Crazy Electricity Bills £1K+

keithhubner

Hello! Sorry I rushed to post the question as I was busy with the kids! I also have a thread over on Reddit which has been going mad! 

Some (potentially helpful) background info:

Our bill for December was £1.2K, our bill for Jan is looking like similar, this is our latest bill:

Energy Charges for Meter (Removed by Forum Team)
16th Jan 2023 10605.0
Customer reading 2nd Feb 2023 11847.0
Customer reading Energy Used 1242.0 kWh @ 63.96p/kWh £794.39
Energy Price Guarantee 1242.0 kWh @ 31.84p/kWh -£395.46
Standing Charge 17 days @ 45.24p/day £7.69

As you can see the cost for not even a month is pretty crazy! 

Info on the house:

We built our house about 5 years ago, it's 3 story 5 bed house, around 2.5K sq foot. The ground floor is all underfloor heating, the upstairs rooms are rads and the bathrooms have electric ufh.

We have an air source heat pump which as we do not have any gas in the village. 

Downstairs is open plan at the back, with an orangery on the back (3 sides glass and glass roof). It "should" be very insulated but we live in a very windy place and do notice drafts when the wind is up. We also have a log burner, which we use most weekends in the winter.

The ASHP is a GRANT Aerona3. 

I am at the point where I think I need some sort of inspection to look at heat loss and whether we can do anything about the drafts as I would suspect this is not helping. I've had the ASHP serviced about a couple of years ago, so doubt that is at fault. 

Oh we also have a plugin hybrid car, but again, I would hope that's not using too much electricity! 

Hopefully that gives a bit more information! 

Robin9

........................

We built our house about 5 years ago, it's 3 story 5 bed house, around 2.5K sq foot. The ground floor is all underfloor heating, the upstairs rooms are rads and the bathrooms have electric ufh.

    

and you are surprised to have a high energy consumption

keithhubner

Robin9 said:

........................

We built our house about 5 years ago, it's 3 story 5 bed house, around 2.5K sq foot. The ground floor is all underfloor heating, the upstairs rooms are rads and the bathrooms have electric ufh.

    

and you are surprised to have a high energy consumption

Should I not be? 

Robin9

How much does underfloor heating cost to run? - Advice Centre (heatingpoint.com)


You also have a large 5 bed house

Mstty

So with the weather we have been having a house half the size may use between 900-1200kwh for December and 900-1200kwh for January all electricity as a quick approximation of other people's figures mentioned on ASHP threads.

Being your house is up to twice the size 230m2 I would expect the use on heating and hot water could be 50kwh a day so 1500kwh a month on its own without all your other electrical stuff whirring away and charging the hybrid.

So looks plausible to be honest 

pochase

You are mentioning that the January bill looks the same, are you looking at the £795 before EPG or are you looking at the £400 you will have to pay after the EPG of £395 is been deducted.

Is the £1200 for December maybe also before the EPG is deducted and the amount they ask you to pay much lower?

[Deleted User]

Electric underfloor heating and open plan living space into an orangery. I'm also not surprised at your energy bill.

keithhubner

Yeah I think I need to get someone in to look to see if there are any areas we can improve on heat loss. Otherwise it's a case of saving in the summer to pay for the winter. 

dunstonh

Energy Charges for Meter D15W061913
16th Jan 2023 10605.0
Customer reading 2nd Feb 2023 11847.0
Customer reading Energy Used 1242.0 kWh @ 63.96p/kWh £794.39
Energy Price Guarantee 1242.0 kWh @ 31.84p/kWh -£395.46
Standing Charge 17 days @ 45.24p/day £7.69

It doesn't seem that high given your setup.

Oh we also have a plugin hybrid car, but again, I would hope that's not using too much electricity! 

Depends on how often you plug it in.  Our hybrid is an 15kW battery.   So, from empty to full, that can add 15kW. In reality, it doesn't get down that much in our case but you don't mention how often you charge yours or by how much each time.

When you built the house, did you go with spot lights as the primary lighting?  (often the case with bespoke builds)   Halogen spots eat electricity.  LED spots are better but if you have lots of them, that soon adds up.

Electric UFH is expensive and so are heat pumps.

What is your idle rate for electricity when everything is off or in standby (i.e. as it would be in the real world if no-one was in the house)? -  Ours is 84w but before I looked into it and how I could save, it was 250w.     
Do you use eco on your dishwasher or normal wash?  (that can account for 1.5kWh difference each load)
Is your tumble drier a heat pump?  - how often do you use it?  these eat energy.
Fridge Freezers.  We had an American FrFr that was drawing almost 3kWh a day.  We changed it to the most energy efficient one on the market and it dropped to 0.68kWh a day.

It is very easy to ramp up electric use through many things without thinking about it.  We never cared when it was cheap but now is different.  We knocked 10kWh a day off our daily electric use without it really having any impact on our lives. 

markin

The heatpump needs to be looked at every year, it needs the fins cleaning.


Is the 11,847 the Total since you moved in? it would mean only around 2600kwh a year, At 4.5 years. The Month you moved in would be useful, And when did you get the car?

///

Octopus will lend you a thermal camera!  What is the EPC/sap rating?

Also all heatpumps seem to display the cop and energy in/out you just have to find the correct menu screen.