Paying more now to fix electricity costs, good idea or not?

SpanishBlue

YORKSHIRELASS said:

We cant have a smart meter because of how our kitchen cupboards have been fitted around the electricity meter, so this restricts the tariffs that we can have.

If you find a cheaper tariff with another supplier that says you must switch to a smart meter, you could still switch to it.

When they send round someone to fit your new smart meter and discover it's not possible, you should still get the rate advertised as it's not your fault a smart meter can't be fitted.

QrizB

YORKSHIRELASS said:

I have never really understood why our electric is so much, we do have an electric towel rail, but don't use it very often.  We have an electric shower but no immersion heater, no electric heaters, and my son recently moved out so now only two adults in a 3 bed semi.

and

Gerry1 said:

Get rid of the electric shower, that's a big culprit.  Use water heated by the oil boiler, add a pump if the pressure is insufficient.

I'm not entirely convinced that the shower is at fault. Taking the OP's figure of £1155/yr and my Flexible Octopus tariff details, £81 is the standing charge so she's using around £1074 of electricity - that's almost 5800 kWh/yr.

A ten-minute scrub under a 8.5kW shower will use 1.4kWh. Two adults having a shower each every day of the year totals 1035kWh. Where do the other 4765kWh go?

Gerry1

QrizB said:

YORKSHIRELASS said:

 my son recently moved out

and

Gerry1 said:

Get rid of the electric shower, that's a big culprit.  Use water heated by the oil boiler, add a pump if the pressure is insufficient.

I'm not entirely convinced that the shower is at fault. Taking the OP's figure of £1155/yr and my Flexible Octopus tariff details, £81 is the standing charge so she's using around £1074 of electricity - that's almost 5800 kWh/yr.

A ten-minute scrub under a 8.5kW shower will use 1.4kWh. Two adults having a shower each every day of the year totals 1035kWh. Where do the other 4765kWh go?

Presumably there were three people for most or all of the time, so that would make it 1551kWh on showers, leaving the 'normal' consumption as 4249kWh.  Two showers per day makes it 3102kWh on showers and only 2698 on 'normal' consumption which would actually be below the average.

Yes, there may be more than one culprit, it may not be quite so cut and dried.  Towels rails seem to be typically 200W - 600W but some are 1000W.  A 400W towel rail left on for seven hours overnight for the three coldest months could burn up 260kWh.

YORKSHIRELASS

Thanks for the replies, especially about waiting until the electric company come to fit a smart meter and find it cant be done, I hadnt thought about that.

I am hoping our that our electricity costs go down now that our son has moved out.  We have been using about 6500 kwh a year.  We have one electric shower, an electric towel rail that we only use when it is really cold, electric oven and hob, two freezers, washing machine, fridge, dishwasher and tumble dryer.  All white goods except one freezer are fairly new.  I rarely use the tumble drier except to finish off washing that has been over the airer in winter.  We use the slow cooker a lot and dont have the oven on every day.

We live in a very rural location so having two freezers is really useful, but one is old, should I upgrade it?

Our combined electric and heating oil costs come in at about £1700 a year.  Any advice is welcome!

QrizB

YORKSHIRELASS said:

We live in a very rural location so having two freezers is really useful, but one is old, should I upgrade it?

Buy or preferably borrow one of those plug-in power monitoring plugs, and connect it to your older freezer for a few days. A modern appliance (example) will use less than one kWh a day, on average. If yours uses two kWh a day then a replacement would pay for itself in perhaps six years.

MWT

YORKSHIRELASS said:

Thanks for the replies, especially about waiting until the electric company come to fit a smart meter and find it cant be done, I hadnt thought about that.

Take care with that one, there is a big difference between a failure to install a smart meter because they cannot get it to work at your location, say due to signal strength issues, and being unable to properly access the meter location because you've build cupboards over it ...

In the former case the supplier will usually agree to leave you on the existing tariff...

In the latter they will usually move you to another, more expensive tariff, and possibly seek to back-date it as you have misrepresented your ability to have a smart meter (especially as you are aware of the problem)..

They can also seek to have you make the necessary changes to allow safe access to the meter if the current one is obstructed by your kitchen construction as they must be able to access it safely to meet their own licence obligations. This bit is less likely, but entirely possible.

pokora

Check if you have halogen or old light bulbs. 

daveaspy

YORKSHIRELASS said:

I am hoping our that our electricity costs go down now that our son has moved out.  We have been using about 6500 kwh a year.  We have one electric shower, an electric towel rail that we only use when it is really cold, electric oven and hob, two freezers, washing machine, fridge, dishwasher and tumble dryer.  All white goods except one freezer are fairly new.  I rarely use the tumble drier except to finish off washing that has been over the airer in winter.  We use the slow cooker a lot and dont have the oven on every day.

we are 2 adults and 2 small kids and probably get just over 6000kWh a year - and thats with gas heated showers! For us its the dishwasher and tumble dryer that really puts it up - so easy to switch on and not see the cost, its like having the kettle boiling away for an hour!