How best to help my neighbour?

theoretica

LADYXXMACBETH said:

Using portable heaters is very expensive. Could it be that when he says he doesn't have the heating on he means his main heating system?
He'd need more than an extra jumper if he wasn't heating the house. It gets very, very cold in a house, sometimes colder than outside. 
My grandma claims she doesn't have the heating on except she does, she just doesn't have the boiler on. Her bill was £1500 for the quarter. 

I have friends in a flat which genuinely doesn't need heating in winter - and gets really horribly hot in summer!  They have other people living above, below and on three sides and only one outer wall so only one direction for heat loss.

MakingUpGround

ellymoo said:

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!

We discovered that we were using our immersion 24/7 and are now turning it on and off when needed. I can get a timer fitted fairly cheaply, haven't got round to that yet. I've brought a cheap kitchen timer and stuck it next to the switch and set it for an hour whenever I put it on to remind me to turn it off. 
I do also run it for a longer period of time once a week to make sure it heats up all the water to a decent temperature to avoid legionnaires disease. Someone else on here will be able to give guidance on that better than me 

ellymoo

Scottish Power are trying to put my neighbour's payments up AGAIN to £220 per month (currently £180). I don't understand it. He doesn't use his storage heaters at all. We've got a timer for his hot water and it's on for 2 hours in the Economy 7 hours (0400-0600). He even unplugs his kettle for heaven's sake. He doesn't have his smart meter panel on in case it uses electricity (but I've now persuaded him to put it on so he can monitor energy usage). 

He uses about 7 units an evening and around 13-17 units a day. SP say that his usage is what they'd expect for a standard household - but his isn't a standard household. He has no appliances. The only thing we can think of is his convection heater which he puts on first thing in the morning when it's cold, so he's going to take meter readings before and after the heater has been on. Apart from that I'm at my wit's end about how to handle this. Looking at his usage online sometimes he is (apparently) using £18 of electricity a day although the SP lady said that this wasn't accurate. She said his usage has gone up by 200 units a year but wasn't able to tell me what that means although she said it wasn't much. 

Should we move to another supplier? Any advice gratefully received.

[Deleted User]

ellymoo said:

Scottish Power are trying to put my neighbour's payments up AGAIN to £220 per month (currently £180). I don't understand it. He doesn't use his storage heaters at all. We've got a timer for his hot water and it's on for 2 hours in the Economy 7 hours (0400-0600). He even unplugs his kettle for heaven's sake. He doesn't have his smart meter panel on in case it uses electricity (but I've now persuaded him to put it on so he can monitor energy usage). 

He uses about 7 units an evening and around 13-17 units a day. SP say that his usage is what they'd expect for a standard household - but his isn't a standard household. He has no appliances. The only thing we can think of is his convection heater which he puts on first thing in the morning when it's cold, so he's going to take meter readings before and after the heater has been on. Apart from that I'm at my wit's end about how to handle this. Looking at his usage online sometimes he is (apparently) using £18 of electricity a day although the SP lady said that this wasn't accurate. She said his usage has gone up by 200 units a year but wasn't able to tell me what that means although she said it wasn't much. 

Should we move to another supplier? Any advice gratefully received.

Without wanting to appear rude, what matters here is the amount of energy used not what it is used for. There is no such thing as a standard household.

If the immersion heater is on for 2 hours it would use 6kWh of electricity: the other 1kW may well come from what is known as 'baseload'. It is the amount of electricity that is used in the background to power such things as fridges etc.

Convection heaters usually range in size from 1 to 3kW. It follows that it would consume somewhere between 1 and 3kWh every hour.

Where are you getting the online cost figure from? If I look at the Octopus E7 tariff for my region: the cost would be £0.61p/day standing charge; 10 units @£0.45.3 or £4.53 and 7 units at £0.18 or £1.26. This gives a total daily cost of £6.40.

I suspect that the convector heater has a bigger output than he realises and he leaves it on longer than he thinks.

You can check this for him by downloading the free App BRIGHT. It pulls data from a smart meter in 30 minute chunks which shows how many kWh are being used in every 30 minute period. Alternatively, set up the IHD (the little panel) and get your neighbour to turn on his convector heater. You will instantly see the power draw in kW. If the kW increases from, say, 100W to 2.1kW, then the heater is using 2kW or 2kWh per hour costing 2 times his peak unit price.

pochase

Last year you insisted several times that he does not use any heating at all, now he suddenly uses a convection heater during the day, the most expensivenway of heating especially on an E7 tariff.

What is his day and night unit rates?

Just using the single rate which would be most likely cheaper as he is only using 20% to 33% during the night, and the lower day time estimate of 13KWh, so a totsal of 20KWh per day this is already £7 plus staning charges, so around £225pm. And that is for single rate and the lower end of usage., most likely his real usage is a lot more.

Is he currently in debt. that would add to the DD they are asking for.

ellymoo

Thank you both for your replies.

I'm only going on what he tells me and the information I get at the time - he told me he didn't use his heating, then after all that he said he had a fan heater. I am struggling a bit with this but I am not making stuff up. I do however know that he doesn't use any of the appliances we take for granted (dishwasher, etc.). I have told him that the convector heater is expensive but in fairness to him, given that he doesn't use anything else, he should be able to heat his bedroom a bit in the morning without it costing him £200 a month.

I have no idea what a 'standard household' is supposed to be but I doubt it is him. 

His charges are

43.855p

15.811p (I figure this is night)

Standing charge 54.05p 

It looks like the immersion heater and fan heater use about the same. I will advise him to have his immersion on for an hour and see if that makes a difference. He doesn't use a smartphone (he doesn't even send texts) so I can't set up the app but I have already asked him to plug in his smart meter panel and look at the usage of his convector heater. Hopefully that might persuade him to move to the storage heaters.

Would an oil filled radiator be cheaper for him? I don't think his Economy 7 is saving him any money unless he uses the storage heaters!

He is currently £102 in debt but as the weather gets warmer I suspect he would clear that quickly.

theoretica

If he has a smart meter there are ways to look at when he has been using electricity - the Bright app gets mentioned.  Looking at the data of electricity use by the half hour could really help see what has been going on.  How big are the peaks when the hot water or fan are on?  Are there any other big or semi-regular peaks?  How high is the more constant use? 

ellymoo

I think if he can't get his panel to work/understand it I will need to go over there and do some testing.

theoretica

Have you actually confirmed that his meter is reading the use in his flat and not some other neighbour?

pochase

I was not saying that you are giving wrong or incomplete information, it seems that getting information from your neighbour is not easy.

Can you please give us a current meter reading ?

I see a meter reading in your posts for 22nd of April 2022, so we will be able to look at his real use.

April

Electricity 22 Apr 22 Day 3064 (S )

Electricity 22 Apr 22 Night 641 (S )

That will allow us to look at his real usage. Looking at last years usage between January (21st) and April (22nd) the cost at todays unit rates would have be in average £9.77 per day. 

Almost £300 per month does not really match the frugal usage of energy you are describing. Either he uses much more energy than he tells you, or as mentioned by @theorica he is potentially paying for another flat. Where is the meter located?

Regrding your question regarding radiator, the only differecne would be that it would take longer warm the room, but it would stay warm a bit longer. The only cheaper way to use electrcity for heating is by using the storage heaters, as they would use the cheaper night rate.