Paying too much for electricity

Glendo1

Hi all just wondering if anyone has any idea why my electricity bills are so high. Myself and my partner live in a small two bedroom house, out at work during the week, have one storage heater that heats up over night, and do some washing at the weekend, and a bit of cooking, which isn't much at all. We're getting bills every month between £270 and £300 which seems way too much for what we use. By the way we are with EDF using a smart meter that was already here when we moved in a year and half ago. The smart meter was with boost energy, and we switched supplier as Boost were appalling. Any help much appreciated.

molerat

£s are pretty meaningless.  How many kWh are you using ?  Are you on a 2 rate tariff, you should be with storage heating, and how much are you using on each register ?  Are your registers being reported the correct way round for day and night usage ?

Robin9

Forget £'s for the time being -  what is important is your consumption in kWh

Please look at your bills and find the readings from about 12 months ago. This should have a letter A C E  or our read/your read.

Read your meter today.   Note there may well be 3 registers to read -   perhaps 1, 2 Total or night, day. Note where the arrow is pointing.

In addition to your  night store your water will be heated overnight - this will have two switches -  the boost one should be off

x_raphael_xx

For comparison, I use 365% more electric than my neighbours (lots of exotics, heatlamps etc) and my bill is around £200 a month.

I use around 600 kWh a month.

pallyman

Also are you using the washer on of peak,every little bit  helps.

Scot_39

Glendo1 said:

Hi all just wondering if anyone has any idea why my electricity bills are so high. Myself and my partner live in a small two bedroom house, out at work during the week, have one storage heater that heats up over night, and do some washing at the weekend, and a bit of cooking, which isn't much at all. We're getting bills every month between £270 and £300 which seems way too much for what we use. By the way we are with EDF using a smart meter that was already here when we moved in a year and half ago. The smart meter was with boost energy, and we switched supplier as Boost were appalling. Any help much appreciated.

Far too many unknowns

How hot do you keep the house ?

How do you heat other rooms - kitchen, bathroom, halls, 2 bedrooms - and if on E7 - is that or could that be at day / night rate ?

Hot water - tank or instant heater - tank fed shower or cold fed electric - and if electric multirate - day / night rate used (*) ?

E7 or similar - and if so day / night split in annual kWh or single rate electric

Large NSH can take upto 3-3.5 kW when charging -  most older models would be on E7 type supply so could take that for upto 7 hours in theory (although most wouldn't most winter nights - unless set to very high input / output settings - but if you are genuinely only heating one room - leakage to other rooms - is more likely to make it work harder - so draw more power)

Thats say 21-24kWh - at c28p SR = £6-7 per day.   Less on E7 (EDF rates c35-37p / 15-16p day  / night on E7 - so c16p = £3.50-£4 say)

All year round HW often another big factor

Hot water for 2 - likely another 5-6kWh or so (if HW tank losses alone 1-1.5kWh typical even if well insulated - or electric shower - 10min at 9kW = 1.5 kWh ) - another £1.50-2 per day at SR - less if part E7 off peak (tank) - worse if a lot at peak rate (electric shower at day rate and no large HW tank - just mini sink unit heaters).  

It's really not difficult to see how could get to that sort of £300 cost - for 2 - if run a moderately hot house and consume fair bit of hot water in winter.

We ideally need to know your 

kWh usage

and as sounds likely home all electric - you were / possibly still are on a multirate deal - 

your day/night (peak / off-peak) consumption split over the year in kWh 

If your balance of day / night wrong - if a lot of your annual use is at peak rate - E7 can actually work out more expensive.

So take EDF's current EM rates - for E7 - from memory - c36p / 16p, vs SR c28p.

Use high enough off peak in mix - the average gets below SR -  50% say (36+16)/2 =  26p vs 28p etc - but others find use a lot less - one poster recently was only 20% night - so 32p - 4 p more than SR - over a year that matters

Glendo1

Thanks all for your replies it's much appreciated. Called EDF just now and changed over to a direct debit fixed rate and will now be charged £127 a month. I must be mad I should have done this way back.

GingerTim

Glendo1 said:

Thanks all for your replies it's much appreciated. Called EDF just now and changed over to a direct debit fixed rate and will now be charged £127 a month. I must be mad I should have done this way back.

Remember that that £127 is not 'fixed', and if you use more energy you will end up paying a higher direct debit again. The key thing is to check your bills/meter and find out your actual use in kwh.

MultiFuelBurner

Glendo1 said:

Thanks all for your replies it's much appreciated. Called EDF just now and changed over to a direct debit fixed rate and will now be charged £127 a month. I must be mad I should have done this way back.

But a fixed monthly direct debit still means nothing unless you know your kWh usage for the year and keep on top of your readings and bills.

Do you do this? Or do you just believe your energy supplier will get things right?

DE_612183

Glendo1 said:

Thanks all for your replies it's much appreciated. Called EDF just now and changed over to a direct debit fixed rate and will now be charged £127 a month. I must be mad I should have done this way back.

This is NOT the answer to your issue / problem - in fact it could make things worse if they under-estimate your usage.

GingerTim

DE_612183 said:

Glendo1 said:

Thanks all for your replies it's much appreciated. Called EDF just now and changed over to a direct debit fixed rate and will now be charged £127 a month. I must be mad I should have done this way back.

This is NOT the answer to your issue / problem - in fact it could make things worse if they under-estimate your usage.

Which I think is what has happened to get the direct debit down to £127. I fear a nasty shock awaits in a few months' time unless the OP gets on top of this.