Help! £400 a month electric bill - one person, 2 bed flat!

Optimist2020

To elaborate, I used the kettle to boil water when doing the washing up or needed hot water. 

Gerry1

Optimist2020 said:

I have a few tips that helped reduce my bill

Unfortunately, most of that advice is very dubious !

• Your DD will be based on what you tell your new supplier, either actual usage or an estimate based on property type, size, number of occupants etc.
• You are confusing DDs with bills.  MSE DD advice
• You are confusing Fixed DDs with Variable DDs.
  
• No point in turning night storage heaters off every morning, the E7 circuit will do that.  The clue is in the name, NIGHT Storage Heaters.
• The NSH input control is the obvious way to control usage, not switching it off every other day.
• Showering using boiling water from a kettle seems a tad unwise...

Optimist2020

Gerry1 said:

Optimist2020 said:

I have a few tips that helped reduce my bill

Unfortunately, most of that advice is very dubious !

• Your DD will be based on what you tell your new supplier, either actual usage or an estimate based on property type, size, number of occupants etc.
• You are confusing DDs with bills.  MSE DD advice
• You are confusing Fixed DDs with Variable DDs.
  
• No point in turning night storage heaters off every morning, the E7 circuit will do that.  The clue is in the name, NIGHT Storage Heaters.
• The NSH input control is the obvious way to control usage, not switching it off every other day.
• Showering using boiling water from a kettle seems a tad unwise...

1) Clearly we are stating the same point that DDs are based on estimates based on the link you sent. If the previous person living at the property used a lot more electricity than you, you may have to pay a high amount for quite some time for a monthly DD before you can ascertain your own usage if this is the first time the OP was living alone. I meant to say I used quarterly cash or paid on receipt of a bill tariffs, paid every 3 months as the customer advisor from the energy company stated that not being on DD was the best option for me if I wanted my electric bill to be solely based on my usage - as long as I gave my meter readings when requested. I didn't switch my energy provider for about a year so that I could establish what my usage was before moving on.

The most important thing you can do @lovelouise is learn how to calculate your electricity usage and you will never be surprised.

 2) The E7 circuit does turn off storage heaters during the day but I had read that appliances use residual electricity which might increase your bill. Surprisingly the method I stated seemed to work better than expected even though you wouldn't think it should. This was observed over the course of a year. Also, my flat had a high energy rating so it worked if I used my storage heater on alternate days.

 4) Lovelouise mentioned that her hot water from the electric shower turned on automatically. Sounds like the electric shower doesn't need the water immersion heater for hot water but the taps will. Mine worked the same way. I would only heat the water using the immersion heater if I was to have a bath, for example. In my personal experience, using the immersion heater was inefficient as I don't use that much hot tap water in general. If I only had a bath and no shower, I would probably change my tune. It's like heating 10L of water only to use 3 litres per day. Very wasteful. 

MWT

Optimist2020 said:

1) Clearly we are stating the same point that DDs are based on estimates based on the link you sent. If the previous person living at the property used a lot more electricity than you, you may have to pay a high amount for quite some time for a monthly DD before you can ascertain your own usage if this is the first time the OP was living alone.....

 2) The E7 circuit does turn off storage heaters during the day but I had read that appliances use residual electricity which might increase your bill......

Whatever the previous occupiers used will have zero impact on your DD payments, they will be based only on what you estimate you will use and then what you actually use. On the other-hand paying for the actual usage each quarter is not a bad idea if you are happy with a variable bill arriving 4 times a year. The most important thing is making sure you provide regular accurate meter readings so your bills are always based on actual not estimated consumption.

If the NSH are off, they are off, no way to use power when the circuit is off.

The only exception to that is if the NSH have any kind of fan assist that will use power at the day rate when you use the fan, but older NSH do not have this function.