Electricity meter readings seem too high & bill is excessive

matelodave

look here for a comparison between the cost of running gas and electric flow boilers

Gas Boilers vs. Electric Boilers

Dwelling Type	Gas Boiler		Electric Boiler
	Apartment	House	Apartment	House
Size	96 sq.m	143 sq.m	96 sq.m	143 sq.m
Energy rating (sq.m/year)	120 kW	143 kW	120 kW	143 kW
Hot water usage (per day)	60 litres / 4 persons
Boiler efficiency	95%		99%
Gas unit price	3.60 p/kWh		n/a
Electricity unit price	17.60 p/kWh
Energy required for space heating (per year)	12,126 kWh	22,127 kWh	11,636 kWh	21,233 kWh
Energy required for hot water	5,361 kWh /year		5,144 kWh /year
Total gas/ electricity price (per year)	£729.60	£1,090.60	£2,954.30	£4,643.80

Harry_510

matelodave said:

look here for a comparison between the cost of running gas and electric flow boilers

Gas Boilers vs. Electric Boilers

Dwelling Type	Gas Boiler		Electric Boiler
	Apartment	House	Apartment	House
Size	96 sq.m	143 sq.m	96 sq.m	143 sq.m
Energy rating (sq.m/year)	120 kW	143 kW	120 kW	143 kW
Hot water usage (per day)	60 litres / 4 persons
Boiler efficiency	95%		99%
Gas unit price	3.60 p/kWh		n/a
Electricity unit price	17.60 p/kWh
Energy required for space heating (per year)	12,126 kWh	22,127 kWh	11,636 kWh	21,233 kWh
Energy required for hot water	5,361 kWh /year		5,144 kWh /year
Total gas/ electricity price (per year)	£729.60	£1,090.60	£2,954.30	£4,643.80

Omg... Definitely will need gas next time - over £2,000 more for an electric boiler!! That's insane... Such a massive factor, even more so than rent price

Harry_510

So I currently have heating from 8.30am-10am & 5.30pm-7.30pm, hot water from 8.10am-9.10am and 9.20pm-10.20pm. I have been switching all appliances off at the mains when not in use. My energy usage for the past two days has been 38KWH. On a tariff of say 16.5p, that's 627p per day, plus the standing charge of 27p per day, 654p in total per day. That's £196.20 per month or £2354 per year... !!!!!!?! How long do you folks have heating/hot water on for?? 

elsien

What temperature do you have your heating set at on the thermostat?
It's not just the length of time it's on for, but also are you a "set it at 17 and wear layers" or a "I want to be warm, I'm having it at 23?" person. 

bagand96

Harry_510 said:

So I currently have heating from 8.30am-10am & 5.30pm-7.30pm, hot water from 8.10am-9.10am and 9.20pm-10.20pm. I have been switching all appliances off at the mains when not in use. My energy usage for the past two days has been 38KWH. On a tariff of say 16.5p, that's 627p per day, plus the standing charge of 27p per day, 654p in total per day. That's £196.20 per month or £2354 per year... !!!!!!?! How long do you folks have heating/hot water on for?? 

One thing you can do is switch supplier or tariff.  Neon Reef today are offering in my region 13.758p/kWh and 11.666p/day.  On that same calculation that's £5.35 a day or £160.50 a month.  (rates will vary slightly based on your region).

Fortunately we are heading for warmer weather so your heating use will fall away which is really going to help you.  As suggested earlier in the thread you could experiment with the hot water too and see if you can get that down.

Harry_510

elsien said:

What temperature do you have your heating set at on the thermostat?
It's not just the length of time it's on for, but also are you a "set it at 17 and wear layers" or a "I want to be warm, I'm having it at 23?" person. 

I have it set at 18!

matelodave

As said above you could experiment with your hot water. Has your tank got an immersion heater or is it heated from the flow boiler. It will take around an hour to heat 50litres of water with a 3kw heater so you could try just an hour for your morning ablutions and see when you run out, then do the same for the evening if you don't have enough. (We just heat our tank for about 1.5 hours a day and we get enough hot water for 2-3 showers and anything else we need during the day - we do have a dishwasher, so we don't do much dishwashing with the hot tap

The main thing is dont waste hot water. Don't let it run down the sink, use a bowl or put the plug in. Use cold where possible, even for rinsing your hands - every time you turn on the hot tap and run off 3-4 litres of cold, you leave 3-4 litres of valuable hot water sitting in the pipework to get cold. Get enough dishes so you only need to wash up once a day. Take shorter showers and fewer of them, same with baths, don't fill it so full.

Fit flow restrictors to your taps and shower to reduce the volume of water being used. A shower pushing out 10litres a minute for 10 minutes will use 100 litres of water. 5 minutes at 6lpm = 30 litres.
Time your shower to see how long it takes to fill a 10 litre bucket, if it takes less than 45 seconds then a flow restrictor will reduce your consumption and save you money. DONT FIT A RESTRICTOR TO AN ELECTRIC SHOWER, only to a mixer type.

Same with washings machines, dryers and stuff, only use them with full loads, they cost the same to run so get more underwear and bedding so you don't have to run them so often.
Turn stuff OFF when its not being used, even stuff on standby uses some leccy so use the switch on the wall. make sure you've got low energy LED lighting, especially if you've got halogen downlighters - LED's use 90% less than an equivalent halogen.

If you monitor your consumption a bit more closely you'll understand what is using it all and when and you'll be able to control it better.

milgo

@Harry_510 whilst you are using those numbers (kWh) at the moment, remember that these are the cold months of the year where you will use much more than at other times throughout the year so the costs will average down.  All the same, the rates that you are currently paying could be improved on which again would reduce the costs (£) for the same level of consumption (kWh)

Harry_510

milgo said:

@Harry_510 whilst you are using those numbers (kWh) at the moment, remember that these are the cold months of the year where you will use much more than at other times throughout the year so the costs will average down.  All the same, the rates that you are currently paying could be improved on which again would reduce the costs (£) for the same level of consumption (kWh)

Yes, thankfully!

Harry_510

Now trying to get onto a different tariff... If my electricity meter is a 'single rate watt hour meter', does this mean I'm unable to have separate day and night tariffs?