High energy charges

hlxu

Hello everyone, I am grateful for any help and advice on my matter of high electricity charges I’m really struggling with

I rent a small 1 bed flat with 2 larger and one smaller storage heaters installed for heating - the old style with two dial input and room temp options.

Since moving into the property just over a year ago I have really been struggling to understand why such a small property which is band A and only occupied by only myself is draining so much energy. I’ve lived in various other 1 bed property’s in my area and have always paid around £45-55 a month on average for my electricity usage. 

Currently on average my bills are coming to around 80-90 on average per month and some months I’ve had scarily high bills of £180+ when my usage has not really changed at all. 

The property is on a Eco 7 tariff so my storage heaters can only be in use between 11pm - 6am

I am very conscious of the amount of time I have them on for (just a couple of hours) and what setting as I’m aware they do consume a lot and have experienced that when I first moved here - this is my first experience with storage heaters. But for the most time I have been here I have been reluctant to even turn then on at all as I’m scared where these charges are coming from.

I have one TV and very few appliances etc and turn off what I can by the mains always.

I have had maintenance visits by my estate agents electrician and they checked the energy outlet numbers which apparently are all recording fine. 

I contended that my boiler may of been the problem when reading a similar post on here and that was changed and a new one installed as it was quite old, but even since then I have not seen a dramatic change at all. My immersion etc have all been checked.

I was with Eon when I first moved and was quoted £78 per month which I though was a lot so I got a quote and switched to Bulb. 

My final bill from Eon was £248 for 2 months usage.  Total kWh - 1353 between April - June 

And since being with bulb although quoted my usage and bills should be around £40 per month when joining have also started to creep up and as said are now averaging around £80-90 per month and I’m in 100s of debt with them now as I have not been able to make them payment. 

Thankfully they have been very understanding and are holding off demanding the debt as they are aware I’m liaising with my estate agent currently to get to the bottom of why the bills are so high.  

I don’t have a smart metre with Bulb but I update my metre reading through their app regularly, I will attach a photo of my current readings. 

Any help would be so appreciated

Tia

RelievedSheff

There are a lot of estimated readings on there. You should get into the habit of always submitting your own meter readings at least once a month.

Your energy suppliers do not quote you a monthly amount, they estimate it based on similar properties or your own previous usage. It is your responsibility to ensure that the amount that you are paying is covering the amount of energy that you are using. Clearly in your case it is not. You need to increase your monthly payment to not only cover what you are using but also to reduce the debt balance.

Electricity is always the most expensive way to heat a property. As an example our electricity is 13.2p per kWh. Our gas is 2.3p per kWh. So you can see that for the same unit of power electricity is far more expensive. This goes some way to explaining your higher bills. 

Bulb are unlikely to be the cheapest supplier for your area. Check out a whole of market comparison to find the cheapest supplier. Bulb may stop you switching as you now have a debt on your account but you can still make sure that you are on Bulb's cheapest tariff to make sure you are not paying more per unit then you need too.

Hasbeen

Op: When you say you had the "boiler" changed? do you mean hot water cylinder?  If so what setting is the thermostat set for on cylinder side and does the hot water come on timed, does it also have a boost setting?

Gerry1

Looks like your 5 May readings are transposed.  Make sure the register that clocks up at night is charged at the lower rate.

Make sure the storage and immersion heater circuits aren't live 24h, only overnight.  Leave any immersion heater boost switch permanently off.

Why do you have a boiler and what does it supply?  Do you have gas?

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/lower-energy-direct-debits/#whatyoupay

Gerry1

How do you limit the storage heaters to just two hours?  Do you switch them off at 1am, or do you get up at 4am to switch them on?  Something's not right here.

hlxu

Gerry1 said:

Looks like your 5 May readings are transposed.  Make sure the register that clocks up at night is charged at the lower rate.

Make sure the storage and immersion heater circuits aren't live 24h, only overnight.  Leave any immersion heater boost switch permanently off.

Why do you have a boiler and what does it supply?  Do you have gas

Hi, yes my immersion is always permanently off  and the other circuits are never live outside of the ours at night. 

Water cylinder not boiler. Sorry

Although my statements show estimated and customer I have checked and apparently I am always being charged on my customer readings which I submit every month 

hlxu

Gerry1 said:

How do you limit the storage heaters to just two hours?  Do you switch them off at 1am, or do you get up at 4am to switch them on?  Something's not right here.

And yes I’ve been so conscious of what I am
using that if I do have them on at all I set an alarm
to get up to turn them off after a certain amount of time 

Richie-from-the-Boro

More estimated than regular reads (about 50/50%) by the householder.

The O/P made two simultaneous reads May 5th the second one entered was 1/2 the value of the clearly actual consistently incremental use over the 6 cold months.

SnowTiger

Richie-from-the-Boro said:

More estimated than regular reads (about 50/50%) by the householder.

The O/P made two simultaneous reads May 5th the second one entered was 1/2 the value of the clearly actual consistently incremental use over the 6 cold months.

There are two readings for all days (except 21 Aug 2019 - I guess the other reading is off the bottom of the list).  Presumably one reading is daytime use and the other nighttime use on the Economy 7 tariff.

Richie-from-the-Boro

That's what Gerry meant by transposed. 

Low then high from August last year but your last  reading was reversed my friend.

SnowTiger

		Meter readings					Units used			Average daily use
Date		M1	M2		Days		M1	M2		M1	M2	Total
06/10/19		7838	4848
15/12/19		8619	5761		70		781	913		11.16	13.04	24.20
30/12/19		9023	5962		15		404	201		26.93	13.40	40.33
31/01/20		9617	6231		32		594	269		18.56	8.41	26.97
14/03/20		10487	6533		43		870	302		20.23	7.02	27.26
13/04/20		11162	6741		30		675	208		22.50	6.93	29.43
05/05/20		11386	6906		22		224	165		10.18	7.50	17.68

I guess M1 is nighttime use and M2 is daytime use.

When I lived in a small all-electric flat sometime ago I used about 10kWh a day during the summer months (excluding heating).  Therefore 7kWh to 9kWh use a day probably isn't too bad.

I've no idea how much energy storage heaters use.  I'd guess most of the OP's nighttime usage (M1) is for them.