Advice On Keeping Bills Down Please

Talldave

Something like a Honeywell CM927 would do everything you want, but it is over £100 new. However, you can find secondhand ones on ebay for a lot less.


How easy it is to install depends on your existing boiler and RF receiver setup. If the RF receiver is integral to the boiler, it could be a bit complicated unless the boiler's designed for an external thermostat option. If the existing RF receiver is external to the boiler, then installation should be a doddle. But it must be done by someone competent and confident with mains voltage wiring.

falcieri

AfxTwn wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies. It seems the general consensus is to check the meter readings regularly so I can monitor the usage myself and to switch tariff with Npower.

It sounds to me like you could make a lot of tweaks to your usage. It seems high by my standard but then I look at my parents gas and electricity usage and I'm shocked how high it is. Not that they seem to care.



My property is smaller (I'm in a 2 bed flat) but I work from home so I'm there all day every day. I use on average 1181 kwh of electricity a year and 95 kwh of gas per year and I get an annual dual fuel bill of about £333. I read my metres monthly and monitor my account online and do what I can to keep usage down in winter by insulating my poorly insulated flat as best I can. I have a combi boiler, gas central heating and a gas hob. I have an old fashioned dial thermostat but a timer and controls on the combi boiler. I'm with Bulb which are a lot cheaper on the electricity side of things and are working well for me at the moment.

MovingForwards

I'm with British Gas, so no special tariff, and I am very careful with what I do to keep bills low.

I've a shower over the bath with the stupid leaky glass panel, I stick a bath mat down to soak up the escaping water, you could use bath towels to save costs.

I picked my curtains up from Argos, specifically picking ones from a sale and floor to ceiling, they will go with me when I buy my own place.

The electric is pre-pay, sockets are in weird and wonderful places which requires agility, but things still get switched off / removed.

It's entirely up to you if you want to spend a couple of quid to bring down your bills and take most of the stuff with you when you move, or accept you will be paying more for gas / electric.

AfxTwn

[QUOTE=MovingForwards;76247306It's_entirely_up_to_you_if_you_want_to_spend_a_couple_of_quid_to_bring_down_your_bills_and_take_most_of_the_stuff_with_you_when_you_move,_or_accept_you_will_be_paying_more_for_gas_/_electric.[/QUOTE]

Don't get me wrong, I want to keep my bills down as much as I can and generally do turn things off at the switch when I can. I think the biggest cost to me is the gas really as when I spoke to Npower before getting my new meters, they said that I don't use a lot of electricity and it does seem to be the gas that's the highest.

I think at the moment I am more worried about the gas than anything but I am in a bit of no-man's-land as I don't really know what my average usage is yet seeing as the meters are new and haven't had time to acclimatise to my usage levels.

Once I get my new bill and can see my actual usage and meter readings more accurately then I can discuss further with Npower about switching tariffs and decide whether I think they are charging more than other providers.

I don't want to be constantly monitoring my usage and being afraid to turn anything on or use my heating too much but at the same time I'm not going to be wasteful either.

I will look into possibly getting a new shower screen or maybe even just a better rubber seal between the bath and the screen itself (I know a bath mat or towels are a temporary solution).

As for the heating, I will see how I get on with the thermostat for now. I think I have a Salus RXBC605 Plug-In Receiver on my boiler (it looks like this model on the manufacturer's website) and a Salus RT500RF programmable thermostat. I think the boiler used to have the old programmable dial with the little slots you slide and time's written round the edge of it. I have also since found out that if I press the two up and down arrow buttons together it will send the thermostat into sleep mode and turn off the program/heating. Pressing any button after will then wake it and return it to the program settings. So I can turn off the heating earlier than the set program finishes but need to remember to resume it again.

I sometimes spend a lot of time in the house; around 3 days a week I'm out from 10:30am to 3:30pm and the other days and weekends I am in most of the day and night so I am trying to figure out a good schedule for when to have the heating on and off. I generally get up around 7am most days and got to bed around 10:30pm.

I certainly have a better understanding of things now and will look into what else I can do to keep costs down (the shower being one of them).

matelodave

You dont need to look at your bills to monitor your consumption - read your meter yourself. As I said, if you wait for the bill, you've already used it

Be very careful to check your bills properly because even though you may have a smart meter quite often the suppliers are still sending estimated bills out.

Dont wait for a bill, check you on-line account and download bills and stsements at regular intervals

Talldave

There are two aspects to money saving - not wasting energy and not paying too much for it. Whilst you stay with npower you'll probably be paying too much for it. A supplier like Zog would probably be cheaper. If you're paying less you could even have the heating a little warmer for a little longer and still pay the same as you did with npower.

Don't get obsessed by consumption, just read the meter weekly and after a couple of weeks you'll have a good idea what you're using and what the bill will be.

Once you know you're with a cheap supplier and are not wasting energy, you can relax and enjoy life. Keep the regular meter reading going, check your bills are against those readings and all will be good. A couple of times a year re-run a comparison site check and make sure the market hasn't dropped - it's not worth switching to save £7 a year, but if the saving's up to £40-50 go for it.

EDIT: just read the manual for the thermostat - using frost protection mode is possibly an easier way to turn the heating off as it's a single button press.

EDIT2: The receiver on your boiler is compatible with a range of Salus thermostats so you could also upgrade the thermostat to a RT510TX that has manual mode (useful for the learning phase of working out what temp suits your lifestyle) and holiday mode or even the IT500BM that allows internet control of the heating from your phone.
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JJ_Egan

Is the OP on a standard( expensive tariff ) difficult to tell from the posts .
FIA i pay circa £70 pm for gas and elec .
Has the OP given us a guide to what they are paying ??

AfxTwn

JJ_Egan wrote: »

Is the OP on a standard( expensive tariff ) difficult to tell from the posts .
FIA i pay circa £70 pm for gas and elec .
Has the OP given us a guide to what they are paying ??

I am on the standard tariff with Npower. I was paying £71 p/m but this rose in August to £134 p/m which prompted me to call them and find out why it had almost doubled in price. They have put it back down to £71 following the new smart meter change and said they will have a better idea now of my usage seeing as the new smart meters automatically upload their readings to Npower.

I will still take my own meter readings though and then get a better idea of what I am using.

Robin9

AfxTwn wrote: »

I am on the standard tariff with Npower. I was paying £71 p/m but this rose in August to £134 p/m which prompted me to call them and find out why it had almost doubled in price. They have put it back down to £71 following the new smart meter change and said they will have a better idea now of my usage seeing as the new smart meters automatically upload their readings to Npower.

I will still take my own meter readings though and then get a better idea of what I am using.

nPower would have put it up because you probably owed them money and your consumption was resulting in a growing debt.

I see no reason why you can give us the meter readings that you do have - waiting for a bill is only putting the problem off for another day.

Talldave

AfxTwn wrote: »

I am on the standard tariff with Npower. I was paying £71 p/m but this rose in August to £134 p/m which prompted me to call them and find out why it had almost doubled in price. They have put it back down to £71 following the new smart meter change and said they will have a better idea now of my usage seeing as the new smart meters automatically upload their readings to Npower.

I will still take my own meter readings though and then get a better idea of what I am using.

I've recently moved and have had npower's standard tarrif for a month whilst switching (I refuse to be an npower customer due to a year long battle over a meter change many years ago). I've worked out the bill will be just under £130 for a month - but I'm in a detatched house with a 300 litre hot water tank and dozens of halogen bulbs (I'm working on it!!)!! Your bills should be £50 ish a month.