Something wrong with my energy usage, please help

Debzzz31

Hi, this is my 1st time on the forum so please forgive/advise me if this is the wrong one 
I'm wondering if someone can advise
I am using between £9-£11 per day on gas & electricity & truly think there is now way I am spending this!
I live in a 3 bed house, nothing excluding my heating (all on low) goes on through the day until around 5pm when my husband & son are home 
I have done everything I can think of to reduce energy  like washing on cold, changed all bulbs to led, switch everything off at the switch, bought a family sized airfryer so no longer use the oven & very rarely the hob, I used to put my bedside lamps on & lights under my units at nights but have also stopped that, so many changes but I seem to be more (obviously I include the price hike)
I just don't understand why it is so high, I used to use between £4-£6 before the rise & have made a few of these cuts since but it seems to have more than doubled
Any help/advise would be greatly appreciated 

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

Do you have some meter readings you can share with us? Ideally readings from today and roughly a year ago?

As you know your daily spend, do you have a smart meter? Are you reading the spend from your in-home display (IHD)?

Can you give us details of your supplier and tariff?

jbuchanangb

It is best to think about energy in terms of amount used not amount of money spent. Amount used is measured in kilowatt hours kWh. For electricity this is measured by your meter, so to know how much you have used in a day, for example, read the meter at 9am one day and again at 9am the next. Subtract yesterday's from today's and the answer is the amount used. The gas meter doesn't measure kWh. Older meters measure 100s of cubic feet, and newer ones, including all smart meters measure cubic metres. You read the meter as with electricity and subtract, but then there's some arithmetic to get from the meter calculation to the kWh. If cubic meters multiply by 11. If 100s of cubic feet, multiply by another 2.83.

Once we know how much energy you are using, we can say whether you are average, or above or below average. Then people here can give you advice. If you can find bills from a year ago with the meter readings, and then the readings from today, the sums can be done for a whole year to help you out. 

pochase

Welcome to the forum!

As you seem to be very aware of your daily cost can I assume that you have a smart meter and are using an IHD to monitor your energy use?

Were you on a fixed tariff that has run out lately? A jump like you describe is very high otherwise, bit we had a very cold week since the 1st of April, so not impossible.

I see that you describe how you are trying to save electricity, but nothing about your heating habits.

Can you give us some details how much KWh electricity and gas you have used in the last 12 months? That has more meaning than a daily amount.

Debzzz31

Hi everyone & thank you so much for replying
I was on a fixed tarrif until the end of February so did expect prices to go up after then & this is when I started making serious changes
I was told by a friend & many people before that I should never have my central heating go on & off throughout the day so from end of Feb & have had it on 24hrs, all on as low as they go excluding the living room, I used to have it cone on 7-8.30am then again 3.30-9.30pm
I used to do my washing on 40 or 60 fir whites, now all on cold, changed all my bulbs, bought extensions with switches & swith everything off when not in use, washing machine, microwave EVERYTHING, I also try to restrict everyone to 5mins in the shower a day, I don't now use my oven & rarely use the hob, lights were always on in the bedrooms living room & kitchen, now just a lamp in the living room, I don't know what else I can possibly do!
I have a smart meter & have for around 5years but my dog damaged the display so get all my info from EDF energy hub online
I have taken screenshot & attached so more info, Hooe it all makes sense!?
Thank you all so much again 

Debzzz31

I also just noticed the attached on my meter on Tuesday, it stated £9 odds, this morning at 7.30am it was at £17.12 & £19.06 just now 9.03pm?? Any ideas?

QrizB

Thank you for all the information.

It looks like you were on a fixed-rate until the end of February - electricity 15.25p/kWh and 22.10p/day, gas 2.609p/kWh and 21.20p/day.

At the start of March you switched to the Standard Variable tariff - electricity around 20p/kWh and 25p/day, gas around 4p/kWh and 25p/day.

At the start of April, that increased again - now electricity is 27.9p/kWh and 50.6p/day, gas is 7.337p/kWh and 27.22p/day.

This means your current unit price for electricity is double the rate you were used to, and gas almost triple the price.

From your bill, your Estimated Annual consumption (EAC) is around 5000kWh/yr of electricity and 20000kWh/yr of gas. On your current tariff, your EAC works out as about £3150/year, £260/month or around £8.60/day.

Both those numbers are well in excess of the average; I would expect three people in a three-bed house to use rather less than that. Is your house particularly large, old or draughty? Do you have tropical fish, an electric car, a hot tub?

from end of Feb & have had it on 24hrs, all on as low as they go excluding the living room, I used to have it cone on 7-8.30am then again 3.30-9.30pm

Personally, I'd go back to running it as you previously were. My heating (when it's on at all, currently it's off) is more like yours used to be.

QrizB

PS those bar charts you've posted are all in cost terms (£). There's an option at the top of each screen to switch them to energy terms (kWh).

If you look at the charts in kWh, I think you'll find that the numbers are much more similar than they are in £.

Gerry1

Debzzz31 said:

I was told by a friend & many people before that I should never have my central heating go on & off throughout the day so from end of Feb & have had it on 24hrs, all on as low as they go excluding the living room, I used to have it come on 7-8.30am then again 3.30-9.30pm

Well, that was bad advice !

• Go back to the previous times.

• Make sure you're not using any electric heating, e.g. convectors, oil filled radiators, fan heaters, electric showers, immersion heaters.  Electric blankets are OK.

• Compare using kWh, not ££.

jbuchanangb

It is very conspicuous that you were paying 2.609p/kWh (exc. VAT) until end February 2022 and your rate is now 7.337p/kWh (inc. VAT) for gas. Similarly your rate for electricity was 15.25p/kWh (exc. VAT), and is now 27.9p/kWh (inc. VAT) With your high energy usage, and these increases in prices, you are going to feel some pain. Now is the time for a detailed review of what is consuming the power.

I agree revert your gas CH to the previous timings. Look for anything electrical which may be switched on when not really needed. And use kWh on your app to do the comparisons.

pochase

Comparing the last two year there are no bog differences

	Electricity	Gas
1  September 2020 to 28 Feb 2021	2313	13641
1  September 2021 to 28 Feb 2022	2716	12565

You will need to check how bad the advice has affected you, but you definitely should go back to your old system.

From above figure we know that nothing has just happened that increased your  usage, it is just high. You should be able to also find 24 hour information in the app/web site. Check if there are  times where you suddenly use a lot of energy. Also check how high the minimum electricity use is, if it is high you might have devices on standby that use a relatively high amount of energy. For example a device that uses 10w constantly will use 365 x 24 x 10 = 87.6KWh which will cost you now 24.66£. Most TVs and modern devices have a much lower standby use, but if you have old devices this can add up.