macman

OP, let's get the basics right here first. Do you only have a single set of readings on your bill? If so, you are not on E7 but on a single rate tariff, which is always very expensive in an all-electric property Does the meter serial number on the bill match the one on your meter?
Ecotricity prices generally track standard variable tariff, so are expensive.
Your LL is not required to deal with any issues on your utility accounts: gas, water, leccy, telcoms. What they are required to do is ensure that the relevant appliances are safe and operational, and provide info on how to operate them, if needed.
They informed you that the existing supply, when you moved in, was with Ecotricity, with whom you were in a deemed contract with from day one. The correct procedure is to take meter readings on that day and register for an account: you are then free to commence a switch to another supplier if you wish. Nothing to do with your LL.
You have already confirmed that the billed opening read was incorrect. So, based on your LL's opening read, what was your actual kWh usage over that billing period? From that, you can work out easily what the correct bill should be. Bearing in mind that you are extrapolating data from the coldest 2 months of the year, your annual cost is not going to be six times your winter cost.
Finally, when you say 'boiler', do you mean the immersion heater? If you have 'space heaters', then these will be probably wall mounted convectors. You will only have a boiler if you have a wet CH system with conventional rads. Please describe what you have, make and model etc?
The most economic system for an all-electric property is E7, running an immersion heater and NHS's, but the developers tend to just install what is cheapest for them-they aren't bothered about the running costs. Don't blame Ecotricity for under-estimating. They have no idea what the property is like or what services or systems it has. For all they know, it is heated by gas.
Last thought: why not discuss this with your neighbours, who are presumably getting the same level of bills?