How much is it costing you in an electric-only home?

Mstty

Aiming for 6200kwh for this year 4/5 bed detached house designed not retrofitted ASHP heating. 

Looking good to meet it better this target as we started by mapping usage of everything we use in the summer.

On cost terms £1997 a year including SC (fix rates in signature)

isntitdavid

MattMattMattUK said:

isntitdavid said:

MattMattMattUK said:

isntitdavid said:

Hi,

I live in a 1 bedroom electric-only home. Trying to be as frugal as possible, but the cold snap over the last few days has made cranking the heating on a necessity. I've been monitoring the meter and it seems like having the heating on for an hour at around 18 degrees is costing more than £3, just for the hour. Does this sound right?

I live alone in a two bedroom all-electric flat, single rate as it is very well insulated. I am currently averaging £4.36 per day in December, that includes all usage but it fluctuates from a low of £2.81 on a day when I did not need much beyond hot water to a high of £7.29 when I did four loads of washing, ran the dishwasher and was in all day.

isntitdavid said:

There's all sorts of issues going on with our boiler but it would be nice to hear from other electric-only homes, to see how much people seem to be spending.

When you say boiler an you claify what you mean, do you have wet electric heating, do you mean the hot water tank? How is your home heated, flat panel, underfloor, storage heater, wet electric?

isntitdavid said:

My partner was sick yesterday and so we had the heating on a little more  (switching it on for an hour at a time when it felt particularly cold)  - mainly limited to the radiator in the bedroom, with occasional heating in the living room and we managed to get through 36kw of energy. 

Heating can use a lot but what else is being used in the home, cooking in an oven, how much hot water is used etc.?

The boiler system was installed prior to moving in. I understand from the landlord that it was done by "cowboys". We have a big water tank and another heating unit. It was set up to be Economy 7 but they never installed electric heaters so its a bit pointless. Currently in the process of trying to get set up on a single tariff.

I expect you are in the worst of both worlds at the moment then, without storage heaters you will be running your heating on E7 day rate which is probably considerably more than normal rate. As it was installed by cowboys does it have all the relevant safety documentation from the landlord?

isntitdavid said:

Also tried getting a smart meter installed last week and after 3 hours the technician gave up because he couldn't pick up a signal.

Did they give you a date to try again, or did he not even start the install? Sometimes the put in a smart meter but let it be dumb and then try and get a signal later.

isntitdavid said:

We are really energy conscious - typically a couple of 4 minute showers, half an hour of electric hob, television etc.  We don't have underfloor heating or anything like that. 

Are you submitting monthly meter reads so that they do not go with estimates, your Direct Debit payments might rise significantly otherwise. 

isntitdavid said:
Just using traditional radiators.

I am guessing from that it is a wet electric system, so it feeds the radiators from the hot water in the tank? If so then E7 would make more sense, but it needs to be set up properly. 

Is there any chance you can let us know the name of the system and what is installed. Pictures would be ideal but I do not think you have enough of a posting history to be allowed to add pictures yet. 

I'll be sure to take a look when I get home and let you know. Thanks for your help.

poppasmurf_bewdley

Swipe said:

I'm a single occupant in a detached rural bungalow with 3 out of 5 storage heaters on full and 2 on half. I'm still on a ridiculously cheap fixed tariff (21p day, 8.8p night and 24p SC) until 30th April but it's still costing me between £7 and £8 per day. I guess I can double that cost next winter. I'm averaging between 69 and 75kWh per day during this cold spell. 

I have virtually the same setup as you (storage heaters and a similar tariff until the end of April. Where I differ is that I use only the two downstairs storage heaters in the lounge and the hallway.  I'm retired and the all day/evening heat is ideal.  

For upstairs, I have wifi plugs for fan heaters in the wc, bathroom and main bedroom.  15 minutes before I go to bed, I tell Alexa to switch on the bedroom heater. 10 minutes later on goes the bathroom heater (wall fitted) and 5 minutes later the wc (again wall fitted). As I leave the bathroom and wc I tell Alexa to switch the heaters off. 

Once in bed, Alexa switches the bedroom heater off and then the light when I finish reading.

Costs for all the heating, hot water, cooking, 55 inch TV and everything else - works out at an average £4 a day.  About 40p extra if I use the electric shower in peak time or 10p if off peak.  In summer, I usually average £1.50 a day.  

I've been doing this for two years now, and it enables me to live comfortably and economically.  

Alnat1

@poppasmurf_bewdley That sounds a lovely little set up 

Spoonie_Turtle

Heat pump for us, and so far an average of ~15.5kWh/day (£5.25) to keep the temp to 18℃ during the daytime.  17.3 if we include hot water, £6.05. 

We have a fairly cold house (heating kicked in halfway through September whilst others were reporting internal temps of 19+ without heating for another month at least) but it seems keeping the fabric of it reasonably warm helps - the lowest I've seen it drop overnight is 15.5℃, although this is just from my own observations so it's possible it goes lower.  We'll see in the next couple of months if that holds true.

So very different from the OP and perhaps not helpful at all as a comparison!

macman

If it's an electric boiler with wet rads then you need to get switched over to a single rate tariff immediately! Running that on E7 will be cripplingly expensive, as it will all be on peak rate.
 Unfortunately, without a smart meter, you may need a new meter first, as not all will totalise off an E7 dual rate meter. Who is the supplier?

MattMattMattUK

macman said:

If it's an electric boiler with wet rads then you need to get switched over to a single rate tariff immediately! Running that on E7 will be cripplingly expensive, as it will all be on peak rate.
 Unfortunately, without a smart meter, you may need a new meter first, as not all will totalise off an E7 dual rate meter. Who is the supplier?

Shouldn't the electric boiler on E7 heat the storage tank overnight then use that stored energy during the day as required, recharging the storage tank overnight?

Swipe

MattMattMattUK said:

macman said:

If it's an electric boiler with wet rads then you need to get switched over to a single rate tariff immediately! Running that on E7 will be cripplingly expensive, as it will all be on peak rate.
 Unfortunately, without a smart meter, you may need a new meter first, as not all will totalise off an E7 dual rate meter. Who is the supplier?

Shouldn't the electric boiler on E7 heat the storage tank overnight then use that stored energy during the day as required, recharging the storage tank overnight?

No, because after two cycles it would be stone cold. My previous house had an old GEC Nightstore wet E7 system that was a huge box of bricks in the kitchen that would heat overnight on cheap rate and thus be capable of running radiators throughout the day.

isntitdavid

macman said:

If it's an electric boiler with wet rads then you need to get switched over to a single rate tariff immediately! Running that on E7 will be cripplingly expensive, as it will all be on peak rate.
 Unfortunately, without a smart meter, you may need a new meter first, as not all will totalise off an E7 dual rate meter. Who is the supplier?

It's currently Bulb. Frustratingly been trying to get the smart meter set up for a while now. This is really good to know, thanks for the advice.