Moved into a one bedroom and payed 240 for the first month. Can this change?

Hasbeen

Well you are certainly new to the UK! 

You have now the most expensive heating system in the UK.

An all electric boiler feeding wet radiators and hot water. Wow! Sorry.

Personally if you can afford the extremely high costs then fine. If not move ASAP

Is there any gas supply to the building? What do the neighbours have? Try talking to them.

But no expert on this expensive system. so wait and see replies about this setup. 

As per Macmans post sbove

amapofthepiano

macman said:

Your first priority is to get off E7, because you are paying for 82% of your usage at the expensive day rate. Get your LL's approval to switch to single rate metering, or use a supplier that will total the 2 readings from the E7 meter.
Then ask your LL to improve the insulation in the flat, the first step would probably be some secondary glazing for the sash windows?
If you have an immersion heater, it's cheaper to run that on E7 cheap night rate, than to run the electric combi on day rate....

The landlord is horribly unhelpful and so is the agency. I tried explaining to them that the current heating they have installed is terribly inefficient for the property of that type but they don't care. They did give me the permission to change the meter so that's something. It's annoying i have to wait for three weeks to switch providers - i should have asked the forum ages ago but i've been trying to figure it out without bothering anyone. Costed me a lot of money :'(
I've got a contract for 12 months for this apartment and even though i can potentially pay bills that high (will burn through my savings...) it just pains me to pay that much for energy while i'm still cold in my own home and most of it (the living room/kitchen) is uninhabitable very often because of how cold it is. I know it's a very first world problem, having more than one room at my disposal feels like a luxury after growing up in Russia, i just wish i was getting what i'm paying for.

amapofthepiano

Thank you so much for the advices - i hope that gradually after switching providers, getting off E7 and changing prepayed meter for the credit one it'll be less of a struggle. I just wish i started doing all of that when i moved in, not three (coldest) months later...

Gerry1

TL;DR: Move PDQ.  In the meantime, get the cheapest single rate tariff on a credit meter.

As macman says, you have the worst possible system.  Apart from economies such as shorter and cooler showers, reduced heating hours, lower room temperatures and better insulation, all you can realistically do is to switch to the cheapest single rate tariff you can find on the CA and 'Which?' sites.  Even then it will be very expensive with those high ceilings so you may have to put it down to experience and find a property with gas central heating PDQ.  Forget DD amounts, just compare the total annual cost of the number of kWh you guesstimate you'll use in a year.

If you're really uncertain, you may be able to get a very vague idea of the likely consumption by looking at the date the meter was manufactured or installed and dividing the total consumption by the number of years.  But beware that uncertainties in the number of occupiers and their lifestyle (e.g. working at home or weekly commuters) and possible vacant periods can easily skew the results.

Don't worry about getting a smart meter, see whether your existing meter can be switched to work in credit mode.  If so, that will avoid any problems with the landlord: they often prefer pre-payment meters in case a tenant does a moonlight flit leaving a large unpaid bill.  The landlord could treat a new meter as a change made to the property and require you to restore it (at your expense) before moving out, otherwise you could lose your deposit.  Many suppliers will happily bill a two-rate meter at single rate (but Bulb won't).

Sorry the news isn't good, better luck next time.

Update: Just seen your earlier post, so some advice above is a bit redundant, but may still help others with similar problems.

macman

OP can't move ASAP: he has 10 months to run on a 12 month, AST so is committed.

rp1974

It's an unfortunate reality that many otherwise perfect properties wether for sale,or rent are almost put out of the question because of the running costs.
Would seem that's low on the list of considerations for many people with the inevitable consequences.
Only going to get more common as gas heating falls by the wayside,I'd find it very difficult to afford running my house,using electricity only instead of gas for heating and hot water for example.

A_Lert

Do you share a kitchen or bathroom with other tenants in the building?

If not, there are laws about minimum energy efficiency for rented properties, except for rare exemptions. Laws that yours quite possibly doesn't meet. Did your landlord provide you with an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) when you moved in?

jbuchanangb

Apart  from switching to a cheaper tariff, make a big effort to understand the heating system and control it to reduce its electricity consumption. Download the instruction manual for the boiler, and read it, and make sure you have set everything up OK. Figure out which of the room thermostats listed is installed and set it to the lowest temperature you can tolerate, while wearing at least one woolly jumper. 19 or 20 degC is normal.
Make sure you use built-in timers to bring the heating on and off at suitable times. If the radiators do not have thermostatic valves, you could close the valve on radiators in rooms you do not use. Always leave at least one radiator operating.

amapofthepiano

A_Lert said:

Do you share a kitchen or bathroom with other tenants in the building?

If not, there are laws about minimum energy efficiency for rented properties, except for rare exemptions. Laws that yours quite possibly doesn't meet. Did your landlord provide you with an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) when you moved in?

I don't share anything, no, it's just a regular one bedroom.
The agency sent me EPC - it's E...i knew it's bad but i didn't realise it's going to be that bad.

jbuchanangb said:

Apart  from switching to a cheaper tariff, make a big effort to understand the heating system and control it to reduce its electricity consumption. Download the instruction manual for the boiler, and read it, and make sure you have set everything up OK. Figure out which of the room thermostats listed is installed and set it to the lowest temperature you can tolerate, while wearing at least one woolly jumper. 19 or 20 degC is normal.
Make sure you use built-in timers to bring the heating on and off at suitable times. If the radiators do not have thermostatic valves, you could close the valve on radiators in rooms you do not use. Always leave at least one radiator operating.

I read the manual and there's no timer on the boiler...i tried switching off radiators in the living room and only heating the bedroom at nights but if i do that the boiler keeps showing error and saying that the water circulation isn't working or something like that so i keep all thee radiators on but boiler setting on a minimum that is tolerable. And yes, i wear a couple of sweaters all the time...

Gerry1 said:

Don't worry about getting a smart meter, see whether your existing meter can be switched to work in credit mode.  If so, that will avoid any problems with the landlord: they often prefer pre-payment meters in case a tenant does a moonlight flit leaving a large unpaid bill.  The landlord could treat a new meter as a change made to the property and require you to restore it (at your expense) before moving out, otherwise you could lose your deposit.  Many suppliers will happily bill a two-rate meter at single rate (but Bulb won't).

Sorry the news isn't good, better luck next time.

Update: Just seen your earlier post, so some advice above is a bit redundant, but may still help others with similar problems.

Thank you for the advices! Good point about changing the meter being seen as making changes to the property - i asked the agency about switching to credit meter and getting a smart meter to which they replied "by all means get a smart meter" which i guess they can later use as an argument that they didn't give me a permission to get a credit one...ugh. I'll double check. So far EDF told me they'll switch me to the one-rate meter as soon as the switch to them happens so that's something.

jbuchanangb

I assume you have looked at the room thermostat, and set it to a tolerable temperature. Does that have a timer function? I recall in a place my daughter lived at, which had electric boiler feeding conventional wet radiators, that the room controller incorporated both thermostat and timer. The web site for the boiler showed several different possible room thermostats, one of which incorporated a timer. If yours doesn't have a timer, it should be a minor task to replace it with one which does, albeit with landlord's permission.