EDF have upped our monthly DD to £860, equivalent to £10,300 per year for our 3 bedroom semi

RobM99

My monthly variable DD is about £90 and that includes broadband and landline!  OK 2.5 bed semi, just me.

theoretica

mroshaw said:

Leon_W said:

I *think* the gas reading of 3724 has just come from the meter.  To convert to Kwh is 3274 X 11.2 = 41,708kwh

Which, is indeed, a shedload of gas for a 3 bed semi !

The meter read for the gas is 828 between readings, 12 months apart.

Worth checking the calculation on the bills and that readings are correctly converting to kWh.    We have occasionally seen someone with a metric meter who is being billed as though it were imperial.  828 m3 should be around 9500 kWh  but 828 in 100s of ft3 would be 26500kWh.  (Where did 3724 come from?)

markin

Check the Gas bill has your serial number. Check the immersion heater is off.


Start making a list of all electrical devices and the ratings and hrs on.


Find your EPC, 'energy certificate'
https://find-energy-certificate.service.gov.uk/find-a-certificate/search-by-postcode?lang=en&property_type=domestic

mroshaw

theoretica said:

mroshaw said:

Leon_W said:

I *think* the gas reading of 3724 has just come from the meter.  To convert to Kwh is 3274 X 11.2 = 41,708kwh

Which, is indeed, a shedload of gas for a 3 bed semi !

The meter read for the gas is 828 between readings, 12 months apart.

Worth checking the calculation on the bills and that readings are correctly converting to kWh.    We have occasionally seen someone with a metric meter who is being billed as though it were imperial.  828 m3 should be around 9500 kWh  but 828 in 100s of ft3 would be 26500kWh.  (Where did 3724 come from?)

Thank you, yes! 

Our latest thinking is that EDF are spot on with the electric usage. We are shockingly bad electricity users, and have a journey ahead of sorting that out.

Gas wise, we are pretty sure the estimate from EDF is wildly inaccurate, but ultimately our own fault for not submitting regular readings.

We've taken some short term action:

- EDF are coming Friday to fit smart meters. 
- We have agreed a smaller monthly DD, on the basis that we believe our actual consumption will be less. 
- We've ordered a socket energy monitor and will be doing a full audit of devices and appliances across the whole house. 
- We've unplugged the tumble drier and put up a washing line. 
- We have LED lighting upstairs, but have arranged to replace halogen spots in the office, where my wife and I work from home during the day. 
- We've switched off all sockets that had devices "on standby". 
- We've booked a gas engineer to service the heating system, see if there's anything wrong that might cause excessive gas usage. 
- We've turned radiators down / off, and are looking into individual thermostatsfor each.,
- We're looking at getting an air fryer, to replace some of the electric oven usage. We're researching whether this is a good idea or not!

I imagine there will be a lot more for us to do as we find out more. 

This thread and the contributions from this community have been fantastic and a real opener. Myself, my wife, and my two kids have had a shocking realisation that we are energy abusers, not energy users!

While fundamentally we think the costs and DD situation will "work itself out" with accurate readings / smart meters, we have a lot of work, and a responsibility, to be far more aware and in control of our energy consumption. 

Thank you to everyone who has contributed! 

CanNeverThinkOfAUsername

This is one of the things i love about this forum. @mroshaw posted confused and upset about the sky high DD. he has got wonderful help, and is now making changes to check his usage and bring it down

Robin9

Thank you for coming back to us.

To add to your tasks may I suggest you keep your own spreadsheet and read those Smart meters monthly yourself - perhaps even daily for a while 

Miser1964

>We've booked a gas engineer to service the heating system,<

The heat-exchanger on gas boilers do lose efficiency due to combustion residues building up. A full service must include removing the heat exchanger covers and cleaning to manufactures specification, wash through with a mild acid (white wine vinegar is fine) and then cleaning the condensate trap.

 Just sticking a probe in the flue gases isn't a service!

mroshaw

CanNeverThinkOfAUsername said:

This is one of the things i love about this forum. @mroshaw posted confused and upset about the sky high DD. he has got wonderful help, and is now making changes to check his usage and bring it down

Absolutely agree with this. What's most apparent to me is that is no "fault of EDF", which is obviously where my head was at when we got the bill in the post. Our lack of readings and a lack of our own understanding and control of our energy consumption are what lead to this situation. And it's only through our own analysis, work and efforts that we'll ultimately address what we're paying for energy - by fundamentally reducing the amount we consume.

mroshaw

Robin9 said:

Thank you for coming back to us.

To add to your tasks may I suggest you keep your own spreadsheet and read those Smart meters monthly yourself - perhaps even daily for a while 

As someone who has a spreadsheet for everything, this is definitely on my list!

I have spent most of the morning pondering plug socket energy monitors. As with everything, there seem to be too many choices out there, all with their mix of hugely positive and damningly negative reviews and feedback! I suspect it matters not which I go for, and that we just need something simple to track consumption over time. We'll take a socket at a time, monitor for a week, note the results and move on. Hopefully, that will eventually give us a good, rounded view of the "quick wins" and big consumers.

My money is currently on the front room (TV, PS5 and Soundbar that sit on stand-by), the tumble drier (which is now unplugged and on the naughty step) and my "work" PC, which is a beast of a desktop/monitor combo. Those downstairs halogen spots are also on my list of suspects!

If it's helpful, I'll keep this post updated with our findings?

ariarnia

most seem to recommend the tapo 110 ones. but to wait until their 9.99 each (which happens every few weeks i think)