How am I using so much electricity?

shannon_bernie

Hi everyone,

I’m just looking for a bit of advice. I recently move out of my family home and I’m renting a 1 bedroom flat. I just received a bill for my electricity over the past 3 months and I have used £510 worth of electricity. I have checked my meter and the readings are accurate, in total I have used 2734 kWh of electricity. 

The main reason I am questioning this is because I work away from home for at least 4 days every week. At most I stay in my flat for 4 nights a week. I don’t have gas in my flat so everything is electric. 

This is the first time I have lived on my own so I’m not sure what the average amount of electricity used by one person should be. It’s really getting to me because I was not expecting to receive a bill like this at all and it has put a huge hole in my finances leaving me concerned about how I’m going to survive for the month.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Neil_Jones

Unfortunately electric energy is the most expensive type going so it won't be cheap, particularly in the winter months.

Are you on Economy 7? Do you have storage heaters? Can you shift a significant portion of your electric use to this off peak period if you have it?

Robin9

What is the electric heating  - storage rads, panel heaters ?
£510 in 3 months is not particularly high  - get into the habit of reading that meter - do it before and after your shower and you will be shocked.
After you moved in and gave your supplier your meter reads did you then change supplier - if not you will be on their standard (ie expensive tariff) ?

Gerry1

Read the meter daily to get a better idea of usage.  How are you heating the flat?  As it's all electric it will always be expensive and you may have limited options to change it.  Beware instantaneous electric showers, do the sums and assume 10kW.  What tariff are you on, and do you have Economy 7?

shannon_bernie

Neil_Jones said:

Unfortunately electric energy is the most expensive type going so it won't be cheap, particularly in the winter months.

Are you on Economy 7? Do you have storage heaters? Can you shift a significant portion of your electric use to this off peak period if you have it?

I am on Economy 7 and I don’t have any storage heaters.

shannon_bernie

Robin9 said:

What is the electric heating  - storage rads, panel heaters ?
£510 in 3 months is not particularly high  - get into the habit of reading that meter - do it before and after your shower and you will be shocked.
After you moved in and gave your supplier your meter reads did you then change supplier - if not you will be on their standard (ie expensive tariff) ?

The heating is from wires embedded in the ceilings, I’m not sure if that has a certain name. I didn’t change supplier I stayed with the one the landlord had set up for me

Gerry1

The best you can do is to make sure you have the cheapest tariff and to make sure the immersion heater is not powered up outside the cheap rate times.  Do a whole of the market search with a few websites, making sure they return results from companies including Neon Reef and Yorkshire Energy.  See whether a single rate tariff would be cheaper; many companies will just add the two readings together so you don't need to change the meter.

shannon_bernie

Gerry1 said:

Read the meter daily to get a better idea of usage.  How are you heating the flat?  As it's all electric it will always be expensive and you may have limited options to change it.  Beware instantaneous electric showers, do the sums and assume 10kW.  What tariff are you on, and do you have Economy 7?

I’m going to start doing that, I never really gave checking the meter much thought as its in the basement of my apartment block but I will from now on. The heating is from wires in the ceiling.
My shower isn’t electric and my boiler is only heated one a day, at night when the rate is cheaper.
I’m on standard Economy 7 and an Evergreen tariff

shannon_bernie

Gerry1 said:

The best you can do is to make sure you have the cheapest tariff and to make sure the immersion heater is not powered up outside the cheap rate times.  Do a whole of the market search with a few websites, making sure they return results from companies including Neon Reef and Yorkshire Energy.  See whether a single rate tariff would be cheaper; many companies will just add the two readings together so you don't need to change the meter.

Thank you so much for the advice! I’ll have a look around and see what my options are 

Talldave

3 months using 2734kWh would have cost me £325 on my Symbio tariff, so you're being robbed. Switch immediately. (Symbio are incompetent amateurs but they're cheap!!)

shannon_bernie

Talldave said:

3 months using 2734kWh would have cost me £325 on my Symbio tariff, so you're being robbed. Switch immediately. (Symbio are incompetent amateurs but they're cheap!!)

Thanks for letting me know. This is all very new to me, guess its part of the learning curve of becoming independent!