Electric usage

scotland_lass

Can anyone tell me roughly what would be a normal amount of electric usage in a 4 bedroom house which is all electric and uses storage heating?

We live in the north of Scotland and are on total heating total control. We use 3 storage heaters, there's panel heaters in the bedrooms which are rarely on and we have 1 oil filled radiator that is used for 1 or 2 hours a day. 2 bathrooms with small towel rails.

There's 7 of us in the household. Mostly all of us use the electric shower, my husband daily and me either daily or every 2nd day, 3 teens use it couple of times a week, 6yr old once a week and our youngest has a bath once a week which uses water from the hot water tank.

Our hot water is extremely hot. It's so hot it will burn an adult let alone a child. We only use the hot water for the baby to be bathed once a week and washing hands after the toilet etc. I'd say we use a small amount of it.

Now it's winter we use around £75 per week! I turned off the hot water for a week and it used about £12 less. Does £12 seem a lot considering we don't use a lot of hot water from the tank? I'm wondering if there could be a problem with the thermostat.

We do quite a few loads of washing per week with there being 7 of us and we use cloth nappies so that's another couple of washes a week. We do have a tumble dried but try not to use it very often, maybe 2 loads a week are dried in the dryer.

We can't switch suppliers due to the set up we have. Heating and hot water are on 1 meter and charged at 14.86 pence per unit and all other electric on another meter at 19.73 pence per unit.

I have seen people on forums saying they use £30 per week max in winter, in larger houses than ours. Granted they don't have storage heaters but they said they aren't careful with usage and have several teens on electrical items all day every day, tumble dry all clothes etc.

Is ours excessively high? I check the usage each Saturday and last week we used £76.65. This consisted of 198.8 units on the higher rate for normal electrical items and 252 on the lower rate for heating and hot water. It's a bit of a drain over winter spending so much on electricity!

Gerry1

Stop thinking in DD amounts per week or month, start thinking in annual costs based on annual kWh usage from actual meter readings. Sounds like you're on E10 or a similar variant which is being withdrawn and/or is now prohibitively expensive.

You seem to be doing all the wrong things: oil filled radiators and instantaneous electric showers presumably at peak time, water far too hot, and all on a cripplingly expensive tariff. Is the immersion heater running 24/7?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the harsh reality is that your system and/or methodology is a total disaster, and it's driving you to bankruptcy ! :eek:
Ideally you should have a wet CH system with mains gas (which would also allow you to get a gas tumble dryer with running costs about a quarter or fifth of electricity). But if you really can't get mains gas, consider E7 with an off-peak immersion heater perhaps with Dimplex Quantum storage heaters if yours are too small / not well insulated / rely on an afternoon boost. You could then search the whole market and get a much cheaper tariff.

Or consider a wet central heating system with Calor Gas if you own the property and are going to stay there a long time. Alternatively, a heat pump might help but I have no experience of those.

There have been many, many similar threads in recent weeks - search on Economy 10, high bills and such like and see what others think.

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matelodave

You should be heating your hot water during the off peak period. The electric shower is probably costing you a hell of a lot as it's probably being used during peak periods rather than when off-peak is available.

10 minutes in an electric shower will use around 1.5kwh which could be costing you around 29p or more a go, so use it less often and dont linger - limit every one to five minutes or less - it's costing 3p a minute

Dont waste hot water. Learn to wash your hands and rinse stuff in cold water rather than hot and dont let hot water run down the sink.
If the water is ever so hot get the immersion heater thermostat checked, adjusted or changed - they arent expensive, they are easy to change and it will save you money. Make sure that you only heat the water during off-peak times - make that any boost switch is turned off

If you are going to use a tumble drier, washing machine or dishwasher, make sure that they are full - they cost just as much to run as when they are half empty.If possible use them during off peak times although some complex metering systems only allow off-peak for heating and not for other appliances so using oil filled rads, towel rails and other stuff will also ramp ump your consumption of peak rate leccy.

You cant really compare your consumption with the average because there are a lot more than an average number in your house, you live further north than most and you've got a complex metering tariff which is more expensive than average.

You really need to do your own energy audit - work out what is being used and when and start reading your meters regularly (at least weekly) and recording it so you know how much is being used. If you dont monitor it you cant control it because you don't know what is going on.

Do you own the house or is it rented - if it's yours it might be worthwhile investigating mains gas (if its available), oil or lpg. There will be a hefty upfront cost but the running costs will be lower and it's likely to add significantly to the value of your property. Even swapping to an E7 tariff with better storage heaters would probably save you money in the long run. The ones you've got probably arent big enough to heat the place with only 7 hours of off-peak leccy if they were designed to use with an E10 or even E18 tariff)

TBH even a single rate tariif would cost you less than you are paying now - there are tariffs that are around the 14-15p/kwh which is what you are paying for off peak and your peak price at 19p or so is just silly - especially if you are running the shower, dryerm washing machine and other stuff from it.

scotland_lass

There is no off peak times for shower, washing machine etc. That is all on the more expensive meter so I can't change anything there. The dishwasher and washing machine only run when there's a full load.

The hot water is heated on the other meter, as well as towel rails, panel heaters and storage heaters. There's 2 switches for the water, one is boost immersion which is off all the time and the other says storage immersion which I understand to mean that it heats when the storage heaters are also on.

Unfortunately we are on an island. There is no mains gas here. We don't own our home so wouldn't like to fork out loads for a new system and the housing association were very reluctant to replace our ancient storage heater in the living room last winter when it decided it wasn't going to work anymore. Eventually they had no choice but to replace it as the other one was so old that there are no longer any spare parts being made.

matelodave

In that case then I'd suggest that you look for a better tariff - even a single rate one could cost you less than you are currently paying, even on the so-called off peak rate.
I'm on a single rate costing just 12p/kwh. I'm not suggesting that it will available to you if you live somewhere remote but it demonstrates that there are tariffs around that might be as cheap or even cheaper than your off-peak rate and significantly less than your peak rate

Energy companies now have to offer you a more conventional tariff if you have a complex meter or something similar. It may be worthwhile having a word with yours to see what they could offer. Have a look at this and have a chat with your energy companies Restricted Meter Team to see what they could offer you. https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/Global/CitizensAdvice/Energy/Energy%20Consultation%20responses/Restricted%20Meter%20Good%20Practice%20Guide.pdf

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/Global/CitizensAdvice/Energy/Energy%20Consultation%20responses/Restricted%20Meter%20Good%20Practice%20Guide.pdf