Night storage heaters or GCH

coffeehound

Livinonabudget said:
 What is a normal winter electricity bill? Is £100 per month reasonable or high? 

Yes; maybe even a little low.  When I had an all-electric 1-bed flat it was sometimes well over £100 per month in winter, but of course much lower in summer.

matelodave

Most energy users get through around 65% of their energy in the five winter months (Nov-March) and the other 35% between April and October.

So if your leccy bill is going to be around £1000 a year you could estimate that you could pay roughly £120-£130 month in the winter and about £50-55 in the summer.

£1000 a year is a flat direct debit of around £84 month, however it means you could either be in credit for a part of the year or debit for a part of the year depending when you start a 12 month contract. The ideal time to start is around May, so you'll have a decent credit before winter sets in. 

Whatever you decide make sure you read your meters when you move in, open an account with the existing supplier and then get the best tariff you can find. Always read the meter every month, always sending your monthly reading and always check your on-line bill/statements evry month to checj that the bills are correct and your direct debit is covering your costs

Gerry1

matelodave said:

Whatever you decide make sure you read your meters when you move in, open an account with the existing supplier

Or the date when you take possession, if earlier.  Make sure that the meter readings agree with the statement provided by the landlord or lettings agent: it's not unknown for the reading to be too low.  This can be an innocent variation if the property was unoccupied for a while and the meter reading was taken when the last tenant moved out, but under reading can be deliberate.  The Mysterious Third Party can also rewrite history.  Any discrepancy needs to be challenged promptly.

Livinonabudget

Thank you everyone for the advice. Especially reading the meters! Do you think it worth it, as we are going into May and heating is not required, to get a standard tariff for summer and switch to economy 7 in winter? Is it possible to get less than a year’s contract? 

The shower is electric so I won’t even need to heat the immersion heater tank as I feel like using the kettle to add hot water when doing the dishes would be cheaper than heating up a whole tank. With this in mind I feel like I’d not benefit from Economy 7 until winter anyway. 

matelodave

Electric showers are a very expensive way to wash yourself, especially if you like long luxurious ones.especailly if you shower at peak rate times. They use around 10kw so a ten minute shower will use around 1.7kwh at 15p/kwh = 25p a go. times 365 = around £93 a year (cheaper if you do it during the off-peak (midnight to around 07:00)

With gas heating at 3p/kwh = around 5p a shower = about £20 a year. You really need to do the sums to work out the difference in cost between gas & leccy. Even cooking a meal could cost you 4-5 times as much using leccy instead of gas.

A quick shufti on the Octpus website for my area shows that a single rate tariff is around 17.8p/kwh, E7 is 20.66 at peak rate and 11.23p off-peak. Their equivalent gas/leccy price is 3.36p/kwh for gas and 18.66p/kwh for leccy. 

Octopus is by no means anywhere the cheapest (in fact they are quite expensive) but you can easily determine the cost difference between different scenarios and most energy companies will have similar price differentials.

Just my opinion but choosing and using a place with leccy instead of gas to keep the cat warm just doesn't make a lot of sense if it's gong to double or even treble your heating costs.

Gerry1

Livinonabudget said:

Thank you everyone for the advice. Especially reading the meters! Do you think it worth it, as we are going into May and heating is not required, to get a standard tariff for summer and switch to economy 7 in winter? Is it possible to get less than a year’s contract?

Slightly confused - is this your current property, is it all-electric and you're not planning to move for a while?

It's a 'how long is a piece of string?' question.  If you already have an E7 meter and some meter reading history it's easy to do the sums and see whether single rate would be cheaper during the summer.  With some suppliers E7 can be slightly cheaper even with night usage as low at 15 - 20%, it just depends on usage of appliances such as immersion heaters, panel heaters and NSHs.

Variable tariffs don't have exit fees although as the name implies, the rates could be increased at any time.  Fixed tariffs are usually 12 months or more, but there are some without exit fees, so that can represent the best of both worlds.  Some suppliers only charge an exit fee if you switch to a different company, others charge the fee if you switch to one of their other tariffs; E.On has a loophole where you can avoid an exit fee by first switching to their variable tariff and then changing supplier.  Note that you don't need a meter change to switch from E7 to single rate, although a few suppliers (e.g. Bulb) won't play ball.

The Citizens Advice comparison site is useful because it lists all the Ts & Cs, just click through to the 'tariff information'.

Basically, make the best guesstimate of your usage, compare with CA and 'Which? Switch', look carefully into your crystal ball, faites vos jeux, keep sending meter readings and checking bills, then just cross your fingers !

Livinonabudget

matelodave said:

Just my opinion but choosing and using a place with leccy instead of gas to keep the cat warm just doesn't make a lot of sense if it's gong to double or even treble your heating costs.

Thanks for the sums, they’re really helpful. I’m not choosing the electric flat over the gas just to keep my cat warm though, that’s insane I agree, 😂 .

The electric flat is in a city with better social life and walkable distance to shops compared to being in a quiet town where I probably have to drive to get anywhere, which is where the gas flat is. 

My comment about my cat was more that if the electric flat is freezing in winter because night storage heaters are too expensive or run out of juice, then I’d have to have a pet electric blanket or something to keep her warm when I’m out. 

It’s more a question of if the convenience of being in the city is worth the extra cost of an electric apartment and dealing with night storage heaters.

Livinonabudget

Gerry1 said:

Livinonabudget said:

Thank you everyone for the advice. Especially reading the meters! Do you think it worth it, as we are going into May and heating is not required, to get a standard tariff for summer and switch to economy 7 in winter? Is it possible to get less than a year’s contract?

Slightly confused - is this your current property, is it all-electric and you're not planning to move for a while?

It’s not my property. I’m moving within the next 2 weeks and first found a gas central heating flat I liked but was in a quiet town, then saw a electric only flat I also like and is in a small city. So I’m trying to decide between the 2 in terms of my budget and also social life/convenience etc. It’s hard because I’m new to the area so don’t know what my social life will be like when thing open up again and I’ve never rented in the U.K. so am not really sure what traps to watch for when deciding a place. 

Really appreciate all the advice! 

Gerry1

If you pick the all-electric property it's probably best to leave it on E7.  You'll get the hot water at cheaper E7 rates (unless you have the boost heater left on or the main (lower) heater isn't switched by the meter) but you won't use too much expensive electricity in the daytime because you're not there.  Just make sure not to use an electric shower, use the HW from the tank.

BTW, don't waste £159 per year on a TV licence if you don't need one; it's worth studying the weird rules very, very carefully.  Basically you don't even need to unplug the aerial or dish (listening to radio via a TV is legit), if you never watch or record any live TV from anywhere on any device and never use the BBC iPlayer then you're OK with no licence.

Livinonabudget

So today I viewed a smaller 1-bed flat that was £75 cheaper per month in rent and gas central heating. As I don’t need the extra bedroom the other two flats have, and the flat I viewed today is just2 miles north of the town I was considering I feel like it’s worth taking since it’s still £80 a month less than I’d pay for the town flat. If I don’t like it I can relocate to the city at a later date after all, but for now I feel it’s best to focus on lowering my monthly costs and saving up enough to pay off my car loan faster so I’m debt free, then I can look into renting a bigger flat.

Thanks for heads up about the TV license. I wasn’t going to get one anyway as I watch mostly Netflix. Currently debating whether Sky is worth it or not. Probably not if it means I need a tv incense as well.