High Electricity Bills - please help

lucyt87

Please help... any advice appreciated.

We are renting a flat that cannot be heated adequately and without incurring huge electricity bills.

The property is a one bedroom flat on the 3rd floor with very high ceilings, no insulation and no double glazing. There is no gas in the building. The only heating provided are 2000W electric heaters on the walls, one per room. These are extremely inefficient and use 2kW/h to run, so we've been hit with monthly bills of around £400-£500 bills. Even if we just have one heater on for 4-5 hours a day which does nothing, we're faced with bills of around £200 for the month.

Even if we ran all the heaters all day at a huge cost, it still doesn't adequately heat the space. In winter, we can't even get the main room above 15 degrees celcius even after several hours of using the heaters. It drops to 10 degrees soon after we switch the heaters off. We're freezing and having just one heater on for a few hours a day is sending us broke. The cold temperatures and dampness in here also mean that black mould is constantly growing despite us cleaning it off every few weeks.

The landlord refuse to put in any storage heaters or replace the electric heaters with more economical ones. They say that they have provided heating and therefore it's not their responsibility. They have also refused to compensate us any money from our rent. They said they provided an Energy Performance that said the heating was at a low rating and inefficient. From our perspective, there is a big difference between "inefficient" and the reality - which is that this flat is unfit for purpose and a health hazard. We asked several times about the heating situation upon moving in (I'm not originally from this country) but were never given a response.

Please can anyone give us any advice, what can we do. We have another few months of winter to go and we're freezing, I'm pregnant and spending hundreds every month on electricity.

Gerry1

Unfortunately the reality is that you're between a rock and a hard place and there's not a lot you can do. You'll have to face the fact that you've made a poor choice and the only real answer is to more to a more suitable place, preferably with gas central heating, or at least modern storage heaters such as Dimplex Quantum..

However, no doubt that's more easily said than done, so in the meantime you need to make sure you're getting the cheapest electricity. That means being on a credit tariff rather than prepayment, paying by direct debit and switching via a price comparison website that shows all providers, e.g. Citizens Advice. If you're using prepayment, don't use a card from a previous tenant because it may have a debt on it which you will be paying back. Read the meter frequently, know which tariff you're on and do the sums to work out what you're paying.

You should also check whether you can claim any benefits such as Warm Home Discount, Cold Weather payments, etc. Citizens Advice also has plenty of information about this.

Single rate electricity will always be very expensive and it doesn't make any difference which devices you use, a kilowatt is a kilowatt regardless whether it's a panel radiator, a fan heater, an electric fire, a convector heater or an oil filled radiator. Storage heaters can be cheaper on Economy 7 but you probably wouldn't want to bear the capital cost unless you intend to stay there a long time.

Basically, there are no quick and easy answers. Just find the cheapest tariff to tide you over until you can move !

jk0

What is the EPC rating? Below E is not allowed to be let. Does that give you any leverage?

Streaky_Bacon

lucyt87 wrote: »

They said they provided an Energy Performance that said the heating was at a low rating and inefficient.

What is the energy rating on the EPC? It needs to be at least E.

Also, see here (page 23)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/9425/150940.pdf

2 EXCESS COLD

This covers the threats to health when temperatures fall below the minimum satisfactory levels for relatively long periods.

Health effects.

A healthy indoor temperature is around 21 ̊C. There is small risk of health effects below 19 ̊C. Below 16 ̊C, there are serious health risks for the elderly, including greatly increased risks of respiratory and cardiovascular conditions. Below 10 ̊C a great risk of hypothermia, especially for the elderly.

You may wish to consider contacting the housing team at your local council, especially if the EPC is worse than E.

Carrot007

lucyt87 wrote: »

The only heating provided are 2000W electric heaters on the walls, one per room. These are extremely inefficient and use 2kW/h to run

No they are 99% odd efficient. However that does not mean they are cheap. Electric is expensive. (gas central heating would be say 70% efficient but at three times cheaper the inificiency does not batter too much!)


(uneconimical is the word you were looking for ;-) )

Gerry1

Carrot007 wrote: »

gas central heating would be say 70% efficient but at three times cheaper the inificiency does not batter too much!

Electricity is probably around five times the price of gas (at least before standing charges), around 13p/kWh for single rate electricity and 2.5p/kWh for gas if you're lucky.

The OP is certainly being battered...

Gerry1

lucyt87 wrote: »

Even if we just have one heater on for 4-5 hours a day which does nothing, we're faced with bills of around £200 for the month.

Something's not right here. 2kW for 5 hours per day = 10kWh per day. Let's say another 10kWh per day for hot water and everything else. That's 600kWh per 30-day month. If it's 15p/kWh, that's £90. Even if standing charges are 25p/day, that's still only a total of £97.50.

Find out the details of your tariff and see what you're actually using and paying each day. Switch everything off and make sure the meter doesn't increment (except for standing charges if it's PAYG) or have a flashing red light showing usage. You may find you're paying for circuits supplying another flat or items in common areas.

lucyt87

The tariff we're on is currently 23.5p per kW - we inherited this setup from the previous tenant who I've just discovered was paying £500+ electricity bills per month without complaint, because the landlord had no idea either.

I have switched over to a cheaper supplier (16p per kW) but this takes another 2 weeks to take effect and i can't get the rate any lower in the meantime. I know i should have realised this earlier, but I've never had the need before to look into this sort of thing. I didn't even know what a kW was until recently, had no idea our building had no gas, and i wasn't even alerted to the fact there was a problem until our December bill of over £450 came in. We moved in back in July and then were subsequently out of the flat (abroad) for several months, then the electricity supplier sent us October and November bills which they said were incorrect and needed to sort out the following month so unfortunately this has all come to my attention in the past few weeks, now in mid winter and owing over!£750 in 3 months (Oct-Dec). We have been really confused about why our usage is so high and we've experimented with fixtures and turning on and off appliances, convinced we were paying for more flats in the building, but even being really careful with heating (using 1 heater for 5 hours a day and basically freezing), our meter is still going up 25kW per day - which apparently adds up to £210 bill for the month (incl vat maybe?). Had electricians in, they can't explain it. So i can only deduce it's mostly the electric heaters since the meter jumps up fastest when we use them.

That being said and cost aside, having one heater on for 5 hours a day does nothing to heat the space. We'd have to have multiple heaters on for much longer to even notice a rise in temperature, which we've still not managed to get over 15 degrees in winter. And as soon as we switch them off, the heat disappears as the room cannot retain any heat (high ceilings, no insulation, in the roof etc).

lucyt87

The EPC rating is a D.... Over the page the Main Heating rating is 1 star. The estimated energy costs of this home on the front page say heating is estimated to be £1,326 over 3 years.. how is this at all possible with only 2000W that use 2kW/hr? Apologies if i don't understand - I'm not originally from this country.

RelievedSheff

Is the EPC you have been supplied for your flat as a band D seems unlikely with the set up you have described!

Have you got access to the roof space?

You can buy insulation dirt cheap and it will help your flat retain heat. You shouldn't have to do this but sometimes needs must.

lucyt87

There isn’t any roof space, we are in the roof. At the highest point it’s over 5 metres up - this is a major reason we can’t heat the room up. There’s also no insulation.

Is there anyone independent we can get out to find out about the energy usage? There doesn’t appear to be any way to heat the room to anywhere near adequate, let alone with electric heaters, so how is it rentable ?