Billed £280 per month for electricity!

aleksandramcr

The underfloor heating system is a "Heat Mat NGTouch thermostat"

tim_p

Sounds like it’s electric mat heating then, so no heating of water involved. 

Economy 7, do you have it? If not, running the underfloor heating at full whack overnight is going to rack up the cost. I’d be turning stuff off, running the heating for an hour and see what that uses in kWh by reading the meter before and after. In fact I’d be reading it daily, possibly twice daily, to get a handle on actual usage.

Talldave

According to the summary you pasted you're not on E7. But you're also paying too much.   You could switch today to Symbio (incompetent but dead cheap) for:

Unit rate 10.763p per kWh

Standing charge 23.000p per day

aleksandramcr

Hi all, 
Thank you ever so much for investigating if for me. 
I apologise if I don't talk sense, I really don't know much about how things work but I'll try to get you some proof. 

aleksandramcr

Hi, 
This is the manual for the heating system if that says anything. 

aleksandramcr

This is my latest bill: 

tim_p

The two cables rising vertically at the left, they should go to a couple of switches, what are those switches set to?  The one with the cable from the top thing (immersion / ‘stat) should be set to off and the other (connected to bottom immersion) ideally, given the question mark over E7, should go to a timer. If they both are both permanently switched on then that is one cause of excessive use. 

aleksandramcr

Hi, 
It looks like both switches are ON, the two cables come out from the big tank. 

matelodave

The big problem with underfloor heating is that it is quite slow to respond and if it's been put in properly should really work like a storage heater, storing heat overnight on an off-peak supply (as should your hot water) it would then release the heat during the day.

How soon after you turn it on does the floor start to warm up - if its quite quickly then the elements are pretty close to the surface and it wont work as a storage heater. If it takes a hour or more then it will. ow long does it take to cool down.

Your bill shows you to be on a single rate tariff which would not be ideal for for a storage system but might if you have to have it on all the time. Although off-peak rates are cheaper during the night peak rates are usually significantly more expensive and that's probably when you are using it the most.

Part of the problem is that you dont really know how to use it, what it's using when its on and not monitoring your consumption often enough to understand what is going on.

The other really major part of your problem is that two of the readings on your bill are estimates - you should be reading the meter regularly, sending in the readings to the supplier and checking your bills to make sure that they are using your readings (It looks like you should be doing it around 26th-27th of the month to get bills based on accurate readings) - set a reminder on your phone.

This is not the ideal time of year to try and sort it all out because you wont really be heating anymore until about October/November and then it will be going full blast until about mid April, so you should see a dramatic drop in your energy consumption (and bills). Most people will use 70% of their energy in the winter and only 30% in the seven summer months.

However I suggest that you start reading the meter yourself regularly (once a week) and keeping a spreadsheet so you get a good idea of how much you are using.and when you are using it  on the energy company doing it.

A lot of people (me included) are only paying 11.5 to 12/p a kwh so if Bulbs estimate of 8540 is about right then you could save around £150 a year on a cheaper tariff. I'm guessing that based on their estimate you should be paying around £102 a month DD. When did you start with them (date) and what was your meter reading then. Hopefully with that info (todays reading - start reading) one of us could work out more accurately than Bulb what your bills should look like and whether your DD is about right.

Obviously every one heats and uses their homes differently but with enough background info you can get pretty close, however not if you are relying on estimated bills or readings - you need accurate monthly readings to understand your bills (unless you do all your own sums and work it out for yourself)

tim_p

The top one needs to be off (assuming no timers lurking anywhere else) the bottom one *should* be controlled by E7 timings and only actually be live overnight (during E7 hours)
the top one is for a boost should you run out of hot water throughout the day. Often these will have a timed switch that runs for about an hour, yours doesn’t appear to.