£340 per month electricity bill. Mistake?

Slinky

I'd suspect all those lights if the bulbs are halogen.

JohnB47

Does your electricity meter have a red flashing light? Mine does and doing basic maths on the rate of flashing gives the actual power usage at that time. At the very least, as mentioned before, you could observe the flash rate as you turn things off progressively.

KelvinKe

I have received confirmation from the landlord that the HOT WATER in the property is heated by electricity. 
In addition, the HOT WATER HEATING has been on 24/7. 
It would appear that the bulbs used in most lights are not energy saving. 

Do the above discoveries cause the electricity bill to be £300+ per month? 

Talldave

KelvinKe said:

I have received confirmation from the landlord that the HOT WATER in the property is heated by electricity. 
In addition, the HOT WATER HEATING has been on 24/7. 
It would appear that the bulbs used in most lights are not energy saving. 

Do the above discoveries cause the electricity bill to be £300+ per month? 

There are two reasons - you're using shed loads of electricity and paying a stupidly high price. I'm paying 10.9p, soon to be 10.6p, in London.

Is the gas boiler really not able to heat water? (Post pics of the water tank and surrounding plumbing?)  That's insane - but I wouldn't have rented the place if that were the case. If you have to use electricity, you need it timed for an hour in the morning and an hour at night - or similar to suit your needs. If there's no timer, fit one.

Halogen bulbs - you need to replace them. When we rented our current house over a year ago I was horrified to see over 100 bulbs, most halogen. All bar a handful are now LED and it's probably knocked 600-800kWh off the annual consumption. 

You need to get an energy monitor to work out what's creating the load. E,g. Replacing a freezer might cost less than a month's electricity bill and save lots. 

Robin9

If those 22 50w halogens are swopped for 4w LED  - you will save nearly £2 a day.

Have a look at at your CH programmer - if there is a HW option use  try it switch off the Immersion Heater and see what happens. Another £2 a day

Switch your Tariiff - you should easily get 14p or less - 17p is stupid  That's another £70 a month

You should be able to get down to £200 - with other minor savings with switching things off - even so that is fantastically high

dunstonh

Just for some context, we use about 20,000 kWh a year on electricity and that's with oil heating.      When we first moved into our house, the running around was closer to 40,000 kWh.      The bulk of the difference was down to lighting.  The previous owner had ceiling lights with 5-7 bulbs and put 100watt bulbs in each.   In the bathrooms and kitchens, they had halogen bulbs all over the place.  Each one about 42w.  The kitchen alone had over 20 bulbs.   I bought a Geo Minim monitor to show how much we were using and identify any problem devices.  The switch to LEDs halved the electric use.  An older television was replaced as well.
We still use far more than the average because of certain devices (in particular an Electric AGA and horse walker).  However, next thing we plan to replace is the hob and oven which are only used in the summer months but they are fairly old and nowhere near modern efficiency levels.  Indeed, they are not far off the AGA use.

Getting a Geo Minim or similar to review your use would be really useful for you as you can identify your base level use and see when it goes up in real time and which devices cause it.  However, the lights will be a big thing.

RelievedSheff

For context the OP is using the same electric per month than we use in a year!!

Gerry1

Moving out seems to be the only effective answer: a heat pump may be very green but doesn't make economic sense when the property has gas.

There's certainly some damage limitation measures that can be adopted, but so far the OP hasn't reported back on most of the suggestions.  Start with making sure the flat isn't also supplying another flat or communal areas, and watching the red numbers on the meter when only one circuit is switched on.

If there's no gas boiler, make sure the hot water is from the heat pump, not an immersion heater.

Slinky

RelievedSheff said:

For context the OP is using the same electric per month than we use in a year!!

Not far off the same for us.  I don't understand all those lights being on 12 hours a day in several different rooms. Mind you we used to live opposite somebody who seemed similar. Every room had lights on whether they were in them or not and this was before LEDs so their bills must have been big. Not being nosy, but they left the curtains open.