Insane electricity bill

whatsthenews

danrv said:

houndtang said:

they are not actually storage heaters but panel heaters which I understand are both fairly crap and expensive to use. Am experimenting with the immersion heater to cut down amount of time I use it. Current cost is 15.99p per kwh and 21.57 per day.

The panel heaters are 100% efficient. Maybe they’re not powerful enough.
I’m heating a 3 bed semi detached property on electric with five convector heaters but I adjust them as necessary, only heating the room I’m using.
Other rooms are on low.
I’m on Economy 10 and usage is 50/50 off peak/peak. Costing £5 to £6 a day.

My understanding of the criteria for having an "economy" electricity meter (ie one that has 2 different rates for 2 periods of time , whether that be economy 7 or 10) is that you have to have a thermal store of some sort. The thermal store is heated at night using the cheaper electricity and then releases heat during the day.
Examples would be a hot water tank plus underfloor heating or night storage heaters. So are your electric heaters some sort of a storage heater? Regular electric wall heaters wouldn't meet the criteria.

whatsthenews

Neil_Jones said:

All electric flats/houses cost a fortune to run unfortunately, especially in the winter months when you need heat.

It really depends on how good your insulation is and what sort of system you have. Gas isn't anywhere near as cheap as it used to be , and radiators aren't the best for heating either.About time we dragged ourselves into the 22nd century, especially with the new build mass produced homes.

whatsthenews

FaceHead said:

If you don't have storage heaters and want your house to be warm in the daytime, you'll probably end up using more energy in the daytime than makes having economy 7. 

When switching, which you need to do urgently, check both whether E7 or single rate will be cheaper. 

If they're just bog standard electric heaters then there won't be an economy 7 meter (and you wouldn't be able to have one)

tim_p

whatsthenews said:

Neil_Jones said:

All electric flats/houses cost a fortune to run unfortunately, especially in the winter months when you need heat.

It really depends on how good your insulation is and what sort of system you have. Gas isn't anywhere near as cheap as it used to be , and radiators aren't the best for heating either.About time we dragged ourselves into the 22nd century, especially with the new build mass produced homes.

So what are you suggesting as an alternative to radiators then that meets the expectations of the 22nd century?

Gas is still around a fifth of the price of electricity per kWh

niktheguru

danrv said:

houndtang said:

they are not actually storage heaters but panel heaters which I understand are both fairly crap and expensive to use. Am experimenting with the immersion heater to cut down amount of time I use it. Current cost is 15.99p per kwh and 21.57 per day.

The panel heaters are 100% efficient. Maybe they’re not powerful enough.
I’m heating a 3 bed semi detached property on electric with five convector heaters but I adjust them as necessary, only heating the room I’m using.
Other rooms are on low.
I’m on Economy 10 and usage is 50/50 off peak/peak. Costing £5 to £6 a day.

To get an appreciation of how expensive electric heating is its always humbling to live in an electric only flat with a prepayment meter like i did about 10 years ago. Hearing the buzzing of the meter intensify when you put the convector radiator on, have a shower or boil the kettle, and watching the money slip away on the display is eyeopening, compared to when on a credit meter when you don't really take any notice of it until you get your bill!

Gave me a good insight of how expensive electric only flats were, luckily that was only for a year....i bought a lot of sweaters that year.

danrv

niktheguru said:

danrv said:

houndtang said:

they are not actually storage heaters but panel heaters which I understand are both fairly crap and expensive to use. Am experimenting with the immersion heater to cut down amount of time I use it. Current cost is 15.99p per kwh and 21.57 per day.

The panel heaters are 100% efficient. Maybe they’re not powerful enough.
I’m heating a 3 bed semi detached property on electric with five convector heaters but I adjust them as necessary, only heating the room I’m using.
Other rooms are on low.
I’m on Economy 10 and usage is 50/50 off peak/peak. Costing £5 to £6 a day.

To get an appreciation of how expensive electric heating is its always humbling to live in an electric only flat with a prepayment meter like i did about 10 years ago. Hearing the buzzing of the meter intensify when you put the convector radiator on, have a shower or boil the kettle, and watching the money slip away on the display is eyeopening, compared to when on a credit meter when you don't really take any notice of it until you get your bill!

Gave me a good insight of how expensive electric only flats were, luckily that was only for a year....i bought a lot of sweaters that year.

Yes. I don’t have an audible indicator of power consumption, just a red flashing light.
My property has a 10kw storage heater which I’ve now turned off. The convectors are an experiment to compare power consumption between the two.

Gerry1

whatsthenews said:

My understanding of the criteria for having an "economy" electricity meter (ie one that has 2 different rates for 2 periods of time , whether that be economy 7 or 10) is that you have to have a thermal store of some sort.
Examples would be a hot water tank plus underfloor heating or night storage heaters. So are your electric heaters some sort of a storage heater? Regular electric wall heaters wouldn't meet the criteria.

whatsthenews said:

If they're just bog standard electric heaters then there won't be an economy 7 meter (and you wouldn't be able to have one).

With all due respect, that's all absolute TOSH !

You can have E7 regardless of your heating arrangements.  I have an E7 meter despite having GCH but no storage heaters.  My night usage is around 22%, so sometimes I have an E7 tariff, sometimes I have single rate on the same meter.  It just depends what works out cheaper each time I switch.

Gerry1

whatsthenews said:

It really depends on how good your insulation is and what sort of system you have. Gas isn't anywhere near as cheap as it used to be , and radiators aren't the best for heating either.  About time we dragged ourselves into the 22nd century, especially with the new build mass produced homes.

Yet more tosh, I'm afraid.

For any given property and outside temperature you'll need a certain number of kW to overcome the heat losses and maintain a comfortable indoor temperature.  Sure, you'll need more kW if the insulation is poor and fewer if it's good.

However, using those kW for X hours will clock up X kWh.  Given that the electricity kWh rate is around four of five times that of gas, electric heating can never be cheaper.  That's still true even if you use a heat pump to reduce the disparity.

FaceHead

whatsthenews said:

Gas isn't anywhere near as cheap as it used to be 

The retail price of gas has not gone up significantly over the last 10 years - it's gone up a little, and then come back down in the last five years. Electricity prices have gone up more than gas, so on the balance of is it cost effective to heat with gas or electricity, the balance has only been moving towards gas. 

https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/explainers/what-are-current-gas-prices-in-the-uk-and-how-much-do-they-contribute-to-energy-bills/