Weirdly high energy Bills- faulty meter?

kazwookie

Are you sure the meter you think is yours actually is???

Dommyb

Would any of you recommend this being something to bring up to the property manager or agency as something to fix within the property? To install storage heaters? Don’t expect that any tenant would be happy to pay this much for energy, unless they LOVE the cold, so seems like something they’d need to do at some point surely

Tonberry

30kw a day is reasonable for an electrically heated flat.

2kw heater: 2 x 0.27p = 0.54p per hour

12 hours a day = £6.48 per day. That is just one heater.

If the flat is fairly well insulated then you should be able to adjust the thermostat down to 1kw per hour depending on the size of the room.

The less you use the heating, the lower your monthly consumption will be.

QrizB

Dommyb said:

Even if 30kwh is normal per day for a electric only property, it still seems like a strange sort of thing to pay £300-400 a month for just 1 bill? 

Our friends in flats all have electric only as well.

30kWh/day at your fixed day rate of 27p/kWh works out as £250/month, more or less.

If you were instead on Octopus's standard variable rate - "Flexible Octopus" - you'd be paying 21p/kWh, around £200/month.

If you had storage heaters you would be able to make use of the 17p/kWh night rate, which would cost you about £160/month.

Dommyb

QrizB said:

As many others have said, 30kWh/day is quite a normal consumption level for an electrically-heated flat.

30kWh/day at 27p/kWh is £8.10/day, plus say 25p/day standing charge. £250/month.

Dommyb said:

we tried to do some digging for info on the heaters. The closest match we can find looks wise is the Creda EPH500.
not 100% sure if that’s correct though, so we emailed the property manager to advise on the model too.

Panel heaters, then. One of the most expensive ways to heat a property.
What is the notice period on your tenancy? Can you move somewhere with gas heating, or at least storage heaters? Although once we get into spring and you don't need heating, you'll be OK until next winter.

The tenancy is to November this year. It would be a huge shame to have to move so soon, especially as my partner is disabled so in lots of ways the flat is perfect for us being ground floor, very close to my job etcetc. We would ideally like to stay here until we can purchase a property ideally, because aside from this bloody energy bill, we do love everything about the property 😔 looks like Octopus will need to come out anyway to fix the time on the meter and maybe change to a single rate, so will make sure to see if there is definitely no cross meter issues etc, especially as we had a day where we had 10kwh be used on the day rating from approx 9:30pm-9am… and we don’t have anything on aside from wifi, fridge, standby tv etc from about midnight when we go to bed, and all heaters are off from about 9pm. 

Currently we don’t use a thermostat on them as we’ve not really seen that it can be done, or figured out how, so we switch them on/off at the wall. Usually only 1 is on from about 10am-9pm which is the corridor, and then on average living room about 4 hrs a day, and bedroom maybe 3 hrs, if that. 

QrizB

Dommyb said:

The tenancy is to November this year. It would be a huge shame to have to move so soon, especially as my partner is disabled so in lots of ways the flat is perfect for us being ground floor, very close to my job etcetc. We would ideally like to stay here until we can purchase a property ideally, because aside from this bloody energy bill, we do love everything about the property 😔

If it's your perfect flat, apart from the energy bills, I can understand why you don't want to move. On the plus side the bills should fall once the weather warms up.

*Do* carry out Gerry1's meter sanity test, just to mke sure you are reading the right meter.

looks like Octopus will need to come out anyway to fix the time on the meter and maybe change to a single rate

There's no reason for Octopus to come out. With panel heaters the timing on the meter isn't important and Octopus can charge you at a single rate without changing the meter. You can ask them to do that via email or Twitter message.

... especially as we had a day where we had 10kwh be used on the day rating from approx 9:30pm-9am… and we don’t have anything on aside from wifi, fridge, standby tv etc from about midnight when we go to bed, and all heaters are off from about 9pm. 

Again, the Meter Sanity Test will let you check, for sure, that you're reading the correct meter. It certainly wouldn't be the first time when one flat owner is tearing their hair out over a huge bill, despite turning everything off, while their neighbour is remarking on how cheap their flat is to run even with the hot tub and sauna!

Gerry1

Dommyb said:

QrizB said:

As many others have said, 30kWh/day is quite a normal consumption level for an electrically-heated flat.

30kWh/day at 27p/kWh is £8.10/day, plus say 25p/day standing charge. £250/month.

Dommyb said:

we tried to do some digging for info on the heaters. The closest match we can find looks wise is the Creda EPH500.
not 100% sure if that’s correct though, so we emailed the property manager to advise on the model too.

Panel heaters, then. One of the most expensive ways to heat a property.
What is the notice period on your tenancy? Can you move somewhere with gas heating, or at least storage heaters? Although once we get into spring and you don't need heating, you'll be OK until next winter.

looks like Octopus will need to come out anyway to fix the time on the meter and maybe change to a single rate

You definitely need single rate if you have panel heaters, and that doesn't automatically need a meter change, that would only delay things.  Ask Octopus today, all they have to do is bill each register at the same rate on the SVT.  Don't forget to tell us the result of the Meter Sanity Tests.

theoretica

The picture of your meter has towards the middle right a thing labelled 1000 Imp kWh - that should be the flashy light you are looking for to run the meter sanity test. 

Robin9

Dommyb said:

our standard fixed 12m monthly debit is approx £116 monthly, at day and night rates. 27p day and 17p night.


So as you can see that gives us a total of 973 over 6 weeks which Octopus told us was an extra £199 to pay!

.

The Octopus figure is correct but you don't pay it now. You are paying a monthly DD which is smoothing out what you pay because in summer your monthly consumption will plummet to perhaps £30 a month

tim_p

Dommyb said:

The property itself has an EPC 77 C, potential to be 82B. The yearly energy cost estimated for this property is £464.
Not sure if this helps or has any meaning in this type of situation 

That £464 is completely unrealistic as it’s less than an ‘average’ amount for a property with gas central heating and hot water.