HELP - 2 People/2.5 Bed Semi - Crazy Monthly Bill

n15h

engineer0101 said:

I'm so confused and struggling where to turn. 2 people living in a 2.5 bed 1930's semi detached house. We are in the house (awake) maybe 6 hours a day tops weekdays and hardly in weekends. I love being cold so the heating is rarely on either. LED bulbs throughout. 

Our monthly bill is £97.27 Elec/391kWh average and £38.46 gas/627kWh average equalling £135.73! This is with British Gas and according to them we're on the cheapest tariff and USwitch can't beat it either.

I'm paranoid our smart meter is dicky as it seems to have shot up from sub £100 when we had it fitted back in mid-2020 but I would imagine anyone at British Gas would just shrug and go "yeahh sure". Does this seem high to anyone else? People I've spoken to scoff and ask "really?!" when I mention how high it is.

What can I do?

Thankyou so much in advance.

Maybe turning everything off that doesn't need to be on at the socket could reduce your usage, there are only three items that stay on 24/7 in my flat, fridge, freezer & router everything else is off that includes cooker, microwave, TV, DVD player, games console, if it isn't in use then it's off 

I'm in a 3 bed semi with annual elec of 1100 kWh and gas of 7700 kWh - Your gas use seems about right i.e. 627 kwh which is around 7500 kwh annually. However, your elec is really high! I think someone earlier had recommended taking daily reads from your smart meter for a week to work out what your actual daily kWh usage is. I would recommend doing and then check your bills to see whether on average you've used the same or more in each billing period.

That way you can get an idea whether there are certain activities that you carry out which cause high elec usage, or an issue with your meter.

I agree with the above post suggestion as well that if anything that isn't in use should be turned off. Small things like that over time can lowering usage / costs. 

Crdw

I'm not criticising your bathing habits at all, do what you like.
You have abnormally high showering practices though, as long as you realise that, you might just have to put up with the cost of it.

matelodave

Lastly remeber that the size of your bill is not only directtly related to the amount of energy consumed but also the cost.

You really need to be measuring and monitoring in kwh rather than £££'s. You can use the same number of kwh with different suppliers and get vastly different costs.(my super duper deal with Symbio has just doubled in cost now they've gone bust but my consumption is the same)