How best to help my neighbour?

ellymoo

Thanks - he certainly never uses heating during the day. He's one of the "I'll just put another jumper on" generation. But that link will be useful and I'll print it off. I'm on the phone to Scottish Power now who have been surprisingly helpful - they have asked us to do daily meter readings and have scheduled a call back. He does turn out to be on a "cheaper at night" tariff which I don't think helps.

ellymoo

Robin9 said:

I think we talking quarterly billing here.

Jan - April Day approx 1800 (600 / month) ; Night approx 400 (130 / month)

Does that look reasonable to you? I have no idea!

pochase

You were writing yourself that he does not use the "rubbish" storage heaters, so how does he heat? Does he use radiators or panel heaters?

If he is on an E7 tariff with the percentage of night use he has he is overpaying, no idea what the ratio at his supplier is currently to benefit, but at least 40% night is a good guess.

If he is using day rate electricity for heating that is the most expensive way to heat his flat and would fully explain the cost.

Assuming that the smart meter was installed at 0 readings, he has used 3064 plus 641 = 3705KWh in less than 5 months.

Using E7 pricing for the new CAP based SVT from EDF for Scotland South (so not we has paid, but what he would pay at todays rates) 

I am assuming a 10th of December as the installation date of the smart meter just to have something to play with.

3064KWh at todays day rate = £972.51
641KWh at todays night rate = £120.06
Total £1092.73

Cost at a single rate would be only £1031.47, so he either needs to change the way he uses energy, or to a single rate.
 
Add to that the new daily standing charge of for 133 days = 66.50 and we would have a total cost for 4.5 winter months of £1159.07 or £8.71 per day. In other words an average winter month of 30 days at todays rate will cost him £264.44.

In other words, the 12*130=£1560 direct debit would be almost used up now already. £1560-1£159.07=£400.93 for the rest of the year. Deduct the £116 standing charge for the rest of the year and you are down to £284.92 for energy use for 6.5 months. 

I don't know if his energy use for the summer months is much lower, but at the moment the £196 from Scottish Power seem to be not completely unreasonable. On the other hand here in the forum are a lot of users who are fine with 4 to 5KWh per day during summer.

One other question, If he does not have an immersion heater what does he use for hot water?

pochase

ellymoo said:

Robin9 said:

I think we talking quarterly billing here.

Jan - April Day approx 1800 (600 / month) ; Night approx 400 (130 / month)

Does that look reasonable to you? I have no idea!

If he does not use heating during the day, or at all it is completely unreasonable. I am a heavy electricity user with dozens of toys and I use much less. 

theoretica

ellymoo said:

Robin9 said:

I think we talking quarterly billing here.

Jan - April Day approx 1800 (600 / month) ; Night approx 400 (130 / month)

Does that look reasonable to you? I have no idea!

It looks like a reasonable total energy use for a flat - including heating - with middle of the range energy efficiency.    But as you say he doesn't use heating...  

Is the meter in his flat or in a central box with the ones for all the other flats?  We have had a couple of posters on here where all the serial numbers matched up, but the wires didn't - so they were paying for power used by neighbours and the neighbours were paying for them!

EssexHebridean

I'm wondering if he has old style storage heaters, which he used to run overnight, and the situation played out a bit like this. He gets up in the morning, potters around for a bit and the temperature is fine, then he packs up his lunch and heads to his allotment for the day. Later, he returns home, walks into the flat and it's cold, because the heaters have discharged all their stored heat already, so he reaches the conclusion that they no longer work, and just switches them off, using electric plug ins to take the chill off when he needs it (or - worse, on a thermostat so on all day perhaps?).  It's incredibly feasible that with the non heat retentive heaters even with input turned up high, and particularly if the output dial isn't set right, they could be stone cold by 4 - 5pm. It would entirely explain why he describes his storage heaters as rubbish, too!

As a guideline, my 1950's built and not particularly well insulated flat uses around 5500kWh of electric per year (and a tiny - under 300kWh - of gas but that is purely for the cooker and nothing else). We do run heating and hot water and that is entirely electric, and we do keep the place heated to a respectable temperature in winter - around 19 - 20 degrees which works for us. That includes occasional use of an oil filled rad or radiant heater as well if the temperature has dropped sharply and wasn't forecast, or simply if we need a bit extra warmth for some reason. we also run a washing machine, dishwasher, breadmaker at least twice a week (these are all mostly run overnight), and use a microwave, kettle etc as you would expect. Our night/day split is in the region of 75/25%. 

ellymoo

So! He doesn't use his heating, and has a couple of halogen heaters at night when he gets very cold which is rare and hasn't been for months. HOWEVER - he has an antiquated water heating system where you just turn the water on and off without any timer (immersion heater) - and he realises that he has frequently left that on all day. Which explains why his usage has rocketed.

So, we are going to monitor meter readings for the next couple of weeks. SP suggested he cancel D/D and set up a standing order but we're going to keep an eye on the meter readings first. Also he's going to go to his landlord tomorrow and demand a better system for heating water. I can't believe he has no way of setting his water heating to come on and off.

I'm very grateful for your help (as is he!) and I will update how we get on. I would not have thought about immersions, etc. without you all. Thank you!

EssexHebridean

Something you might want to do is to read up a bit on how the storage heaters work - feel free to come back here with any questions and we can try to help - but ahead of next winter you might be able to get them set up for him so he does actually get some benefit from them, and that could reduce his use of the other heating. 

In the short term, for the immersion, when he switches it on I'd suggest that he sets some form of timer to remind him to turn it off again after an hour, at least that should avoid it being left on.

Gerry1

Ideally there should be two immersion heaters, the lower on on an E7 switched circuit and an upper one on a 24h circuit with a local two-hour timer (similar to a Smith's kitchen rotary 'pinger') that can be used in emergency to top up at the expensive day rate if the hot water runs out in the day, e.g, after returning from holiday when the lower heater was left switched off.  The timer is a one-shot so he won't have to remember to turn it off, e.g. if he goes out to the allotment.

pochase

Don't do the standing order. He will be charged a higher rate and cost will increase if you do. 

You should go for a variable monthly direct debit order, so you will pay each month only for what you are charged. Drawback is that the bills in winter will be much higher, so you need to budget for this.

Plus you should make a decision if he wants to go to proper use of storage heaters, otherwise the E7 tariff is more expensive than the a single tariff.