Ridiculously High electricity bills, am freaking out! Help needed

faulksa1

Hi All,
Have just purchased my first flat using my life’s savings and was a very exciting time. That was until I moved in and am getting enormous electricity bills every day. 

It is a 2 bedroom flat all electric. Yesterday I had two electric radiators on for 4 hours, one immersion heater on for 2 hours, a cooker on for 20 minutes and then lights (energy saving bulbs) , fridge and nothing else. It ended up being 57 k/W per day. This seems obscene no? The last two weeks I have tried many different ways to lower the bill but even waking up the morning after leaving nothing on over night the smart reader reads ‘30p’. I don’t understand this and it is frightening me as at the this rate my electric bill is looking like 750 pounds a month. I really don’t know what to do.. I had an electrician come round who couldn’t really notice any problems, a plumber is checking the immersion heater tomorrow. Do you think it could be a fault with my smart meter? Any advice please let me know. 

Best
Archie 

EssexHebridean

What tariff are you on? And are the heaters "electric radiators" or "Night storage heaters"?  Usually all electric buildings are on economy 7 tariffs but from what you're saying it sounds as though yours is not.

The 30p will be a combination of overnight use (Fridge/freezer, router & anything else working in the background) and the standing charge, I'm guessing. 

jrawle

It seems a bit on the high side, although the right order of magnitude if you are using electric heating on the day rate.

First, just a small technical point. The power of appliances (i.e. the rate at which they use energy) is measured in watts or kilowatts; the energy used is measured in kilowatt-hours. You can calculate this yourself by looking at the power rating of an appliance and multiplying by the number of hours you use them for.

If the radiators are 1.5 kW, you have used 1.5 x 4 x 2 = 12 kWh. The immersion heater may be 3 kW, so will have used 6 kWh. From that rough calculation, you usage may be double what I'd expect, but if your radiators are 3 kW and your immersion heater 6 kW, it doesn't seem far off.

Usually when in an all-electric flat, you will be on Economy 7, and use most of your electricity during the night. Does you flat have storage heaters that you can use instead of electric heaters that you have to run during the day? Also, can you heat the hot water overnight? You need to make sure you are on an Economy 7 tariff. If you had an electrician round, I would have hoped he would have explained this to you.

MWT

faulksa1 said:

The last two weeks I have tried many different ways to lower the bill but even waking up the morning after leaving nothing on over night the smart reader reads ‘30p’.

Sounds like you have a working 'In-Home Display' (IHD), that is not the smart meter, but it gets its data from the smart meter.

If that is what you have there then you can use its other capabilities to see how much energy you are using 'now' and thus determine what is using all the power.

However, it isn't hard to be using a lot of electricity if you are all electric and a significant part of that 57kWh would have been used by the 'electric radiators' and the immersion heater.

Have a look at the IHD and see what it says you are using with no heating or immersion on and then turn on one of the radiators and see what it goes up to.

Do the same with the immersion and you'll get a better idea of how much is being used.

If you can tell use more about your tariff and the various heating devices you have we can be more help.

Also, do check that the cost information you see on the IHD is based on your current tariff as it can sometimes be stuck using old data for cost. Generally better to look at the amount of energy being used, rather than the cost it shows.

Gerry1

jrawle said:

Usually when in an all-electric flat, you will be on Economy 7, and use most of your electricity during the night. Does you flat have storage heaters that you can use instead of electric heaters that you have to run during the day? Also, can you heat the hot water overnight? You need to make sure you are on an Economy 7 tariff. If you had an electrician round, I would have hoped he would have explained this to you.

That would be good advice only if the main heating is from night storage heaters.  However, the OPs says they used electric radiators for four hours which suggests that they are panel radiators, hence using day rate electricity.  If so, E7 would not be a  suitable tariff because its day rate  is usually more expensive than the equivalent single rate.  There would be some saving to be made by using the immersion heater only on the night rate, but it's unlikely to exceed the extra cost of the daytime heating usage.

QrizB

faulksa1 said:

Hi All,
Have just purchased my first flat using my life’s savings and was a very exciting time. That was until I moved in and am getting enormous electricity bills every day. 

...

Any advice please let me know.

Firstly, congratulations on the new home!

Yes, 57kWh/day is large amount of electricity for a 2-bed flat. In your position I'd hope to use 1/2 to 1/3rd as much. On a sensible tariff that would cost £12/day, £360/month.

As others have asked, which electricity company are you with and what is your tariff, name and rates?

Do you have access to your electricity meter or does it need to be arranged by your building custodian? Can you take readings on a regular basis, ideally daily?

coupleuk

1st - what is the EPC for the flat? - some flats are VERY poorly insulated and the electric heating certainly doesn't help. Hopefully your EPC will be an A, B or C. If its D or below you will be paying a LOT in electric (so much so that plans are in place to make it illegal to let out a property with D or below). If your EPC is an E, F or G then your solicitor really should have warned you against the purchase unless you had spare funds to improve the property.

2nd - if you have night storage heaters then they are designed to store heat which is generated during the night and slowly release it through the day. That is the Economy 7 or 10 Rate. You will pay a lot more if you then turn them on during the day. It's hard to get used to the way they work lol and many do require extra heating in the room in the evenings.

jrawle

Gerry1 said:

jrawle said:

Usually when in an all-electric flat, you will be on Economy 7, and use most of your electricity during the night. Does you flat have storage heaters that you can use instead of electric heaters that you have to run during the day? Also, can you heat the hot water overnight? You need to make sure you are on an Economy 7 tariff. If you had an electrician round, I would have hoped he would have explained this to you.

That would be good advice only if the main heating is from night storage heaters.  However, the OPs says they used electric radiators for four hours which suggests that they are panel radiators, hence using day rate electricity.  If so, E7 would not be a  suitable tariff because its day rate  is usually more expensive than the equivalent single rate.  There would be some saving to be made by using the immersion heater only on the night rate, but it's unlikely to exceed the extra cost of the daytime heating usage.

That is certainly correct; I guess I didn't explain it very well. When I lived in a flat, there were both storage heaters and panel heaters. I only ever used the former. We need to OP to return and tell us exactly what type of heaters are in the flat. I would be surprised if an all electric flat didn't have storage heaters at all.

Gerry1

Do the meter sanity test: you might be paying for another flat's high consumption the same way that @drummergirl95 seems to have been doing !

tacpot12

Don't forget that your energy bills are going to be higher in the winter than in the summer. In summer, you will be mainly paying for your hot water, plus cooking appliances. In winter, you will be  paying a lot more for heating.

You need to get a handle on how much each item costs you to run per hour or per day, and then work out what each item will cost you to run per year. This will help you to understandhow much  you should be paying per month to your energy supplier, but also whether there would be an economic benefit to replacing any item with something that is more efficient. e.g. you could consider replacing your heaters with a heat pump (assuming you can't get a gas supply to the flat). 

theoretica

The electric heater and immersion may either say on them what their maximum kW is, or have a model name that could be looked up.  You would then know what they should be using for the hours they are on and can start comparing with what you are seeing in reality.