Scottish Power chasing me for £350, I have never used them.

zippygeorgeandben

I might send an attached pic of the switches in front of he boiler, as you seem far more useful than me. God knows how I have over 1000 'thanks'!

Gerry1

More thoughts (YMMV of course)...

Instantaneous power shower

• How many kiloWatts? About 10kW?
• How many kiloWatt hours? Two people, each taking two 10 min showers per day, 2433kWh per year?
  
• How many pence per kiloWatt hour? About 16p on peak E7?
• Now do the sums... £389 per year - just for showers.

That's the way the money goes, pop goes the meter !

Flat set up

Have you asked the landlord to explain the configuration? Do you have an E7 meter but no gas supply? Is it impossible to get gas?

zippygeorgeandben

I shower for about 5 mins in the morning, that's about it!

zippygeorgeandben

I have posted my floor plan and last two monthly bills from bulb.
Just thought I would share more information really and whether you think I might be paying more than I should do, compared with other people in similar property. No one is in between 6.30am and 5pm Mon-Fri. No dishwasher/tumble dryer.

molerat

One thing that jumps out there is meter reads. Provide them more often and you will get more accurate billing.

zippygeorgeandben

When I do though they say 'Perfect, Another one in 3 months time will do nicely!'

Swipe

zippygeorgeandben wrote: »

When I do though they say 'Perfect, Another one in 3 months time will do nicely!'

Meter reads should ideally be submitted one or two days before your monthly bill is due if you value accurate bills. I always got a monthly email reminder from Bulb so no excuse really.

zippygeorgeandben

HI all - thought it was polite to give you an update.
First of all, a huge thank you to Gerry1 who has helped me tremendously.
I have reluctantly agreed to pay the SP bill (over a period of months) and I am now in contact with Bulb regarding how they dealt with it and looking at some kind of resolution.
Because of this episode I have actually understood more about electricity and energy bills. We realised that we left about 3 lights on during the day (for the cat!) and also left the computer running for hours whilst not in use etc. I do not think I have ever looked at how many watts devices use before now. The dyson floor fan uses 2,000 watts and compared to everything else, is ridiculously high. It has not been used this year.
Also, we have worked out that we do have central heating and have learnt how to use these efficiently using the timers.
I have taken meter readings each day from the 1st January 2020 and it is an average of 18kw per day. You don't have to scroll up to see what we were using on the bills because I'll tell you! One month was 25 and one month was 32.
Anyway, will keep on using energy wisely!
Thanks for reading.

Gerry1

zippygeorgeandben wrote: »

You don't have to scroll up to see what we were using on the bills because I'll tell you! One month was 25 and one month was 32.
Anyway, will keep on using energy wisely.

So far so good, but minimising unnecessary consumption is only about a third of the plan ! Have you done all your homework, e.g.:-

• Confirmed that your E7 times would be the attractive 'split shift' of 2230 - 0030 and 0230 - 0730 GMT?
• Have you worked out which switches control the 24h and night time circuits that supply the immersion heater(s)?

In the week you'd probably benefit from programming the central controller to switch on the hot water, panel heaters and towel rail for an appropriate period towards the end of the night rate, and using the panel heaters once again for a short period after 10:30pm GMT; weekday evenings can still be the Dyson fan heater as and when required.

Then you could programme the storage heaters to charge up on E7 on Friday and Saturday nights to minimise the use of top up peak E7 heating at the weekend. Weekend hot water would still be overnight, topped up sparingly on peak E7 only if you've made a mistake and run out in the day.

So that gives two more homework bullet points:-

• Knowing the proposed E7 switching times, have you programmed the panel heaters, hot water and storage heaters for weekdays and weekends to see how it works out in practice and to get suitably timed 'shadow' E7 meter readings?
• From your series of 'shadow' meter readings, have you worked out whether E7 would be cheaper than a single rate tariff?

Finally, if E7 does seem worthwhile then it's a case of crunching the numbers via some comparison websites (make sure you see the whole market) and deciding whether to have a thrill ride with Neon Reef, Symbio etc or pay a bit more to play safe with the Boring 5.

It sounds like you're getting there by minimising wastage, but don't miss the bus by failing to optimise the automatic programming times and switching to the best available E7 tariff.