Help with storage heater bill

doris540

My mother in law lives in a village where there is no gas. She has been asked by her supplier to send her meter readings. Yesterday we read her meter.with some worrying discoveries. Basically there are three readings one is called Weekday one is called Stored heat and the other one is called other time. The readings for the weekday and other time she is about 200 units ahead on each from their estimated reading. However the Stored heat reading is over 5000 units in front of the estimated reading. She only has two storage heaters in use one is 12 months old the other is 5 years old. I also presume that the emersion is on this acct. Checked the emersion cant hear it boiling and she says its turning itself on and off ok. For the numbers to be so far apart i cant work out why. Shes already paying £150 a month from where the acct fell into arrears some four years ago. I can only presume that no impact whatsoever or even worse hasnt been made on the arrears. The annoying part of it is that she could have had installed central heating oil fired or heated water pump throu Age UK and grants etc for no cost whatsoever.yet she wouldnt entertain it.. Just wondering if anyone with storage heaters can enlighten us on their running costs and if they have different accts etc. For just two storage heaters and a emersion i just cant see how much electricity has been swallowed up. She is with Scottish Power. I cant even see her been able to change supplier either due to the arrears etc .Ive told her to phone them and find out exactly where she stands. I did even wonder if the meter is faulty she said that they wanted paying to come and check it..Im sure thou that a Electrician would be able to check it maybe. Im just concerned that with a figure of in excess of 5000 units of electricity we are not talking about a hundred quid or so more like a couple if not more thousands. Any advice especially from people with storage heaters etc many thanks I fully appreciate that they are far from the most economical form of heating but for just two heaters etc does seem somethings adrift.

stewie_griffin

Do you know when the last actual readings were taken prior to these. Yes 5000 units seems a lot but we don't know what period this covers and how much they estimated she'd used.

For comparison I have 2 storage heaters (1 large and 1 medium) and my overall usage is between 7,500 and 8,000 kWh a year.

doris540

Im going to re read the meters in a months time and just see how much the numbers have changed give some indication etc .

stewie_griffin

Has she not got old bills you can look through to find the last actual meter readings. Taking readings over the summer months won't really tell you anything. I currently use a third (in monetary terms) what I do over winter.

JJ_Egan

Is the immersion on all day ?? that is continual full tank of hot water .

Gerry1

doris540 said:

Im just concerned that with a figure of in excess of 5000 units of electricity we are not talking about a hundred quid or so more like a couple if not more thousands.

You clearly don't know the pence per kWh that you are being charged on each register, so that would be a good place to start: the rates are probably the worst on the market.  You also need to make sure that you know what's connected to each circuit and when it's live.  One obvious mistake would be to have a Boost switch for the immersion heater left switch on permanently, clocking up units at the highest rate.  Not intending to be rude, but ignorance of the rates and the setup can prove very expensive, so it's important to get fully clued up.

There are many similar threads on this forum: search for the name of your tariff, ditto Economy 10, E10, THTC, Redring etc.  This article is also very useful.

These weird and wonderful tariffs were designed around under dimensioned and poorly insulated 1970s' storage heaters that cooled down after lunch and needed an afternoon boost.  They are now hideously expensive and being phased out.  It would therefore be worth considering switching to an Economy 7 meter, although this might require some rewiring and possibly an additional or replacement storage heater.  However, as her heaters are fairly recent they may be up to the job.

It might be worth trying to simulate E7 operation as closely as you can, e.g. by turning up the input controls and switching them off in the afternoon.  If the place still stays tolerably warm with seven hours of charge then you can get an E7 system which will leave you free to switch to a more competitive tariff.

In the meantime, it might be worth switching to a single rate tariff if the existing rates are prohibitively expensive.  Ofgem regulations now mean that you don't need a meter change to do this.  Do the sums carefully beforehand because you probably can't change back.

Remember to come back and tell us how it went !

Robin9

Ignore the previous estimates - they are the suppliers guesses.

From the terms you quote - Weekday and Stored - it sounds like a preserved tariff ie not E7
What you need is a copy of a bill which has the letter A(Actual) against the meter reads and not E(Estimated). Blank out all the personal info and send us a copy. And give us the present readings.